A couple of months ago I did a review of mail order meal kits explaining how they could actually save you money. Having seen the post the kind people at RawSpiceBar reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in reviewing their product. Never to be one to turn down a free sample I gleefully accepted. What I received will make my wife much happier than it will me, but the main thing is it can save you money.
How RawSpiceBar Works
This is a subscription service that will send you a set of three spice blends each month. The cost is only $6 per month and the spices are shipped to you via USPS. The package looks like this:
Inside were three different spice blends. For September the theme was Istanbul. For those in Rio Linda that is a city in Turkey.
The packets were 4 oz each
Finally there was a large card with three recipes on it, one for each spice blend. As I have said before, I am a picky eater and the Pita Crusted Cauliflour is not something I am jumping up and down about, but the recipes look very well done and easy to understand. The recipes are developed by top chefs and leave some leeway for picky eaters like me to separate their food a little.
What is even better is that you can go to their website and check out cooking tips, photos, and videos to help with preparing the meal. So while you are only getting the spices in the mail you are getting all the cooking help you need.
So How Does This Save Money?
This is a great question. When it comes to value of these type of services you have to look at two types of savings, time and ingredients. Since both Amy and I work outside the home we are always looking for new ways to get good food on the table for our kids. The meal prep also has to be time efficient because coming home from work and starting on a two hour meal prep is just not going to happen. The three recipes we got all took less than 45 minutes and that included baking time. So they pass the time test.
As for cost I look at RawSpiceBar as an opportunity for us to try new and healthy foods. What would it cost for us to buy all the spices ourselves to make this same spice blend? I am going to use the bahart to do a price comparison. The spices in baharat are:
- Coriander
- Cumin
- Black Peppercorn
- Sweet Paprika
- Cinnamon
- Allspice
- Cloves
Now we keep some standard spices in our spice rack so of these I would only have to purchase sweet paprika, black peppercorn, coriander, and allspice. After searching on Amazon for small amounts of these items I could get them for:
- Black Peppercorn – $2.85
- Sweet Paprika -$1.41
- Coriander – $1.41
- Allspice – $1.78
That total adds up to $7.45. That is for just one of the three spice blends you receive in the mail.
Now this is not the most cost effective way to purchase spices, but if we do not already have the spice in our spice rack then it is not a spice we use regularly and is more likely to go bad before we use it up. So buying larger quantities to lower the per ounce cost is not really an option either.
To error on the conservative side I am estimating that it would normally cost me about $12 to put all three spice blends together myself and then I have to actually put them together correctly. In my case that is a very questionable assumption.
So for my family, we are getting probably about $15 of value out of a $6 purchase. That does not include the joy my wife gets by trying new and more exotic foods from whatever part of the world the spice blend is for each month.
To add insult to my picky palate, I asked for a pizza night this week and my wife pointed out that this month RawSpiceBar included a recipe for Baharat Lamb Flatbread Pizza. Are you even allowed to put lamb on a pizza? I guess we will find out.
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