It seems like ages since I've posted anything about how we're doing on our grocery budget in conjunction with going more homemade. My original goal was to grocery shop once a month and get our budget down to $400 for the whole month. The monthly shopping hasn't really worked out for us, mainly because we go through so much milk and eggs that I was still going to the store every other week no matter what. Plus, I get tired out very easily and a full month worth of shopping at once is exhausting to me. So we're back to the bi-weekly shopping and we're doing pretty good at keeping to the budget.
The past few months have been trial and error on homemade items. Some are actually more expensive to make than to buy, while others have been great savers for us. Some of the flops include homemade shells & cheese, taco seasoning and fabric softener. My biggest money saver is the homemade laundry detergent. It costs me approximately $0.35 for a gallon and it does a great job cleaning our clothes. The recipe for it is here. Other big savers are pizza dough, pancake mix, homemade granola & granola bars, instant oatmeal, English muffin bread, and pasta & pizza sauce. I also extend our milk spending by buying 1% and when each gallon is half empty, filling the rest up with powdered milk. We normally drink 1/2% here so no one ever notices a taste difference.
I am constantly on the look out for new recipes and things to try in order to add to our homemade life. I picked up this great book up on my Nook from our library called The Homemade Pantry. It has some great recipes and has inspired me to attempt to do my own pickles and cheese. We'll see how those work out as I tackle them in the future.
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