Here's how you save on pickles:
1. When empty, save the jar and the juice.
2. In mid-summer, go to a farmer's market. Buy a bunch of pickling cucumbers when they're plentiful and at their cheapest.
2b (alternative) Grow your own pickling cucmbers in your garden. There are several nice pickling types: Sumter, County Fair, Picklebush, to name a few.
3. Scrub cucumbers with a vegetable brush under hot water, and then place in jar of pickle juice.
4. Fill to top. If cucumbers stick out above juice, top jar with salt water.
5. Keep jar in refrigerator. After 1 week, start eating. They get better with time.
I have three giant jars in fridge right now from summer cukes from the garden. I have 5 more not in the fridge but ones I pickled from scratch (not from leftover juice). I also pickle jalapeno and banana peppers.
Thanks for the tip. I do that with cabbage leaves, which works out pretty good. Gotta eat 'em fast though. Left some in for a couple of months and they turned leathery.