Money/Time Saving Tip

I thought I would share this information, and Rebekka - maybe you can make it a new category for things that people would like to share to make saving time / money easier.  I know I love to hear ways that people save time and money while preparing food / grocery shopping / budgets.


I'm not a couponer - I wish I was, but I just don't have the time for it.  I've tried it before, but you have to run a million different places, spend a ton of time organizing, gathering, sorting, cutting coupons, that I found my time was worth more on other things, than on cutting coup0ons.  If I come across a good one, and I need the product, I'll use it, but I don't go out of my way to find / use coupons.  That being said, we do have the "VIP" or "members" card for just about every grocery store in Florence, AND, we do shop in bulk at Sam's for meat when we can.



So, without using coupons, I've still found ways to save money.  One way, like I mentioned before, is that we have a grocery budget, and a list.  Any money from a week's budget that is not spent, I save, and set aside.  When I have enough money saved, I make a run to Sam's where I'll buy mostly meat (we buy other things at Sam's, but extra grocery money is used for meat - because that is what usually kills my weekly budget).  I buy lean ground beef from there at right around $3.00 a pound (and it's the LEAN stuff, so not much waste / draining of fat).  I get my frozen chicken breasts from there as well along with yogurt for the kids, lemonade - things that we use all the time... it's really helped our budget.


GARLIC BREAD - if you buy frozen garlic bread, I promise you, you are wasting a TON of money.  Frozen garlic bread costs what - $3 00?  We tend to eat a lot of garlic bread - we eat it with spaghetti with pizza with some chicken dishes, etc.  Anyway, in an attempt to save money in that area I don't buy frozen garlic bread anymore.... I make my own.  The first time I did it, it was out of necessity... I forgot to buy garlic bread, and I happened to have a loaf of french bread in the house for something else, so I used it.  The kids looked at me like I was crazy - making my own garlic bread - but after trying it, they prefer it to the boxed and it saves SO much money.  I buy a large loaf of french or any other large, long loaf of bread from the bakery section - it usually costs about $1.50.  Then, when I get it home from the store, I immediately cut the loaf in half.  Each half will be used for one dinner (and it's plenty for a family of five who all like bread!)  Before I put the half into the freezer bag, I cut it in half (so there is a top and a bottom).  Then each goes into the freezer bag (one top and one bottom in each freezer bag) and into the freezer it goes.  When it's time to use it for the dinner, I pull it out of the freezer.  Since I cut it before it was frozen, I just take the two halves apart, butter them (which is much easier to control the amount of butter when it is frozen) and then add garlic salt to it.  I pop it in the oven at 350 for about 5-7 minutes (or at whatever temperature the oven is already at and I just check it for the desired crispiness) and it's done.  The kids love it, and I have garlic bread for the family for about $0.80 per meal.  So, maybe it doesn't save a ton, but it DOES save money AND the family likes it better.  I'd rather pay $1.60 for garlic bread for two meals that my kids love, as opposed to $6.00 for two meals and they think it's just OK.   Not a huge money saving tip, but for a larger family, I bet it would save a lot.


Today I'm cutting up green / red pepper and onions and making "Jambalaya veggie packs".  I got some peppers and onions on sale over the weekend and I'm cutting them up and throwing the packs in the freezer.  When it comes time to make the jambalaya, I can just pull a pack out of the freezer and dump it in.  Thanks Rebekka for the tip on freezing the peppers - hopefully freezing onions will be fine - I'll find out I guess.  They make pretty little packs with the onion and peppers in there - the nice thing is, if I'm making it for family or something like that, I won't have to cut up the onion and smell like onion when we have guests over - just pull it out and dump the bag in.  Trying this recipe on Saturday!