45 Comments
This post may contain affiliate or referral links. Read more about this in our disclosurepolicy.
Convenience seems to be the name of the game lately. Buy it and pay more to save time. But many things we buy to save time don't take that much time at all and can save us some big money in the long run. We sat down and looked at things we ate or used on a regular basis to see where would save some money. We started making the following 7 things at home like homemade french fries. It doesn't take much more time than normal to cook, and our version taste better are healthier, cost less or clean better!
So here is our list and how we did it!
Update: We have recently also shared60 Things to Make Instead of Buying.
So the first 2 items we started making are non-food items. We started making some of our own cleaners when my son had a BAD reaction to we believe our new laundry soap.
First we started making our own homemadeLaundry Soap. I made a post a few weeks back with the recipe we use. I had been meaning to try making my own soap since I saw the idea on the Duggars show (yes THAT long ago!) but hadn't done it until my son broke out in hives when we switch laundry soaps.
The second item we started making our DIYwindow cleaner. This formula cleans better than Windex has for me in the past! It's great for mirrors too as well as Car windows which seem to get the dirtiest for me!
The next 5 items are food items that have saved us about $40 or more a month on our grocery bills.
The first thing we started making on our own was Jams. Grape jelly is the cheapest and we really aren't grape jelly people (unless I'm preggo and craving peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches). We like strawberry jam or apple pie jams. The first jam I ever made was strawberry freezer jam. I then branched out to the freezer blueberry Jam and then canning jams! I like to get the fruit for these jams when they are in season so I can get the fruit at it's cheapest! (PS I love these jar for canning my jams!)
Once I got the hang of canning we got my mom's family pasta sauce recipe and started making it and canning it. We use this sauce on pasta, on pizza, on sandwiches, lasagna and more. It also makes a great dipping sauce. We make 13 LARGE jars at a time with makes 26 meals for us. The pasta sauce cooks all day, takes just a few minutes to toss together it cooks all day and for dinner we will have easy spaghetti with fresh sauce then it takes us an hour to can and process the jars and we are done for 3-4 months!
Next we started making handmadepizza crust. I bought a pound ofYeastfor under $10 and since we buy flour and sugar and all in bulk to make other items we have it on hand so we had what we needed. Even the crust packs you buy at the store have to rise so it isn't costing you any any more time.
Next we tackled homemadegarlic bread. We were paying $3 or more for a pack of garlic bread that feed us for one meal! we take a loaf of white bread we can get for under $1 and melt a stick of butter which on sale will cost us about 25¢ or less and add in some garlic salt and for around $1.25 we have homemade garlic bread and more of it then you buy in a box!
Most recently we started making homemade french fries. We bought a potato cutter and have been cutting our own fries now. We can 10lb of potatoes for between $3 -$4. We can get around 10 meals out of it. I love that with homemade french fries we can season fries any way we want, or we can dice potatoes and dow breakfast potatoes. I do still buy tater tots because I haven't mastered those yet!
So what do you make to save money?
