The Shopping Nazi

Saving Money One Product at a Time

Valentine’s Day the Perfect Gift

Valentine's Day is one of those day's we must not forget, or else! Or else a loved one, or mother maybe hurt, disappointed or upset at the very least. We do have help in not forgetting. Television commercials, displays in stores, and email having been reminding me for almost a month. February 14th is Valentines Day, and we should get our loved one some gift. Now we know we got to get our wife...

Beetle or Cooper

This week we have heard reports about gas prices are going up. After hitting a low of close to $3 per gallon for most of January, we are expecting gas prices to start climbing again. With gas prices climbing, the cost of driving our vehicles one mile has started to increase. For those of you who commute any distant to and from work, it will be a big impact on your budget. Like through out mo...

Wonderful World of Trade Shows

Las Vegas is a great place to go for a getaway vacation. It is also know as one of the most popular places to hold a trade show. If you look at the Las Vegas Convention Convention Center there is back to back trade shows. Still for someone like me, who happens to love trade shows, it is not practical for me to spend so much time in Vegas. In fact there is another location where I can go to a tr...

Do I Need Fancy Cleaners?

It is SuperBowl Sunday! There are going to be a lot of living rooms filled with football fans enjoying the big game. There is going to be some emotional highs and lows through out the game. Drinks and food is going to get spilled. Afterwards there will be some cleaning that need to be done. Depending on wild the party gets will depend on how much cleaning will need to be done. In preparation fo...

Gas Mileage Lies

On morning news there was a sniped about a lady who sued Honda for misrepresentation of their gas mileage. It was in small claims court, but still won $10,000. Interesting! It has become pretty much accepted, by all of us, what the sticker gas mileage would be under ideal condition. I am glad someone has stepped up to say, "We are not going to take it anymore!" When I look at different makes...

Touch Screen Desktop Computers

I first saw touch screens computers in the food processing industry back in the late 90's. Since then the technology and the price has been slowly been dropping. As a result we now see more cell phones with touch screens than without. The overall adoption of a touch screen desktop computer has been slow mostly because of the cost. We are seeing the price going under the $1,000 mark. This makes ...

Social Responsible Buying

Last week the name Foxconn and Apple were in all the headlines. It was not about great profits, or some new electronic gadget. It was about the inhumane treatment of the workers in China. What is interesting to note is that Foxconn does not just manufacture electronics for Apple. Foxconn manufacture over 50% of the electronics sold in the United States. Mistreatment of works or labors misbeh...

Secrets of Shopping Wal Mart

Midday on any Saturday or Sunday, at Wal Mart, finds families and couples getting their weekly shopping done. We are at the end of January. People are starting to recover from the Christmas shopping madness. Walking we were greeted by a your 60 oriental lady. I think it is great that Wal Mart seek to find jobs for elderly on fixed incomes. After a quick stop by the cosmetic section for some...

Search for a Practical Usable Tablet

Since before Thanksgiving I have been slowing giving into the idea of getting a tablet. I have looked at all the major brands of tablets and eReaders. I have been trying to imagine how often I would use it. I watch how other people would use their tablets. While attending a local trade show I noticed a large majority of the vendors were using iPads. There were only a few who had other tablets....

Cruise or Not to Cruise

Here we are at the end of January 2012. Texas is getting heavy rains. Snow and Cold is covering most all of the northern hemisphere. I close my eyes and think of a hot summer day with the sun beating down on may face. Then in an instant, I jump into a nice cool swimming pool. Yes, what better time to plan a summer vacation than when the chilling cold is biting your bones, and the sky is all gloomy...

Spicing Up Life and Food with Ginger

Posted By: The Shopping Nazi on September 4, 2009 in Food, Health, Medicine - Comments: Comments Off

Ginger Labor Day weekend is here. This is the last great of the Summer. I don’t know how you are ending your weekend, I am ending mine with a barabque. Yes, a family barabque with my family, and we are going to cook up something special.

The first step is get a recipe of something we never cooked before. We chose a barabque sauce that we saw being make on the Food Network by Sunny Anderson. I noticed that we did not have some of the spices needed. I put them on the shopping list and headed off to the store and pick them up.

Now I want you to note that I did not just go to the grocery store to buy just spices. The trip I took was my weekly shopping, along with some recon. I am constantly adding product, price and store to a database that I keep.

When I went to the fresh produce section and saw the that ginder was $2.48 for a decent size root. I nearly had a heart attack. I know it has been a while since I have bought ginger root, but I do not remember it being so expensive.

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Well I thought I would go over to the spice section. There I could be a small container of ginger. I could not believe my eyes, a little 8 ounce bottle of ground ginger was even more. It was$2.89. At that point I thinking Wal Mart had just mispriced their ginger.

I shifted gears to finish getting the other items I was going to get while I was there. I left Wal Mart and headed over to another grocery store that was on my way home. From knowing there prices, I didn’t really expect a whole lost less, but I want to check on the price of ginger. I was thinking that maybe I should invest in ginger and not gold.

The other store was Albertson’s. They wanted $4.99 for the same 8 ounces that was the same bottle Wal Mart wanted $2.89. The fresh ginger root was a little bigger at the price of $2.48. Now Winco sell the same 8 ounce bottle of ginger for $2.02.

Later that day, I went online to see is there is some kind of price fixing being done on ginger powder and ginger root. I had forgotten how ginger has been used for centuries as a medicine. After doing some research, I found that I have been ignorant to the value and price of ginger root and all of it’s processed forms. 14 ounces of ginger root on Amazon sells for $8.90.

Bottom-line: Ginger is more than a nice spice to put in barabque sauce. It does have some health benefits. However, if I am going to use ginger in anything. The cost of whatever I am going to be making is going to cost a bit more.