Food’s getting too expensive, leaving us with two choices: lose our lead on per capita obesity, or find new ways to save money. We’re not the type of nation to give up a first place position on anything, so that leaves us with saving money, and one way to do this is to make your own stuff. We know, it’s crazy! Apparently early settlers somehow created their own Cheetos and Frappuccinos, but we’re not going to get that primitive. Instead, here’s a quick rundown of some interesting Do It Yourself tutorials we found that might give you some ideas on how to cut costs the next time you go grocery shopping.
Make Your Own Baby Food
The process is pretty easy–puree the food and strain it. This post suggests you spoon individual servings into an ice tray, then cover it with plastic wrap and freeze it. “Then, put the frozen blocks of food into a freezer bag.” The author doesn’t go on to mention thawing out the food, which leaves us with images of her babies sucking toothlessly on foodsicles, but we assume you’re supposed to reheat the food when you’re ready to use it.
Of course, if you need advice on how to make your own baby, you can head over to our sister site Fleshbot.
Make Your Own Instant Oatmeal
Trent at The Simple Dollar makes his own instant oatmeal packets. Instant oatmeal is a simple recipe, which means even the kitchen-phobic can accomplish this without ruining anything. Trent writes that the initial batch actually comes out to slightly more per serving than prepackaged, if you factor in the purchase of one-time supplies like reusable baggies and salt. Batch #2 is the same price as pre-packaged, and batch #3 is where the real savings kick in.
While this is a great idea, we think you can go one better and forego the plastic bags entirely, which drops the cost per serving immediately. Baggies are good if you have to eat your breakfast in the break room at work, but otherwise the “recipe” is so simple that you can assemble it on the spot each morning in less than 30 seconds. If you follow Trent’s advice to grind up some of the oatmeal to make the final product thicker, simply grind up a predetermined amount and keep it in a plastic container.
Make Your Own Ice Cream and Sorbet
Real ice cream requires cooking a custard first, and you’ll have to purchase eggs, heavy cream, and milk, which are exactly the sort of ingredients that are going up in price. Since the point is to save money, you’re better off buying in-season fruit and trying your hand at sorbets.
This is maybe the funniest/laziest sorbet recipe we can find: freeze a can of fruit, then puree it in a blender with a little liquor. (We’re going to try this over the weekend.)
If you’re too lazy to puree and blend, go even simpler and just make ice pops.
Make Your Own Hot Dogs
Just kidding.
The Big Question: Is This Really Worth My Time?
If you’re asking yourself that, there’s a good chance you already know the answer: you probably feel your time is better suited doing something more productive and/or entertaining.
However, Trent the Oatmeal Guy writes that he made his instant oatmeal packets while talking on the phone with his mother. We’ve discovered family phone calls are the perfect time to multitask with housework and kitchen activities, especially if you have a hands-free headset.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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@Toof_75_75:
In south Louisiana “Make” = “Shop”. Hence “Makin’ Groceries” = “Grocery Shopping”. So therefore I could “Make a keyboard” but that means I’d have to go to Best Buy or Circuit City.
Make your own baby food sounds economical but why is the baby so upset about pureed serrano n’ string beans?
i love cooking. unfortunately, our generation (made in the 80s!) HATES to cook…which is super unfortunate.
We started making sorbet. Ice cream components are too spendy and kinda bad for you. I got older bananas for 50 cents a bag and made 2 gallons of banana sorbet. It stayed fresh in the freezer for about a month before it was all gone.
We also make granola. Way cheaper than buying it.
Also waaaayyyyyyy cheaper to make your own tartar sauce (mayonaise and pickle relish) and your own seafood cocktail sauce (ketchup and horseradish).
I was just at my pediatrician the other day, who mentioned that while making my own baby food is great, I shouldn’t cook my own carrots. She said that its hard to tell how much nitrates are in the store-bought carrots, but the baby food people will have the right amount. She also mentioned collard greens and parsnips in that group, but I haven’t cooked those.
@savvy9999:
Have you tried “Better than Bullion” for a base for your soup? Its the best.
Im actually considering buying a meat grinder to make my own hamburger meat. Not sure if ts cheaper but would be tastier plus no mad cow disease.
@sir_pantsalot: Your comment reminds me of an old Ruben Bolling comic:
[www.salon.com]
I skipped the oatmeal packets all together. I buy store brand instant oatmeal at $1 a box, and use simple brown sugar to top it. I keep it in a drawer at work and make it in my XXL coffee mug. No bags, no mixing, no time wasted.
It works perfectly with the hot filtered water from the coffee machine. I haven’t calculated my costs yet, but I figure I get about 20 servings out of the oatmeal box, and the amount of brown sugar is minimal, and my work provides the creamer, so I’m at about $0.10 on the heavy side ($0.05 for oatmeal, %0.05 for brown sugar) for a greener breakfast than the DIY packets – I know the OP washes and reuses the baggies, but they’ll be thrown away someday. I give the oatmeal boxes to my 2-year-old to play with and recycle them when they’re trashed.
@Jevia: What’s the concern with nitrates? Would cooking your own risk there being too many or too few?
My wife found out about making baby food about two years ago. We tried it with our second and he loved it! Never had a single jar of store-bought baby food, and MAN does it save a lot of money!! The freezer gets a little full at times, but the food is a lot better for them. You spice it any way you like, and it seemed to make the transition to adult foods much simpler.
For cheap eggs and meat, raise your own chickens! Most towns and cities allow it to some extent. A bit messy, but well worth it. We’ve got several friends that raise them, and our own coop will be going up next spring.
And hey, what about hunting? A round of ammo costs a lot less than a pound of beef…
@Jevia:
I’ve heard that about the carrots too, but it doesn’t make sense. Do you really believe baby food manufacturers have “special carrots” that somehow contain less nitrates? If we assume that’s true, they’re either growning them specially (which I doubt), or they’re removing the nitrates. If they’re removing the nitrates, they’re removing nutrients as well with the extra processing. Honestly, I believe they probably just do batch testing to make sure the nitrate levels in their carrots don’t exceed normal levels. Food is expensive (duh!), and baby food manufacturers aren’t going to take on the extra expense of special crops. I think its more likely that they simply control their buying to only purchase from fields that produce acceptable levels of nitrates.
Anyway, feed your kids a well-rounded selection of fruits and vegetables and they’ll be fine. If you’re only feeding them carrots then, yeah, watch the nitrates!
Wasn’t there a book published awhile back about how to cook one day out of the month? Anyone got any ideas on combining THAT with the ‘make-it-yourself’ crowd?
You CAN make your own Cheetos – just Google Cheetos recipe and follow the recipe… Cost-effective? I think not, but the point is that you can.
@mgomega: We want backyard chickens but we, unfortunately, are forbidden by local ordinance from having “livestock” on city lots.
One thing I make at home is pancake mix. My husband lurves pancakes and makes them every weekend. Homemade mix is easy, cheap, takes 10 minutes to put together, and lasts probably three months. (My recipe makes about 5 lbs.) It’s more nutritious, too, since I can make it 1/3 whole wheat flour, add powdered milk (for calcium), and know there’s no preservatives in it.
I’ve also learned to make bread and really enjoy that. To my surprise, it’s actually really easy! I haven’t tried sandwich loaves yet, but we’re not big sandwich eaters, so I make a lot of baguettes and artisanal-looking loaves.
These are some of the things I do to save money and have better quality products.
Coffee Beans
Roasting coffee is easy, and cheap but you have to watch it during the whole roasting process, and have a well ventilated area. Green coffee starts at $3.00 /lb. Organic, fair trade, shade grown,bird friendly coffee from all over the world. Fresh roast is a world apart from the stuff you might buy at the grocery store, which could have been roasted weeks or months before. I have had great selection and service from Burman Coffees: [www.burmancoffee.com] You can roast pretty much as dark as you like . The roasters start under 100 dollars, which would pay for itself quickly. Save 80-85% on what you are now spending for coffee, and if you buy an inexpensive espresso machine, you can wave bye bye to the prices and lines at the coffee shop.
Bread
I keep sourdough starter on hand and just need flour, water and salt to make bread. If you time it right (it takes 3 days to make a proper yeast-less sourdough) you can have fresh bread every week. I even use it to make sourdough flour tortillas and sopas. If you want it the same day, go ahead and add (expensive) yeast.
Soap
Soap making has come a long way from making it from scratch, using casutic lye. You can now buy it in bulk, and add your own colors, fragrances and essential oils. You can buy from a large variatey of soap bases and use the oil base you want (e.g. Olive instead of palm oil). This can be extended to make your own bath salts, bubble bath, shampoo, lip balm, etc. all from pre made bases for each type.
I can’t be bothered with the rigamarole of making oatmeal in the mornings. Even toast is too much.
So, I eat sandwiches for breakfast. It’s filling, you can eat it on the go, and because you’re eating the same for lunch most days, the cost per unit goes down.
What could be unhealthy about a tomato, ham and cheese on whole wheat for breakfast? Plus, making breakfast and lunch at the same time *saves* time.
Day old bread store.
Beans.
Sale papers. Walgreens, CVS, Target, Albertsons
Saving money on groceries requires a little work, but every little bit helps.
I make my own pizzas a lot… the frozen selection isn’t too charming anymore. I use pita bread as crust, tomato paste jazzed up with some herbs and garlic as sauce (freeze the leftovers in a small plastic container and then next time you need a bit of it you can shave it off with a spoon much like italian ice), fat free ricotta cheese and mozerella, plus whatever else (leftover meatballs, fresh basil, onions and peppers, etc) I feel like.
Don’t buy rice mixes, pilaf is really easy from scratch… just sautee some minced onion/garlic/shallots/whatever in a few tablespoons of oil or butter, add the dry rice, stir to coat rice with butter, add broth (I make my own out of leftover chicken carcasses) and cook on low. There’s also methods of making homemade pilaf in the oven.
Likewise, make your own ‘mexican’ rice simply by using bottled salsa as part of the cooking liquid, and adding garlic and cumin powder.
Please don’t buy those bagged chopped lettuce things. Really expensive and tasteless. Put a salad spinner on your birthday list, or be reckless like me and eat most of your lettuce unwashed. I am, however, a sucker for the bagged baby spinich…
Frozen vegetables are often the best compromise of taste/price. You can even buy frozen minced onions to use in recopies, great for people who are not organized enough in the kitchen to use up all their produce before it goes bad. Frozen corn, frozen pepper strips, frozen green beans are all staples in my kitchen.
When my wife and I decided to start eating healthier, we stopped eating out a few days a week and saved a lot of money just making dinner at home every night. We’ve started growing a few herbs and vegetables ourselves and that has helped out a bit too.
One of these days I have to start making my own bread. It wasn’t such a big deal when Wal*Mart had loaves for $0.50 but now it might make more sense.
Making your own pizza dough is a pain the behind, though.
@battra92: It takes a little time the first time but I try to make a double batch and freeze some so when I want pizza next, all I have to do is thaw it. I cook for just me so last time I made dough, I froze the dough and sauce in individual sizes. It makes it really easy to do homemade pizza.
@jmuskratt: Beat me to it!