took another first step in saving money... at the store, 19g of spice (=one glass shaker bottle) is around 120 yen i think. on amazon, 100g is around 340 yen + 600 yen in shipping. unfortunately i couldn't buy all the spices from the same place so i had to pay for shipping twice and got 700g for a total of about 3,500 yen. in the end it didn't save a TON of money but it still saved some. we only really use these 3 spices (cinnamon, paprika, chili powder) + salt so hopefully we're set for a good long time now...

also bought a hand-crank radio-and-emergency-light for 500 yen + 900 yen shipping. i've been wanting a radio so a hand-powered one is perfect for saving money + i probably should make an emergency kit sometime. next all i need is a hand-crank phone charger... hmm, maybe i should've bought that at the same time... if you can get a hand-crank 3DS charger that'd also be great.

i'm also going to TRY to ONLY buy meat that's on sale from now on... even though the sales here are usually only 10-20%. and i'll stop buying frivolous stuff like chesnuts except for if they're on a huge sale (like today's: 50% off). i want to check out what's actually the most expensive foods we eat per amount but i can't understand the receipt because it's all in katakana and not always what the item actually is (ex. a brand or something instead of the food name).