If I go to a korean supermarket and I want to make curry - I can walk out of there with all the ingredients for about $12. If I go into whole foods, it ends up being something like $40 (I did it once and never did it again). And I find the korean supermarket'll have better selection. (However, maybe if I was trying to make meatloaf or a casserole, i'd find the selection pretty limiting in a korean supermarket). I haven't checked the produce section enough at trader joes to really know how feasible it would actually be, but I'd guess curry ingredients would be more on the order of $20-25 or so.

Now that's not taking into watching sales, etc and going with a specific list of ingredients in mind.