Just call us Ma -n- Pa

I've been very inspired lately by all these blogs that I read of frugal, Christian SAHM's who take all these shortcuts and do a lot of things by hand, that I have paid out the wazoo for in the store - simply because of the convenience. I am a working mother, so I know I'm somewhat justified in buying into the convenience of a lot of items, but well - when you're trying to get your grocery budget down, convenience runs up the bill! Before Grace was born, I had tremendously, unrealistically high hopes of doing cloth diapers. That so did not happen. Not even once. I don't think either one of my girls ever made it into a cloth diaper even one time. But I have a lot of nice burp rags, puke picker uppers thanks to our small group at the time, who outfitted us with items necessary to do cloth diapers. And, I'm sure that cloth diapers totally work - but not for this girl. I overshot BIG time on that dream. But I am finding out, as I read different things and find different ideas on-line, that there are some little, less time consuming things that Hubs and I can do on a weekend where we have nothing else to do and it is FRIGID out. This weekend consisted of creating homemade versions of things we normally pay for at the store -regularly.


First off, we have bagels. I heart bagels. And we never buy them because they are EXPENSIVE if you want to get the tasty ones. 3.00 for 6 bagels? Unless you get a sale and you can get them for 2.00. I rarely find a bagel coupon. Mom used to make homemade English muffins and I have tried my hand at that, successfully, I might add. And Clint got it into his head that he wanted to try making bagels. Looked up a recipe on-line and voila - 40 beautiful and tasty bagels that I figured cost us about 4.00 when adding all of the ingredient costs. He made a double batch of honey wheat, one batch of poppyseed, garlic, onion flavored and, my personal favorite, a batch of sesame seed. NUMMERS. They are so good! They aren't a huge bagel, they are just the right size. So- that's about the net cost of .10 a bagel that tastes better than the store bought ones that will run you .50 cents each. Way to go, Hubby!


The next thing we made this weekend turned out to be a SWEET deal. I had read about Moms who drastically reduce the cost of wipies (another convenience item!) by making their own. I bought some cheap-o paper towels and two trial size bottles of baby wash and baby oil a couple weekends ago and we gave it a shot. It works! Although, I don't recommend using cheapies because they tear fairly easily and you go through a lot when you have a morning *ahem* blow-out. So, I was exceedingly excited to take advantage of Meijer's Bounty Basic 10/$10 deal this past week, as I also has 1.00/2 coupons to match up. I had four coupons, so we're talking 8 rolls of towels, 4 bucks and a lot of wipies. Well- when we got to Meijers, they also had the Bounty Extra Soft, 2-ply - (soooo much better than the Basic 1-ply) 10/$10 as well. I was stoked! And they make GREAT wipies! One roll made 1 and 1/2 tubs of wipies. I totalled the cost of the baby wash, baby oil and paper towel and came out to roughly .75 to make a tub and a half. Compared to 3.99 Huggies wipies I bought at Rite Aid. Woohoo! I figure a tub and a half will last us about 4-6 weeks, so we're looking at the next 8 months of wipies running us about 6.00. And it didn't take that long to do! What have I been doing paying so much these past three years?!? Ah, the convenience factor strikes again.

The last thing isn't a huge major deal, but I took a picture of it because it was so pretty and seriously the best salsa I've ever eaten. The only thing that would have made it better would be to add some jalapenos to it. It was so-o-o-o-o-o-0 good. Black beans, corn, tomatoes, red onions and avocado with italian seasoning...I didn't make one meal for Clint and I this weekend, but we ate all the salsa up! I don't think we saved anything on the salsa, the totals were about the same, and especially since I got a ton of free salsa a while back, the total probably cost us about as much as a normally priced jar of salsa would have, but the taste...oh, baby, the taste - was so much better.

Okay - I have a confession to make. Clint made all of these things! Ha ha - but, I did a TON of dishes. That boy can create, but he uses EVERY stinking dish in the house! So, my part in all of our Little House on the Prairie weekend was cleaning up and giving him the ideas. Not too bad a deal at all. And hey, when you have no entertainment budget, what else are you going to do during the Long Winter, but make baby wipes and bagels?

Next up - more English muffins, pizza crusts to freeze and Clint wants to start making bread as well.