Saving Money on Baked Goods

Kids love baked goods from the bakery. I however, don't really care for the price. I can spend the same amount and make tons more of those yummy baked goodies. I love to bake and spend time in the kitchen, but I am really trying to cut back on the calories, so I don't like to bake, because I have a tendency to eat said treats, if they are homemade!

That's why I like to check out the quick sale racks when I go to the store. I take my goodies home and I freeze them. Today I scored 3 trays of cinnamon rolls for $0.99 cents a piece! Regularly priced $2.99 a tray.! They had the sell by date, marked for today, so really, they aren't a day old. These cinnamon rolls are being used for a Young Women activity this weekend, so I just popped them in the freezer, because I will need all of them at the same time.

My kids love glazed donuts. It's such a treat to get them when we go to the store. I also buy these on the quick sale rack. I bring them home, let the kids have one for a treat and then I package them into freezer bags in groups of 3 or 4 donuts. Lay them in the freezer, so they are flat and freeze them that way. That way when the kids want a donut, I pull out a package, pop one in the microwave for 30 seconds and wala, warm, yummy glazed donuts!! For $2.99, I get 4 packages of donuts!!

Everyday Food Storage Book Available

How many of you have ever been to Crystal's sight, Everyday Food Storage? I found her sight about a year ago and I check in atleast once a week to see what's cookin'! She has great recipes to turn your everyday meals into meals that are made with food storage. Her new book is going to be released on Friday and I AM SO EXCITED! She's giving away 6 copies of her book. Hurry over to her sight to see the rules for entering! It has to be a faulous book, because I have tried lot's of her recipes and I am so excited. My birthday is Friday, so this may be what I ask the hubby to get me!!

Shelf Reliance Recipe Contest

Who wants to win one of these?? I do, I do,!! I have entered several different contests, all trying to win one of these and dang it all, if it just never happens. Although, I have to admit, I would love to try the Thrive. If your interested in trying your luck, all you have to do is submit your favorite food storage recipe to Shelf Reliance. Click here for the rules and all the legal stuff.

In exchange for your recipe, you will be entered to win one of following three prizes!

1st Place = One (1) Harvest Food Rotation System ($459 value)
2nd Place = THRIVE Fruits and Veggies Essential Package ($283 value)
3rd Place = Three (3) Cansolidator Pantry systems ($135 value)

All recipes must be submitted by Feb. 28, 2009 by 6:00 PM MST. You can submit more than one recipe! Wahoo!

Good luck to everyone! I hope that they post some of these recipes. I love new recipes and especially ones that use my food storage!!

I Heart Albertsons!!!

Another successful and slighly intoxicating grocery week! I used to HATE to go into Albertson's, because they really are expensive, but boy, do they know how to have a good SALE! Now I LOVE them!! I wanted to take pictures of all of this, but my hubby was helping me put away and he thought that was a silly idea and I'm all for letting him help out if he wants to. I was going to pull all of this out and take a picture, but why?? It's put away. So here you go, I bought:

1 loaf of bread, (my only item I didn't have a coupon for)
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights
3 Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookies
4 Betty Crocker Cookie Mix's
4 Betty Crocker Frostings
5 Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
5 Campbells Soup at Hand (72 hr kit item)
11 Pillsbury Grands Biscuits
11 boxes of cereal (Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Trix)
12 Progresso Soups
17 boxes of fruit snacks / fruit roll ups (It's insane, I know, but I have kids at my house every day, and some of them will go into 72-hour kits, but mostly they will be hiding at the top of my closet)


My Grand total before coupons and sales was $239.91. My total out of pocket cost was $43.14. Just so you know, I love Grocery Smarts as well!! I also love Pinching Your Pennies. I use them to preview sales and also they have some amazing coupon links that I haven't found on Grocery Smarts.

It would have even been $10.00 less, but I messed up on my first transaction and missed buying 1 item, in order to recieve an additional $10.00 off coupon. But what do you do? I'm soooo happy with my shopping. Can't wait to see what's for sale next week.

Every Sunday, my husband and I would take our little family and go and visit his grandparents. Every Sunday, his sweet grandmother would give me her coupons out of her paper. And every Sunday, I glanced at them and then threw them away! I'm ashamed to admit that, but I did. I never wanted to spend the time on clipping coupons. I mean, I knew it could save you a little money, but who had the time?

I won't lie. It's time consuming if you want to save money and use your coupons to your advantage to get the best deal. When using coupons, it is a waste of time (and money) if you are using coupons to purchase things just to use the coupon, or to buy things you wouldn't normally buy. Using coupons on items you always buy anyway, AND combining coupons in conjunction with sales and clearance prices is where you will get ahead! Today for instance, I bought 8 bottles of Aussie Hairspray. Crazy, you say? Well, we go through about 1 bottle a month, I'd say. Well it's regularly $3.99 a bottle. Lins had it on sale for 2 for $4.00. Well I had coupons for $2.00 of 2 bottles of Aussie product. If you do the math, it works out to be $1.00 a bottle instead of $32.00 for 8 bottles. Great deal, huh? It may not save me money in the moment, but it saved me $24.00 over the course of the year.

The first step to take if you have not been an avid couponer before is to get a subscription to the Sunday newspaper so you can get the coupons. I get 4 Sunday papers so that I can have multiple coupons available to stock up on items that I use every day. Most papers have weekend subscriptions, and subscriptions where you can purchase more than one paper. Also ask family members, friends and neighbors, whether of not they use their coupons. Many people, throw them away!!! T

You can also find coupons on line. The website that I use is Grocery Smarts. This is the best site for anyone who uses coupons. They break down the sale ads and show you where to spend your money so that you are getting the best deal. They also show you where to find coupons online and they also tell you where to find coupons in your ads. They do all the work for you.

Once you begin getting coupons you need to organize them. Some people cut out every coupon in the weekly inserts and file them away. Other people only cut what they know they are going to use. I have friends who use the Grocery Smart System and they keep a file folder with their inserts filed by date. That way they just pull out and clip what they need.

I've tried both way's and I use both systems to some degree. Any coupon that I will for sure use, get clipped and put in my organizer. It goes with me everywhere. My inserts are kept in a file box by date and I use those if a great deal comes up on something that I would not normally buy. I try not to be stingy with my coupons. My neighbor and I swap coupons frequently. I also try to give them to other's if I know it is something they will use. I have also left coupons at the store on the shelf before. I like generic diapers. I have never been one to buy Huggies or Pampers, I mean I like them, but they are so expensive. I alway's try to leave those coupons in the baby aisle. I like to think of myself as the coupon fairy!! I hope it makes someone's day!

I promise that it is worth the time it takes to clip coupons. There have been times when I have saved $40.00 or more just in my coupons. It makes up for the cost of the newspaper subscriptions very quickly. Join me this year and make a resolution to save yourself money and to bulk up your food storage!

Another Food Storage Post ~ Sorta

I have been racking my brain to try and come up with another food storage post. There is so much information available if you want to research food storage. Since we are not really gearing this to be a food storage blog, I don't want to get to crazy, so I am just going to ramble and see if you can follow my ramblings.

Right now, my biggest goal with food storage is stocking up on the things we use a lot. And right now, there are some really good sales going on. This is the time of year when I stock up on stuffing, canned gravy, sugars, cake mixes, seasonings, cream cheese, cool whip, and all the fun baking items that go on sale around the holiday's. Most items, if left unopened will be good long past the expiration's date. I'm about a 6 month girl, if it is more than 6 months past, I chuck it. It probably is still good, but I'm just not feeling it after 6 months.

I love stocking up on cream cheese, because the stuff lasts FOREVER! I just save myself a little spot in my fridge and I buy quite a bit when it's on sale. Same goes for Cool Whip. My freezer still has 3 pkgs. of Cool Whip from last year. I also have pumpkin left over from last year. My pumpkin pie will be from last years pumpkin, and then I will restock my shelves. Corn syrup is also another great item to buy on sale, because it is fairly cheap right now and it will last a long time.

What items will you be stocking up on?

Let's Talk Food Storage

Food storage!! What a daunting set of words. Who has the time or the money to have a food storage? I didn't think I did, but little did I know that I already had started my food storage. If you have one extra can of corn in your cupboard or extra rolls of toilet paper in your closet, you have the beginning of food storage. I had always shopped sales and stocked up at case lot's but I had never associated those habits with food storage. When I stopped to think about it, I got really excited! Maybe, this wouldn't be as hard as I had thought. I also wanted to take a different approach to food storage.

When I heard the word food storage, I always thought of wheat. Tons and tons of wheat, rice and beans. Stuff that my family does not eat. You've heard the advice, eat what you store and store what you eat. Well I took that heart. To begin with I worked on just coming up with a 3 month supply of food that I knew my family would eat. As I have gathered "MY" staple foods, I have started to add the wheat, the rice, the beans, the margarine powder and egg powder and much more to our supply. And I use it! I figured that if I was going to store it, then we had to learn how to use it and surprisingly the food is GOOD! I'll post some recipes for you in another post. These are just a few way's that I worked on my 3 month supply.

1. Buy in bulk!! I started to scrimp away money for the case lot sales. I bought cases of things like green beans, corn, fruit cocktail, creamed soup, spaghetti sauce, sugar, flour, and canola oil, just to name a few. I bought things that I knew I could use to make meals. I bought staples. I bought comfort foods in bulk and things that were easy to make such as Top Ramen and Macaroni and cheese. Quite quickly my 3 month supply grew.

2. Clip coupons!! I cannot emphasize enough how much money you can save, it your diligent in clipping coupons. Watch the sale ads. I love buy one get one Free sales and I love clearance sales. A great way to stock your freezer is to buy quick sale meat. It's still good, it's just close to it's expiration's date. Take it home and freeze it when you find meat on a good sale.

3. I learned to juggle the food that I had. I loved having extra because it meant that if a good sale did come up, rather than spending $10.00 on say, cereal, I could spend that $10.00 extra dollars on hamburger, because I had enough cereal at home in storage.

I love the saying, where there's a will there's a way! My neighbor once shared an idea with me. When they were first married, she put a box in her kitchen as a reminder to work on food storage. Every day she would trip over that box and so every time she went to the store she would buy 1 thing to put in that box. When it was full she would close it up and put it away for food storage.

In these economic times, aren't we glad that we have been counseled to set aside food in our homes! I know that I have had times where I have been very grateful for my little food storage that I have. It's possible, I promise. Here is a link to a great article, it's well worth the time it takes to read it.

Food Storage

For years the prophets have counseled us to be prepared. To have a years supply of food on hand. I just barely jumped on this bandwagon about 18 months ago. I have really enjoyed learning how to use my food storage and every time I put something away I get this little jolt of pleasure. I know, it's weird, but I feel like a little squirrel storing up nuts for the winter.

On the side bar I have several links that I frequent for food storage ideas. I sell bulk, wholesale food for a company called Alisons Pantry. This was initially what got me involved in food storage and I love it. It's been a great way to supplement my grocery income. Every month I put all of my earnings back into product and it has been a tremendous blessing!!

I want to share fun website with you called All About Food Storage. My friend Kim runs this sight and she has lots of great ideas. She also likes to share about Alisons Pantry! She's so great. Thanks Kim! Go check out her sight for lots of great ideas. Leave her a comment and say hello. Tell her I sent ya! You'll love it I promise.

Also check out this link for a way CUTE idea. It's a food storage fairy. Kind of like the Halloween Ghost idea, you take 2 items out of your food storage with a recipe and share it with a neighbor. They then copy the food storage fairy and put a copy in their window and then leave one with another family. Better watch out, I might come and get ya!!!

Stretching Your Food Dollars

Aren't food prices getting ridiculous? I started to get into food storage about a year ago. Food storage is no longer a matter of convenience, but a matter of necessity. Check out this article at Deseret News for 101 tips for stetching your food dollars.

One of the best tips I can give you is to cook at home. Pull out your cookbooks and try new recipes and experiment.