I have stopped buying as many box mixes and prepackaged foods and am....

I grew up with meals like this and that's how I learned to cook. I make almost everything from scratch, but confess a weakness for potato chips and soft drinks - the two worst things one can buy, both in terms of money and health! Here's an easy way to make those flour tortillas and save even more: 3 cups flour 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder Mix well, then add a quarter cup of fat (lard, shortening or vegetable oil), then add about a cup of cold water, a little at a time until you have a soft dough. Divide this in half, then in half again and then into thirds. Shape each piece into a ball, then roll out. Cook on a hot griddle one at a time, about 20 seconds on each side, or until you can see the light brown marks.

That is a good thing to be able to save money and you have seemed to figure it out for the most part. These times certainly call for needing to stretch the all mighty dollar and finding ways to cut corners is the name of the game for a lot of people. I think that I could learn a lot from some of the things you mentioned. Food can go a long way so long as you don't let it go to waste. I like your idea of saving broth from steak and beef. It all goes such a long way when you think about it. Anything to put a little extra money in our pockets!

We make almost everything from scratch. We do buy shredded cheese, but mostly because our block cheese selection in a small town sucks and is more expensive (especially under the question of quantity) than shredded. Occasionally we will buy some box mixes, but mostly to save on ingredients for a larger meal or dessert using the box mix sortof AS an ingredient in itself, to make that meal or dessert cheaper than it woulda otherwise been). We don't let any bits go to waste, either. Juices from meats are used to fry up hashbrowns or in other meals, in soups, etc. Veggie leavings can be made into vegetable stock or compost, leftovers are almost always turned into another meal. We try to stay creative.

I don't make alot of things from scratch. I try though and we don't go out to eat often or buy too many convience food. The only things I make from scratch are noodles and soups. I'd like to do what you are doing with making big batches of things and freezing them however I need to get a deep freezer first and when that will ever be I don't know.

good for you. i have always cooked most everything fro scratch. all those ready made thingss you buy are quite expensive. eating out all the time is bad to. everybody needs to get back to cooking from scratch. it's going to be a lost art if people don't.

What a great idea and I'll bet they are much better for you also. If you have time I don't see how you can go wrong with this.

We make almost everything from scratch. Most of what I make is muffins, pancakes, squares, etc - so baked things. My husband makes soups, stews, and well, does all of the cooking. We do save by doing this, although we've been doing it for so long it's not really about saving anymore, it's just how we do it. My husband won't even buy cookies or chips anymore, because I can just make us stuff for treats. I kind of miss potato chips.

i have stopped doing that ages ago, except for the bread - we either buy it on sale, or we make our own. i make a lot of home made soups and we make our own waffles (we got a waffle maker as a gift one christmas and the breadmaker came from friends of ours who didnt need it). at the grocery store, the only prepackaged snack i buy are for my kids lunches and are ALWAYS on sale (or i dont buy them!)

Those are fantastic ideas.Do you make your own tortillas or buy pre-made?I shred all our cheese it goes much farther that way. I love making homemade soups. I save the carcasses from chicken and turkeys that we have and boil them up for stock. I save any veggies and freeze them until i need them.I find it a hallenge to see how many meals I can get out of one piece of meat.I bake almost everything from scratch. I only buy mixes when they are on sale and I have coupons. I was able to buy 4 cakes mixes for .30cents each the other day with double coupon savings.I make bread from scratch. The one thing I do buy every week no matter the cost is milk for the kids.

I wish that I could make all those changes. But hubby can't have dried beans, but I love them. I make our bread, fresh bread is sooooo good and we both love it. I have a couple of I do that really helps. You can use either chicken or turkey (any meat I'm sure) with a whole chicken the 1st night I roast it with potatoes, green beans, and carrots. 2nd. night, 2-4 cups chicken (I use 1/2 of the left over chicken) the leftover veggies from 1st night, 1 can cream soup, 3/4 c. milk, mixed at put in a greassed 9x13 pan. Make 6 servings of stuffing and spread over top and bake 350 for 30 min. makes 6 servings. After I'm done making that I put the whole chicken carcuss with what meat is on it and put it in my large crockpot/slow cooker with 8-10 cups of water, seasoning, and some sodium free bullion crystals. Cook it on low for 12 hrs. Drain with a colonder broth in another pan, bones and chicken in the coloander. Remove all the bones, put chicken meat in broth, add veggies, beans, noodles or rice (what ever you like)then you can have it all cook in the crockpot. I then freeze this into 2 cup servings. This way makes the best broth and soup. Hubby doesn't care for soup much, so I make the soup, thicken it up with some flour and tell him it's stew. Works great. Keep in mind that if you have a crockpot by cooking cheaper/tougher cuts of meat it one will make the meat more tender and you can save more money. I have to agree with you, I much preferr the frozen veggies, cheaper,fresher, and easy to store. When the holidays are around, I also pick up an extra ham and turkey to keep in the fridge. Even though its just me and hubby I buy the family packs of meat, divide it up and put into freezer bags with meal size portions inside.Family packs are 30 cents or more less per pound. I would be lost without my small freezer and crockpots. Any kind of roast can be shredded and mixed with homemade bbq sauce and you can have sandwiches. Don't forget the 1950"s tuna cassarole with the chip crumbs on top.

A penny saved is a penny earned. The saving should not spoil the quality of your life, but may bring about a side product of more simple, green, and natural life. When got sticken by the crisis, we see traditional thoughts of frugality coming to be accepted among younger generation. Deposit is the ABC of our financial qualification, a lesson should have been from childhood.

I cook most things from scratch. Once you learn how easy most things are to make, you'll be making your own soups, dinners, excellent meals, desserts and more from scratch. This helps my own budget because I grow a large amount of my own vegetables, so my daughter and I eat a lot of soups, salads and vegetable bakes regularly. I also bake my own bread and make my own pizza bases and pasta mixes. My grocery bill is very low each week - usually things I can do myself, like sugar, coffee, milk and eggs. Everything else is done from scratch from my own yard.

I always make homemade soup, stews, spaghetti sauce. I use very few processed meals. It is cheaper and tastes better and so much healthier for you.

I make chicken pot pies, cubed up chicken, frozen mixed vegetables, chicken gravy and pie crust. Beef pot pies are just as easy to make with beef, or hamburg and brown gravy. Make up a bunch and pop in the freezer.

Hi frenchcountry:I'm thrilled that you have found healthy eating through making your meals from scratch. Most don't believe that it really doesn't take that long to put a nutritious meal on the table, or how much money you can save. Compared to eating out, you really save but when you buy from the grocery store, and prepare your foods at home, you are not just saving money, but getting healthier as well. We are a society that is so on the go that we don't have time to plan a meal, let alone cook one. What that has translated to over the years has really cost our families a lot. Not just in terms of money or health, but on the family unit as well. In terms of eliminating prepared foods, you stop putting all the chemicals they contain in your body. Whether frozen, canned, or boxed one is putting chemicals and preservatives they contain into the human body which has no clue what they are, let alone what to do with them. The end result of this type of eating over a prolonged period of time is that we are slowly poisoning our bodies. We wonder why we are such a sick society? We need look no further than the eating habits we have learned to adapt as a way of life. I tried to explain this to my grandmother who couldn't understand why she started getting so sick with every ailment imaginable. She wouldn't understand that the very packaged foods she relied on for life, was actually killing her. She eventually passed, and we miss her dearly. But, we still continue to prepare most everything we eat from scratch, including bread. We have started our own garden as well. The most important thing to remember is this: The less processed your food it by the time it gets to the table, the healthier it is for you. My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary yesterday. When I first met him, he weighed well over 200 pounds. That doesn't sound like much, but he's not a big person, so 200 was well over what he should have weighed. He suffered from high blood pressure, and high cholestoral. I introduced him to an entirely new way to enjoy foods, he's lost the weight, and no longer has the conditions that had him on medication, so he's meds free. Pharmaceutical medications is another killer in our society. The less you can take of them, the better your health will become, but alas, that's a subject for another discussion. Good luck, and I hope to hear from you as to what recipes you have tried that you have adopted as your favorites!!!!Take care.....