Each Monday this year, I’m trying to find some new way you can save money. As always, the best plan of action for saving money is to not spend it. I don’t believe that’s a practical long term strategy. Sometimes you just need to buy things. Sometimes you can get away with cheap, and sometimes it’s worth spending a little more to get some great quality. So with that in mind here are my picks on how to save money on kitchenware.
- Pots and Pans – The staple of cooking is to have some decent pots and pans. For me, the one non-negotiable is that they must be non-stick. I know there’s some research on the safety of non-stick coating. I haven’t done the research necessary and to be honest, it’s far from my area of expertise. I’ll simply say that this is a Lazy Man website for a reason – and in this case, it’s because I don’t like to spent all day cleaning up a pan. As I see it there are two ways to go:
- The Non-Cooking Expert – This is me. I don’t watch the Food network. I make rice and it tastes like rice. I will not win any awards for cooking, but I can get the job done. I’m using the same 10 or 12 pot and pan set that I found on sale for under $40 in 2000. If you are like me it’s easy to save money on pots.
- The Chef – I’ve found some big name brands (Calphalon One comes to mind) on sale on the Amazon Friday Sale
– usually some 60-70% off. If you look, you can find the copper core and all that kind of fun stuff that chefs love.
- Kitchen Knives – I may be ill-informed, but it seems there are two huge name brands when it comes to knives – Wusthof
- The Complete Set – This is another case where the Amazon Friday Sale can be your friend. You don’t necessarily have to wait until Friday, to see large discounts on sets on Amazon. It’s not surprising to find knives more than 50% off every day. It makes me wonder if anyone pays retail or if it’s one of those items that has perpetually inflated retail prices. I went for the complete set.
- The Essentials – I often find that I use the same knife from the complete set for over 95% of my cutting. It’s a mid-size knife that seems to fit my hand well. On rare occasions, I’ll step up the biggest knife in the set – something that’s like a cleaver, but not quite.
- Small Appliances – You can save money by getting a small appliance that does a number of duties. You can get a Cuisinart Blender/Food Processor
for around $85. You can get a George Foreman Grill
that can make waffles, paninis, scrambled eggs (via the griddle), and grilled cheeses. Plus it’s non-stick :-).
You may have noticed that I linked to Amazon quite a bit here. Almost everything in my kitchen that cost me over $50 has come from Amazon. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like they always have sales. Maybe it’s a little like how you can typically find a better deal on electronic on the Internet than you can at Radio Shack… you can find a better deal on Amazon than you could at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.