homemade

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How much do you really save on school lunches vs. making your own?

I hear this conversation (aka argument) at the beginning of every school year. How can it be cheaper to send lunch with your kids every day than to buy school lunches, especially when sending fresh fruits & veggies? My answer? It’s easy! Buy on sale, make it your self, and portion control! Do NOT buy prepackaged items! Have you looked at the sodium and sugar levels (not to mention the preservatives) in most of the prepackaged “lunch” items? It’s outrageous! And, if you have a child with ADD like we do, we try to limit the amount of sugars and Red Dye #40 that we give our children. We really see a difference in her demeanor when we do this. She can focus better and get her work done better.

Here’s a few tips:

  • Instead of chips, send pretzels – a bag of pretzel sticks costs me $1.18 and lasts me for about 1-1/2 weeks.
  • Buy fresh fruits & veggies in season as much as possible and give them choices, just don’t give them too many or they will be overwhelmed.
  • Write up a menu and place it where they can see it easily. Let them choose what they would like to take the night before. This makes already rushed mornings easier to deal with because you already know what they want. Also, prep as much as you can the night before. Shaves off a few more minutes of your already crazy morning.
  • Make food fun! Make cut outs in the sandwiches if they’ll eat it better that way. Here’s a tip: Cut the bread before adding the “filling”. If taking things ham & cheese, cut those and then place on the sandwich. You can put the extras on your sandwich at lunch or on a salad. The extra bread can be cut up and made into croutons or turned into bread crumbs.
  • Make roll-ups using tortilla shells and their favorite sandwich ingredients. It’s a nice change from the usual. You can also add a thin layer of cream cheese if using meats and cheeses. It gives it nice flavor and keeps the filling where it belongs.
  • Make homemade cookies instead of buying them and, instead of baking all the dough, freeze half of it in the form of balls so that when you need more cookies, you just pull out the amount needed, place on a cookie sheet, and bake. It only adds an extra minute or two when baking.
  • Instead of baggies, use some small Gladware (or equivalent) containers and reuse them. This saves us about $6.00/month (1 husband and 3 kids) or $72/year. May not sound like much, but it does make a difference.
  • Send leftovers! Soups are really good for this! Get a good metal thermos for this. It’s worth the extra money needed up front, but pays for itself very quickly and it can be used over and over and over again. Here’s a tip. Fill the thermos with boiling water and place lid back on. In the mean time, heat food to extremely hot/boiling. About 5 minutes before they are ready to leave, pour out the water and fill with boiling food items into thermos and replace lid. The food will still be warm at lunch.
  • Instead of prepackaged juice pouches or sodas, invest in a stainless steel thermos and send 100% juice, water, tea, etc. It’s reusable and will quickly pay for itself. Plus, you’re not sending drinks full of artificial flavors and sweeteners.

Here’s a great list of items that you can send that usually go over very well with all ages:

  • cheese (buy blocks and cut it up yourself – it’s cheaper)
  • raw veggies with dip (if they like that)
  • small salad with romaine lettuce
  • fresh fruits (canned will work, just buy lite syrup)
  • air-popped popcorn – very nice change from chips
  • baked tortilla chips and salsa
  • homemade soups, especially chicken noodle during cold/flu season
  • nuts are a good side
  • applesauce
  • homemade pizza roll ups
  • homemade “Lunchable” using crackers, ham, & cheese, or drizzle thin french bread slices with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, season with oregano and toast and send with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni slices.
  • pita bread sandwiches/pizzas are a nice change
  • homemade trail mix
  • yogurt with fruit and granola

Last but not least, I thought I would give you an example of what my kids took this week and how much it cost/saved me. Our school lunches are $1.75 at the elementary and $2.00 at the middle and high school. Each day varies depending on their choices, but here’s what my kids took for lunch one day this week:

Melia:

  • 3 pizza roll ups – $0.36
  • fresh strawberries – $0.45
  • Banana – $0.20
  • Pretzels – $0.05
  • 2 choc. chip cookies – $0.34
  • water – $0

Total: $1.40 Savings: $0.60

Katie:

  • 3 ham & cheese roll ups – $0.29
  • pretzels – $0.05
  • carrot sticks – $0.05
  • 2 peanut butter cookies – $0.14
  • Sweet Tea $0.01

Total: $0.54 Savings: $1.46

Michael:

  • 3 ham & cheese roll ups – $0.29
  • pretzels – $0.05
  • banana – $0.20
  • 2 choc. chip cookies – $.34
  • Apple Juice – $.20

Total: – $1.08 Savings: $0.67

Grand Total: $3.02

Total Savings: $2.73 or 47%

That’s a savings of approximately $10.92/month or $109.20/school year – give or take depending on sales, appetites, and what it costs to make the items.

This doesn’t include what my husband took, but if he were to eat out every day, it would cost us around $30-$50/week depending on where he went. By taking his lunch, we save anywhere from $24-$44/week or $96-$176/month or $1152-$2112/year! That’s a lot of money!

So, in the end sending a sack lunch with your kids to school DOES save money! And it’s not as hard as you think it is! Just a little time and planning ahead are all you need!

For more great frugal tips, check out Frugal Friday.

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Homemade Laundry Detergent

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This is not a food recipe, but I wanted to share it anyway. Hope you’re not too disappointed.
 
If you have not tried using homemade laundry detergent, you need to! Not only does it save you lots of money, but it smells good (without all the added perfumes) and it cleans well! I started using homemade detergent on January 1, 2009, and I’m not about to go back. It’s easy to make and even easier to use. Give it a try! I can pretty much guarantee you that you’ll never go back to buying store bought detergent again!
Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent
Ingredients:
  • 4 cups hot water
  • 1 bar Fels-Naptha soap
  • 1 cup washing soda (not baking soda)
  • 1/2 cup Borax
  • 1 clean 5 gallon bucket
  1. Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
  2. Fill a five-gallon bucket half full of HOT tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

    3. Stir well (You can stir it best with a paint stirrer drill attachment. It does an excellent job of mixing everything up.) and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (It will gel.)

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Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per two gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil. (I have not tried this yet because I love the smell of the detergent itself.)

Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons. Top-load machine: 5/8 cup per load (approximately 180 loads). Front-load machine: ¼ cup per load (approx. 640 loads).
**If you cannot find Fels-Naptha bar soap, you could use Ivory, Sunlight, or Zote bars. Don’t use heavily perfumed soaps. I really prefer to use Fels-Naphta (did not like Ivory) and I bought mine (a full case) online here, but you can also buy it buy the bar here. Washing soda and Borax can normally be found in the laundry or cleaning aisle. Just remember that you want WASHING Soda not Baking Soda. I could not find washing soda locally but later found a place to buy it in the future, but I did order that online as well with free shipping!**
Recipe cost works out as follows (prices will vary):
  • 1 bar Fels-Naphtha = $1.37/bar
  • 1 cup washing soda = $6.49 or $0.93/ 1 cup needed per batch (about 7 = 1 cup portions/box)
  • 1/2 cup Borax = $3.66 or $0.19/half cup needed per batch (about 19 = 1/2 cup portions/box)

Total: $2.49/10 GALLONS of detergent (I’ve only used about 1/3 of my 5 gallon bucket in 6 months!!) .

That’s approx. 640 loads for front load (1/4 cup/load) or approx. 180 loads for top load (5/8 cup/load.

That equals out for $0.004/load for front load or $0.0138/load for top load.  I used to use Gain detergent and was paying about $15 for the largest container (cheapest I could find it). This would last me about 6 weeks. I do roughly 10 loads of laundry per week for my family of 5.

Gain Detergent/year: Approx. $135/year or $0.25/load

Homemade detergent/year: $2.49/year or $0.004/load

Savings: $132.51/year or $0.246/load

I have a front load, so this is a HUGE savings for me! Now, instead of adding Clorox 2 or Clorox to really our dirty clothes (anyone with kids knows that there can be quite a few of those) I’ll add about 1/4 extra Borax or Washing Soda directly to the load. This really helps get the really ground in dirt out of the clothes.

I pretreat clothes by pouring a tiny amount of the detergent on the stain itself, rubbing it in with my finger, and letting it set overnight. You can also treat stains by dampening them and rubbing them with Fels-Naptha soap.

If you have hard water, you can also vary the amounts of the Borax and Washing Soda by adding more to the batch of detergent. You can play with these amounts to suite your needs.

I hope you’ll give homemade detergent a try. It’s well worth it! Don’t forget to check out The Grocery Cart Challenge for more great recipes this week! And please remember to check out Life As Mom for more great frugal tips!

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Recipe Swap: Homemade Yogurt

Thanks to Stephanie at A Year of Slow Cooking, I decided to give this a try. I’ve made it on the stove before, but I did not have time to stand over it so I thought that I would try this method. I have a 2-quart Crock Pot, so I just halved the recipe. Actually, I used just under 2 quarts of milk. I also added some vanilla extract to the milk since I had plain yogurt.

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The milk will slowly heat in the Crock Pot for about 2-1/2 hours. Mine only took about 2 hours,probably because I don’t have a high & low setting on this one.

After it has heated up to about 130 degrees, turn it off and let it cool down to about 115 degrees. It’s still pretty warm, but not too warm to touch. While this is cooling down, I scooped 1/4 cup of yogurt into a bowl and let it come to room temperature. After the milk had cooled down, I added about 1/2 cup of the warm milk to the yogurt and stirred well. It immediately started to thicken up which is a very good sign! Add this mixture back to the remaining milk in the Crock Pot, stir well, and cover with towels to insulate it. This keeps it from cooling down too quickly.

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Let mixture set for about 6 to 8 hours, or until it starts to thicken up.

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Pour into containers and place in the refrigerator overnight to finish thickening up.

Well, I think I rushed mine. It was setting up very nicely, but I put it in the fridge too quickly. It cooled off quicker than it should have (maybe because it was setting in front of the AC? 😉 ) so I went ahead and put in the fridge. We’ll use this to make smoothies, eat with fruit, etc. I will definitely be doing this again, but next time I’ll place it in a different location and it will NOT go in the fridge before it has set for 8 hours.

Don’t forget to check out the Grocery Cart Challenge for more great recipes!