Cara;
I only order specialty seeds. The common things (squash, beans, lettuce, tomato, pepper, corn, melons, canteloupe, cukes, carrots, turnip, etc) I buy in bulk from the local produce or seed houses. Many garden stores, feed stores, etc have bulk seed and sell them by the dipperful for as little as fifty cents per dipper. A dipper will usually be several times as many seeds as come in a packet. If I only intend to grow a half dozen plants I buy the plants instead of the seed--eggplant and hot pepper for example I can usually buy for about $.25 to $.50 per plant. A dipper full of carrot seed for $.50 will have a thousand or more seeds in it. A dipper full of squash seed will be enough for two or three years for a family.
On the other hand, the seeds that the locals don't stock I order from Gurneys or one of the other big seed houses. Things like daikon, parat radishes, brandywine tomatos, Atlantic Giant pumpkin. That can get expensive, so I try to find what I want locally.
A few years back I had been working in the garden and had a shoebox full of seed, plus more in a Walmart bag sitting on the floor in our pantry. Wife's old biddy friends were over for tea, and afterward some of them helped her clean up the kitchen. Dammitalltohell, the old biddies tossed my shoebox and bag in the garbage and I did not know it until the stuff was hauled away and I went looking for my seeds. They probably tossed $50 worth of seed away. I had to start over. I now keep my seed in a plastic fishing tackle box.
Ox