Witchcraft on a Budget

Imagine this:  You’re tooling around online and you see a really cool spell meme that includes a list of ingredients. Those ingredients include some kind of special Peruvian salt, 13 perfect jasmine flowers, a single rose quartz, and a Lemurian crystal. Some of those things you have never heard of and the other things you don’t have the money to buy. Do you wait to perform the spell when you have access to those things? Do you never do the spell? Do you substitute?

The reality most of us live is one of frugality, much like our witch grandmothers. We are conditioned through advertising that we should have a whole different set of tools for Craft than for living. This is a load of bull shit in most cases. For those of us practicing low magic, the tools do not matter as much as they do for those practicing high magic. People wanting us to buy expensive and unnecessary things want us to believe that it matters.

Things like salt. It is not ‘more spiritual’ to use pink salt or some rare and expensive imported salt. Cheap iodized (or not!) table salt will do. I tend to use my specialty salts and salt mixes in my kitchen craft. Again, this isn’t because it’s ‘more spiritual’. It’s just because that’s what I cook with. If I am using salt to smudge and throwing it on the floor before I vacuum, I am definitely using cheap table salt. It gathers dust and negativity as good or better than large rock salt.

Things like pepper. There is no need to buy special peppercorns for magic. Coarse ground store brand pepper is just as good magically as it is in your smashed potatoes. The same goes for cayenne.

You can also use cinnamon or cinnamon bark, Italian seasoning (which I will get to later), garlic salt or garlic powder, turmeric, and pumpkin pie or apple pie spice straight from your kitchen cupboard. Olive oil, vinegar, and cornstarch also need not be bought separately.

Which brings me to something that will give most people an “Aha! Moment”. Italian seasoning, cajun seasoning, poultry seasoning, all of these mixtures are things that my mother and grandmother always had on hand. (My grandmother also kept bricks of chewing tobacco for poultices.)

Italian seasoning is a mixture of basil, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and oregano. A basic Cajun seasoning is a mixture of garlic, onion, black pepper, and cayenne. As well, poultry seasoning is sage, thyme, nutmeg, black pepper, rosemary, and marjoram. So, what do each of those mixes do magically?  Let’s see:

Italian Seasoning:

Basil: Protection, cleansing, love, luck, fidelity, wealth

Thyme: Wealth, good fortune, purification, love, courage, sleep

Rosemary: Protection, purification, love, clarity, lust, healing, cleansing

Marjoram: Love money, happiness, protection, health

Oregano: Protection, happiness, luck, marriage, prophetic dreams

Just opening up your spaghetti seasoning, you could use it to anoint a candle for wealth, fortune, love, health, and protection.

Cajun Seasoning:

Garlic: Protection, healing, favorable weather, courage or exorcism

Onion: Protection, purification, exorcism, and healing

Black Pepper: Banishing, exorcism, and protection from evil

Cayenne: Repelling negativity, cleansing, and purification

So, a sprinkling of that generic cajun seasoning on my doorstep is excellent at giving protection and banishing bad juju? Looks like it.

Poultry Seasoning

Sage: Wisdom, immortality, protection and to alleviate sorrow

Nutmeg: Health, money, fidelity, love, luck, and clairvoyance

(I didn’t see the need to relist the other herbs already listed.) So, from the looks of it, generic poultry seasoning can be used for health and protection as well.

I use these three mixes because most people who cook have them in their kitchen and they are easily attainable and relatively cheap.  They can be bought from a large chain store for less than $1. You know, the one with the blue sign and yellow star thingy in its logo.

It should be noted that you can also use these in your recipes with the same effects.  Another thing witches on a budget can do is take their used eggshells and crush them and make cascarilla powder with them. There’s no need to buy it if you use it.

Candles, which seem to be a big deal on a budget, can be bought at the Dollar Tree (or a similar store). Some of my favorites to use, if I need a longer burning candle, are white emergency candles that are 6/$1. White candles substitute for every color. Also, if you need black candles, the best time to get those are at Halloween. The ones they sell at that time are, typically, solid black, where many of the cheaper black candles you get year around have a white core. (If the white core doesn’t bother you, then you don’t need to worry about it. It bothers me, but I’m a weirdo.) If you are more into quick candle magic or spells, birthday candles are the best thing ever.

As well, places like the Dollar Tree sell smooth river rocks by the bag. Those can be used to create earth elemental altars or they can be used to create divination sets, like runes.

Witching on a budget is much easier than expected. A fire pit can substitute a cauldron for fire magic. A crock pot can substitute a cauldron for kitchen craft. A coffee grinder can be a substitute for a mortar and pestle. The idea that we must have a whole other set of everything dedicated to Craft is unnecessary. It’s also more fun to work with what you have to see what you can do with it.