Azure Standard Bulk Food Haul + DON'T Make These Azure Standard Ordering Mistakes!! #Homesteading

today i'm gonna be sharing with you my most recent azure grocery haul plus my five biggest mistakes i have personally made when ordering from azure standard in hopes that it can help keep you from making those same mistakes plus at the end of this video i'm gonna be sharing with you how you can have a chance to win 200 to azure standard 200 plus every person that enters is going to get a special bonus just for entering you are not going to want to miss this welcome to the from scratch farmhouse come learn with us hi i'm stacy from the from scratch farmhouse where i share our family's journey to ditching the grocery store and becoming more self-sufficient in order to help us reach that goal of no longer shopping at our local grocery store we are attempting to produce and grow as much as we can here on our homestead there are three other places however that we purchase items that we either cannot or choose not to grow raise or produce here on our farm the first one is young living where we purchase things like personal care bug spray sunscreen and essential oils the second place is amazon this is where we purchase things like toilet paper or miscellaneous things that come up that we need the third place is azure standard this is where we get the bulk of our food and supplies that we do not grow or raise ourselves if you are completely new to azure standard i'm going to leave a link above and below to a video that tells you all about azure how it works my experience with it and all the details that you need to know okay today i'm going to start by sharing with you my most recent azure grocery haul if however you are just looking for those five big mistakes that i don't want you to make as well or more information on the giveaway i'm gonna put timestamps in the description so that you can skip ahead so this is what i got this time now keep in mind i don't get the same things every time i rotate as things are needed and the way that i track what i need is called a household inventory i have a whole video on how i create a household inventory and i will leave that above and below as well and if that peaks your interest you're going to want to wait for that bonus because let's just say it's going to help you with this whole process and keeping it all straight okay so let's get started the first thing we purchased this go-round is coconut aminos coconut aminos is a soy alternative to soy sauce it tastes great it actually tastes very similar to soy sauce and the reason we made the switch was initially because i have a daughter that was allergic to soy when she was younger but now that i've done more research on soy i'm just more comfortable um staying away from most soy products so coconut aminos it is the second thing i purchased is thai peanut sauce we enjoy thai food we like making pad thai so this is definitely an ingredient that we like having around third thing here is date syrup okay i have actually never purchased a date syrup this is a product that is new to me and i'm excited to try it out we do use medjool dates in order to sweeten things but i just thought since my body tolerates date sugar pretty well i thought maybe i would give the syrup a try next up we have vanilla extract now as many of you know i have made my own extract and i actually do have a video on how to do it yourself but it does take a while to age so while we're waiting for those batches to age we purchase it in bulk from azure we go through a ton and i like that i can buy it in pretty big quantities i've actually purchased it in even bigger quantities than this which the more you buy the better the price so for now i just thought i needed this much but you can buy it by the gallon or more next up we have poppy seeds we love poppy seed muffins and we also enjoy poppy seeds in a lot of our baked goods here we have honey i actually purchased two types of honey this one is orange blossom honey which i have never tried i'm excited to give it a shot but our usual go-to is this berry wildflower honey and you can see that we have already broke into this we go through it pretty quickly because we use it a lot in baking we also purchase our honey locally and actually this year we're going to be producing honey on the farm so i'm really excited about that so this is just to fill in the gaps and since we go through so much make up that difference between what we have been buying locally and what we use here we have white quinoa i use quinoa in place of rice in our suppers i also like to make like a quinoa mix for breakfast it's a good source of protein my kids like it so we go through a lot of quinoa here we have wild rice another thing that we use in our dinners and honestly i usually use basmati rice which i also purchased from azure but i want to switch over to wild rice more because i know it's something that we could actually go harvest locally and purchase locally so i'm purchased this mostly to play around with it and see what all i can do with it here we have split peas usually use them in split pea soup we don't go through them too much but they're nice to have on hand okay jam i plan on making a ton of jam and jelly this year but we do not have any of our own right now except for some dandelion jelly that i just made and i will leave that link above and below because that is wonderful and we've been using that a lot lately but if you don't have any home produced or locally sourced this is a great brand it tastes great it doesn't have a ton of sugar in it it's actually just the fruit so it's the healthiest option i could find and we really enjoy using this in like yogurt or on sandwiches and they have different flavors so this is raspberry but we have often bought strawberry blueberry and other flavors okay we also have medjool dates this is actually a pretty tiny bag usually i will buy a larger quantity i'm not sure if they were just out of the larger quantities or why i went with a small bag this is one pound medjool dates the biggest thing we use them for is in we make our own laura bars so they're basically nuts medjool dates vanilla chocolate chips and that's it so we just grind those all up in a food processor if you'd like the recipe i can give you that too they're great for a quick snack it takes just a few minutes in the food processor to make them and then i will also use medjool dates to sweeten things like pumpkin pies or desserts okay the non-food items that i purchased this time are mostly jars and lids so let me show you because i absolutely love these and i've showed these off before but these are half gallon jars i've recently been recommending this size for sourdough starter on my instagram recently i went through and helped people make their sourdough starters that was so much fun and it was so rewarding to see all of your starters come to life but i have just found that this is a really good size now i know there are plenty of people out there telling you to keep your starters in little tiny jars but to me that doesn't make sense because then you have to transfer your starter to another container in order to bulk it up and then use it this i can keep exactly how much i need for a week's worth of baking to me this is perfect size for sourdough but i also store things like this will be for split peas and a couple other things that i wanted to store in this size jar i keep them in my pantry in my regular pantry to store things as well as my cellar downstairs just one thing to know with these is that the lids come separately so make sure to order the lids and then i received a whole bunch of lids here separately in another box so they're not plastic either they're metal lids they go on securely these are so handy to have i have a ton of these containers i also received some more gamma lids these are the smaller ones if you have not seen them before they're awesome you push them on securely onto the bucket and they're air tight and then the top just unscrews my little kids can even do this and then it screws back on kind of hard when it's not on the bucket but screws back on for an airtight seal and we use these for buckets that we keep in both the pantry and the cellar downstairs these would also be good for storing things like dog food cat food all those things and like i said you can get the bigger size for the regular five gallon pails which is what we do as well okay in this box over here haven't even opened it yet i have more of the one gallon jars so same thing i use these in my regular pantry up here i use them in the cellar downstairs for food storage these have so many uses shredded coconuts rice i also use these to store things like a smaller quantity of wheat berries so for example i have like three five gallon buckets of wheat of hard white wheat downstairs and then i'll have about this quantity kept up here ready to go in my kitchen pantry and if you want a cellar tour or more about how i store things long-term i'll leave the video above and below so that you can check that out as well okay i think that's it for this time now let's move on to the five biggest mistakes i have personally made when ordering from azure standard and like i said i don't want you to make these same mistakes so you're going to want to hear these mistake number one only purchasing a few things so let me explain the way the azure works is you put in your order online it ships in a big truck to your drop point then you show up at the drop point at a specific time that you meet the truck you go and you help unload everything from the truck so the way every drop point does it a little bit different but the way that ours has been doing it is they put out all the last names and then you get in a big line and you go around and you grab something off the truck and then you go put it at the last name that it coordinates with so at the end after we've all gone around all the piles are made of everyone's stuff so it's a little bit time consuming i would say it takes between 20 and 30 minutes depending on the number of people that are showing up that time or the size of your drop but it's not a quick thing and it is time out of your day that you have to plan ahead for and if you're like me we drive actually an hour and a half to get to our drop point so i have purchased just a few things gone put all the effort in and then found out that out of the maybe five things that i ordered only one of them actually shipped or two of them actually shipped and those two things weren't things that i really needed anyway it was actually the other three that didn't end up shipping so i don't mind planning my whole day around my azure pickup i don't mind helping unload the truck but for me it only makes sense if i can put in a large order at a time so that it is worth my time and effort and i'm not bummed when i get there and only one of my things arrived and actually you do find out what shipped ahead of time so i knew going to the drop point that only one thing shipped or two or whatever it was but i was bummed anyway because i knew i had to still go there to get my stuff but it wasn't something that would have otherwise been worth the effort for me so hopefully that makes sense make it worth it for yourself put in a larger order at a time and if you're thinking well i don't need that much stuff plan ahead so maybe you're purchasing six months worth of stuff at a time and then you don't need to go back for another six months and to me that makes way more sense than trying to do a few things at a time and then planning your whole day around for something that you maybe didn't need okay this brings me to mistake number two ordering too far in advance and not checking inventory before your order ships now being on the ball is usually a good thing but in this case it may actually hurt you and that's because when you place your order through azure you are not reserving those items and the quantity of available stock can change quite a bit if you put your order in say three weeks before your cut off date so a little azure hack to make sure that that does not happen to you and to make sure that all of your items ship here you go ready for this you're going to want to remember this because it's going to save you a lot of heartache when you go and realize that none of your stuff shipped because it was out of stock here's what you do up until your cut-off date you're going to add things to your cart like normal so let's say you find that you're out of vanilla or there's something on your in household inventory sheet that is running low you can go ahead and put it in your cart however set a timer an alarm an appointment date in your phone a day before your cut-off date then you're going to go in and you're going to check everything in your cart to make sure that there is a large quantity available so my little hack is to pick the quantity that there is the most availability for here's an example let's say i wanted 10 pounds of chocolate chips and under the chocolate chips that i want to purchase there is a one pound option there's a five pound option and there's a 10 pound option i have selected the 10 pound option in my cart however when my alarm goes off a day before my cutoff date i can look and see that oh no there's only five of the ten pound bags of chocolate chips no problem because if you click on five pounds there may be a large quantity of those so if i click on five pounds and it says that there are 300 in stock of those i can just select two five pound bags and voila my stuff ships no stress this has been such a great little hack to make sure that i get my stuff every single time okay mistake number three i actually did this last time we picked up an order and i thought i need to share this with the world okay so mistake number three is not dressing for the weather i have made this mistake so many times i hate to even admit it there have been times i have forgot to bring gloves and a hat when it was snowing there have been times when i forgot a raincoat when it was raining and you can't exactly ditch everybody else who's unloading this truck full of stuff just because you're miserable so you end up just suffering through and trust me it is not pleasant so keep in mind you're going to be at your drop unloading everybody's stuff off the truck not just yours for 20 to 30 minutes and this could vary depending on the size of your drop but if you are dressed for the weather you're gonna have a much more enjoyable experience mistake number four not keeping track of what you actually receive now to my knowledge i have always received everything i ordered however that's not really saying much because i don't really keep very good track of what i ordered what shipped and what i actually received azure standard has wonderful customer service and if there's anything on that list that they say shipped to you that doesn't show up when you go to your drop point you can give azure a call and they will make it right however you can't take advantage of this awesome customer service if you don't keep track so from here on out i'm going to be printing off the list that they email to you that says exactly what shipped bringing it to the drop point when we're receiving our stuff and have my kids mark off everything as we bring it to the car this will make sure that i notice anything missing right away mistake number five not checking the sales flyer azure standard puts out a monthly sales flyer and when you buy things in bulk like we do a little discount can go a long ways in helping you save on your groceries you can access this sales flyer either online or you can add a hard copy to your order i also like looking through their sales flyer because it will often talk about new products and i'm continually amazed at the variety of things azure sells so that can be a good way to get new ideas of other things that you can purchase through them as well okay i just remembered that i had a few more things in this order that i put in the freezer and forgot to show you which i'm glad i thought to tell you about this because we're gonna just go ahead and make this mistake number six i purchased some frozen things and i live an hour and a half away this might not be applicable to you but if you have any drive at all bring a cooler i purchased these raspberries and i'm pretty sure that they were not a frozen raspberry clump when i purchased them but they thought a little bit in my car on the way home and then when i refroze them they were just a big raspberry block which is going to be a little difficult to use so if you have any drive at all or even if you just plan to make other stops after you pick up your azure order make sure to bring a cooler one more thing i purchased and was in the freezer so i forgot about is hash browns i love their hash browns this is southern style so they're little the little cubes same kind of deal though where they thawed a little bit and then when i put them in the freezer they're now one solid block these will be a little easier than the raspberries to break apart but i still wish i would have had that cooler okay i've told you everything we've purchased i have told you my five make that six biggest mistakes i've made purchasing from azure now i am ready to announce my big giveaway i am giving away a 200 gift card to azure standard the giveaway starts right now today which is may 27th at 3 o'clock central standard time this giveaway is only sponsored by me along with azure standard and if the 200 gift card isn't enough incentive to get you to enter i've got a little bonus for every single person who enters this giveaway so basically you're all a winner i am giving away my personal household inventory spreadsheet on google sheets so that you can see everything we purchase exactly where we purchase and i even have links to the products on this spreadsheet i realized that our household inventory is not going to match up perfectly with yours we purchase baby wipes and maybe you don't have a baby however it is going to give you an amazing framework for building your own household inventory which i personally believe is the first step in becoming more self-sufficient is having an idea of what you're purchasing what you're using up so that you can then work towards either producing it yourself or even just work towards a goal of maybe sourcing it from another location in addition to that spreadsheet is a list of just the things we purchased from azure standard so basically i'm giving you all of my personal recommendations from someone who has been shopping from azure for a very long time okay it is super simple to enter so don't pass it up it'll literally take you less than five minutes you need to do four things to enter this giveaway number one leave a comment on this video that says i'm in number two hop on over to my instagram at the from scratch farmhouse and give me a follow number three find the giveaway post and send it to your stories make sure to tag me so that i can see it if you have a private account you're going to need to dm me a screenshot so that i can see it because otherwise if you have a private account i can't see that you put it in your stories number four fill out the giveaway entry form which is located in the description of this video as well as the link in the bio on my instagram this is a quick and easy form it just asks for your first name and your email address and this is so that we can send you that bonus right away it also allows us to give you updates on this giveaway and other fun things that we have going on okay it's super easy to enter but make sure you do not miss any of those four steps because if you don't do all four you won't be entered to win the giveaway is going to run until sunday june 6 at 8pm central standard time but don't wait because if you're anything like me you'll forget all about it so go right now and enter to win the giveaway and claim your free bonus if you're watching this video after the fact don't worry you're still going to want to go and follow me on instagram and here on youtube because i love doing giveaways and fun things like this so stay in the loop you're not going to want to miss out on future things coming okay before you forget go enter right now and thank you so much for watching make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss out on anything exciting going on here or my future content i make videos each week on homesteading homeschooling food from scratch and creating a handmade home thanks so much for watching have a great day

Channel: The From Scratch Farmhouse

Views: 29,431

Keywords: azure standard, azure standard haul, azure standard bulk food, azure standard reviews, azure standard order, what to do know before buying from Azure Standard, homesteading family, large family, homesteading, Azure Standard Giveaway, bulk food haul, bulk grocery haul, grocery haul, how to not shop at the grocery store, self-sufficiency, self-sustainability, jill winger, the prairie homestead, melissa k norris, Three Rivers Homestead, large family grocery haul

Id: f0nrnSqLRWw

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021