feels good to stretch my dollars

I think this is flowing out of my challenge... but I have become more and more concious of how I am spending my money. As a stay at home mom, I love to do what ever I can to make things easier around here- in a way to feel like I am helping provide for the family. I have always bought second hand or on sales, and last year I got into canning and freezing produce and fruit. This is very fullfilling to me. The other night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, with excitement over the coming season of bounty.

the garden is coming...

 Garden bounty, fruit in the stores, fruit from BC, fruit from u-picks and fruit from people who have excess. I seriously was unable to sleep over this!


I admit I have been pretty proud of some of my house wife accomplishments as of late. This is not usual for me, so it is an accomplishment. I made homemade bagels the other day and they were amazing! Yum. I have been making some yummy breads too.

 I have been capitalizing on the 50% off fruit at Superstore- you know, that whole rack of one day old fruit. I have been very pick at what I'm buying and for the most part I've been very happy! The other day I grabbed 2 packages of strawberries, cost me $2.50 in total, and I was able to make 3 jars of strawberry jam with it. There were maybe 3 strawberries I wasn't able to use. The next day I got 2 of those blueberry packages. I washed them then lay them out on a cookie sheet and picked out any that were bad. There was maybe a small handful of unusable berries. I put them in the freezer like that and the next day I vaccuum sealed them (you could use ziploc baggies) into 6 different 2 cup packages that we will use in the winter for on our poridge or cereal. All those blueberries cost me $6.

Then today was another strawberry score.

All of these strawberries, as well as the bunch in the picture above were $2.

I spent $2 and got enough strawberries to freeze 4 pkgs worth and make some stewed fruit with the excess.

beginnings of stewed fruit

Stewed fruit in our home is strawberries, apples and rhubarb boiled together with some water and sugar until runny. This is also very good served on poridge, ice cream, cereal. For me these are triumphs, ways I feel like I am helping our family.

This may sound crazy to some of you but I made my own taco seasonings and spaghetti sauce seasoning mixes. I used only spices and ingredients I already have in my house, mixed them all up, and now they are ready to use. I always have cases of tomato sauce in the house, and so why not use them with the spice mix instead of buying spaghetti sauce?


I also made my own coffee creamer today. I thought I would give it a try anyways- just mixed a can of sweetened condensed milk (on sale for $2.50) with 1.5 C of milk and some vanilla. I haven't tried it in coffee yet, but from a spoon it is pretty amazing! I can't wait till 6 am tomorrow to have my first cup. So a 1 L jar of coffee creamer cost me about $3.25 to make, as opposed to the almost $5 that I spend at the store for my favorite.

 I also used coupons and saved 10% on my groceries today- which really was only $11 but every bit helps, right.

I don't mean to say that this is the way everyone should live, but it is a fun experiment for me right now. I am learning new things and using what I have more wisely.