Maybe buying great restaurant-quality tortilla chips for a good deal isn’t your top priority. But for those of you who like Mexican food as much as I do, you’re going to want to know where to get really good bag of tortilla chips for the best bargain–and it might be from the place that you least expect.
My Story
My husband and I are big fans of chips and salsa. Last year we found out that a neighboring city hosts a “Salsa Challenge” each year. We were excited beyond all reason. The event was awesome–with over 70 different vendors all showing off their prized salsa. It cost us ten bucks a person, but then we got all of the free chips and salsa we could stomach. Still not the most frugal entertainment, but it was SO worth it to us.
All the next year we were looking forward to attending the event again, expecting it to be in April like it was last year. Instead, last week my husband just happened to see a television commercial announcing that the salsa would be on March 25th, only a few days away! We were so glad that we had seen the commercial, but upon examining our schedules for that Saturday we just couldn’t figure out how we were going to be able to make it. Still, I was committed to going. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon while I was still at a birthday party with my son that I really gave up hope of being able to make it in time for the six o’clock closing. I was extremely disappointed. I decided that I would stop at one of my favorite Mexican food restaurants to buy some salsa to take home, as a consolation.
The Surprise Bargain
In my search for restaurant-quality tortilla chips in the past, I had found only one brand of store-bought tortilla chips, My Nana’s, that fit the bill. These chips at $2.99 a pound rarely ever made it into our grocery budget. Then I discovered that a local Mexican grocery store makes and sells their own chips that are just as good for only $1.99 per pound.
On the day of the “Salsa Challenge” I stopped at a restaurant planning on buying only salsa, then stopping at a grocery store to buy some less expensive chips. To my surprise, the tortilla chips directly from the restaurant (and freshly fried) were the cheapest of all! I estimated that they were about the same price or just a little more than even the generic chips at the grocery store! You can get restaurant tortilla chips for the same price as the store brand–can you believe it? That, my friends, is my big bargain of the week.