For this Lifestyle Lounge Inspiration, I am choosing the "online shopping" topic. While it is supposed to be for my top 5 online shopping websites (excluding LARGE site- ie. Amazon), I can only reveal my top 3 websites. These are sites I use frequently. Two of them are local (well, at least located in my state) and offer local items.
The first website I want to share is one that I never thought I'd be using. A few years ago we were at a little community's summer festival and one of the stores in the downtown area was an old fashioned country store. It had local candies, candles, coffee and all things Michigan related. The store was overflowing with artisan items that anyone in the state could have their goodies sold.
They had an entire section of salsa, dry soup mixes, tea mixtures and barrels filled with coffee beans. It was heaven for not only your nose, but also your soul. At the coffee counter they were offering a free cup of coffee; the daily special blend was Michigan Maple; and it was SO GOOD! We ended up buying a pound of it; ground up for our percolator.
Before we used up this flavor, I went online in search of finding it. I happened upon the name of the company Schuil Coffee and discovered I could buy it through the company; and even a bulk store company. The actual company is about three hours from us and the bulk store is about two hours from us. But then I learned the bulk store offered delivery!
We have been ordering from this bulk store every couple of months for the last few years. I generally order three to four pounds of the coffee (which they also grind for the percolator for free). They do charge shipping, which isn't so bad; especially since I have become a coffee snob ever since discovering this company.
Every so often I will order tea bags (you pay per bag), nuts or candy. They offer quite a selection on their website.
When I began my gardening adventure many years ago, I found MIGardener, which is about an hour and a half from my homestead, and they offered ALL of their seed packets for .99/cents.
They had a wide variety of seeds; from vegetables to herbs and flowers. I remember the first time I ordered from them that I felt overwhelmed by the selections they were offering. It must've taken me a week to narrow down my order.
As a gardener, you know the germination rate of seeds can be unpredictable, but I have to say the seeds I received from MIGardener was about 90%; which was amazing for me.
They do charge for shipping, but knowing I am buying "local" and organically grown non-GMO seeds is important to me.
The third and final website I like to frequent is for LEM Products for my seasoning packets when making sausage and jerky-like snack sticks. They have such a variety; everything from breakfast sausage (low sodium too) to bratwurst. Their snack stick flavors are phenomenal; we've tried seven different seasoning packets already.
When we bought our sausage stuffer from LEM Products I happened to notice the tab offering spices and seasonings. Now I go there every few months to purchase more to restock our inventory.
- For all the information on this Lifestyle Lounge's inspiration posts Week 9, see here
This post was made from https://ulogs.org