An Awesome Frugal Haul From the Scratch and Dent Store

Scratch and Dent Stores, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Ok, scratch that (pun intended), because literally every single item I buy at a scratch and dent store is one of the ways in which I love them, and at this point, its numbered in the thousands.

But seriously, today's frugal shop from the scratch and dent store just reaffirmed to me why I love this style of shopping ever so much!

First off, I will be clear and point out that the stuff in this picture are part of what I purchased last week, and then from two stores today. But that doesn't matter, because they're all from scratch and dent stores. (And I'd do bigger shops, but I still don't have a wagon- I went to the store that I like and they said maybe in a few more days they'll get one.)


I've been going to a physical therapist a few times recently because on Christmas Eve, when I went ice skating with my kids, I fell down flat on my bottom and injured myself, found a physical therapist actually open on Christmas day! and that helped tremendously, but after nearly a month of not healing enough to be able to sit down or lie down comfortably, I figured something was wrong, and went back to a physical therapist, who diagnosed me as having my tailbone out of place, and the injured muscles from the fall were keeping it out of place, so she put it back in place but recommended a few visits to help heal the muscle enough to get it back into place.

Ok, what on earth does a tailbone injury have to do with a scratch and dent store? Well, its because there was one scratch and dent store in the nearby city that I'd heard about but never visited, but my physical therapist's office is directly across the street from that store, which meant I paid it a visit last week at my initial appointment, and went back today after my next appointment, and will probably be back next week after my next.

Which is awesome, because the things they have there are quite different than the things I regularly get at scratch and dent stores, and with amazing prices!

First off, last week I got a bunch of cans of stuffed grape leaves. As someone who often is too busy to remember to eat, and often is out of the house and can't make my own food and buying isn't so simple because I'm gluten free, I really enjoy stuffed grape leaves. The new to me scratch and dent store had a bunch of cans for $1.29, which is about half what I normally pay for them, and 2/3 of the discount price I try to aim for. I don't have so many in the picture because I and my kids devoured most of them this last week.

I am a mustard fiend. And I only ever use dijon. Which can get expensive. But I do try to buy the cheaper stuff and buy it on sale. But I found dijon mustard at the scratch and dent store for $1.29 as well, which is less than half of the cheap price I generally pay for it. Booya. I got a bunch.

And they had jars of baby corn. Not so much cheaper than the cans they sell locally, just 29 cents cheaper, but they contain more than the cans, and you get jars afterwards! And jars rock! I bought a few cans. I also got a few packages of couscous for 70 cents a package, which is half their usual price.

So that was last week's shop.

This week they had even cooler stuff. Ok, fine, just as cool and exciting.

First of all, gelatin! I love making jello and panna cotta and other cool stuff with gelatin, but it gets expensive because gelatin is never on sale here. I bought in bulk before, but I ran out and haven't been back to the bulk baked goods store. So seeing that they had gelatin at $1.29 a package, less than half the usual price, was exciting for me. I bought all that I saw they had.

And they had 85% dark chocolate! Usually that is ridiculously expensive, but this was also $1.29 a package, so I bought a whole stack.

And they had Craisins, for $1.85 a package, which is a great price, so I bought a bunch.

Then they had a 5 kilogram, 11 lb bag of basmati rice. It cost $9.28. Which works out to $1.85 a kilo or 84 cents a pound.
Ok, let me break it down for you. I love basmati rice. My family loves basmati rice. In the past, basmati rice was always minimum $3.42 for a kilo, or $1.55 a lb. I'd occasionally find it on sale for $2.85 a kilo or $1.29 a lb, and I'd buy it then. Lately, a store near me has been selling basmati rice really cheaply, for $2.14 a kilo, or 97 cents a pound which is dirt cheap for basmati rice, so that's what I've been buying. This is 13 cents cheaper per pound, so of course I got it! Oh, and regular plain old white rice, jasmine stuff or Persian, which we don't like nearly as much, is $1.42 per kilo on sale or 65 cents a pound. Which means that this rice which we love so much more is nearly as cheap as the cheapest white rice. Which is really exciting for me.

And I almost forgot to mention, a giant bag of lollipops whose price I forgot, and I'm not sure how it compared to other places but it definitely was a good price.

Ok, that was the end of shop number one.

After shop number one today, I figured if I was anyhow doing scratch and dent shopping, I'd pay a visit to another store, the one I usually go to.

The first thing that caught my eye was gluten free cereal. It was listed as 95 cents a package for a smallish box, and then they had gluten cereal that was $1.14 for a larger box, so I was going to get the gluten ones for my kids and the gluten free ones for me, but then at the register they told me that because the cereal was past its expiration date, it was even cheaper for the gluten free stuff, only 71 cents a box, and my first thought was "expiration date, pexpiration date, that's a load of hooey (no seriously, I wrote about it more here)" and the second thought was "give me aaaaaallllllll of the cereal!!!!" OK, maybe I shouldn't be so into cereal, but it is a lifesaver, and it makes my mornings so much better (and who am I kidding, evenings too, sometimes), and this gluten free cereal is literally being sold at less than half the price of the cheapest junkiest gluten cereal I can find in the cheapo grocery store, and a quarter the price of the cheapest gluten free stuff in the cheapo grocery store, and approximately 1/10 of the price that this same brand of cereal generally goes for at a cheap grocery store (and its probably 1 1/2 times that at a non cheap grocery store), so this made me really excited. Oh, and I found out that the small packages were just the sugary cereal, but the plain old cornflakes was the same size as the cheaper gluten junk cereal I had eyed beforehand.

Yes, I fell in love with scratch and dent stores because of cereal. I never, ever, ever pay full price for cereal. (Ok, probably once in 6 months.) Because I almost always can find scratch and dent cereal and I empty out the store when I see it (ok, no I don't, I take as much as my arms can carry without a wagon, which in this case was 16 boxes).

Then there were a few more things I got. Canned lychees for $1.14 a can, which is a steal, a large tin of canned peaches for the same price, and hearts of palm for 95 cents (too bad they only had 2).
And lastly, I got 3 bottles of lemon juice for 95 cents each, which is a little over half the price that they generally sell for.

When I went to check out from the store with my groceries, I didn't believe the number. It was so ridiculously low that I did a double take.

Yup, that's what happens at a scratch and dent store.

If I haven't convinced you yet to give these types of stores a try... I don't know what else to do.

P.S. If you're wondering what I do with all these stuff... into my stockpile they go, so I can "shop" in my stockpile when I need stuff instead of going to the grocery store and paying retail.

Do you shop at scratch and dent stores, or reduced racks at the grocery store? What types of stuff do you tend to find there?