Inspiration to Save Money for Fun
photo by olaf
photo by Spices of Life
I have discover an old way to save money so that I can pay for the extra cost of gas and still have the money to take the family out for miniature golf and dinner. You can thank my six year old to remind me of the days of preserving food either via canning or freezing.
The key areas to save are to utilize fruits and vegetables that are in season and create the base or final product that you, your family or the organization use. For instance a crate of tomatoes and the ingredients to make spaghetti sauce can be produced in one day of cooking and canning and save you lots of money for the following six months. We use sauce a minimum of once a week and enjoy the savings each week. A little trick I learned to help you busy folks. Once you ground up the tomatoes put them in the Tupperware or similar container and set overnight in the refrigerator; the pulp will separate. While it will require have less time to boiler out the water, it does decrease the amount of time to blend the favors.
When it comes to pesto, the olive oil and ingredients freeze real well. Use the small containers that are about the 2-inch size. It does not take much to give you the taste you want.
Do not limit yourself to a vegetables current form. My favorite is Zucchini Bread. It freezes well after you make it.
Try freezing the fruits or making the jams and using them to add to your yogurt. It is a whole lot cheaper to buy plain yogurt and add your own favors. You never have to think about what is on sale.
Some of you might be thinking, wow this is time consuming. You are wrong. It is just enough of your time to prepare for a large dinner party but once it is over you have the fruits of your labor for months to come and the savings to show for it. The reason canning works best is that it does not require storage in the refrigerator. I estimated that base on our small family garden for four and buying at the farmers market in bulk and doing the canning and freezing that our family saves about 20 dollars at a minimum a week. All it took was planning. Getting the two boys to help was easy.
P.S. The child whom hates vegetables loves the pesto he helps to make. He even likes spinach because it makes the cheese in the lasagna firmer.
Oh, do not forget that you know the food is healthy because you made it and it does not include all of the sodium and other ingredients you prefer to avoid.
How much could you save? How valuable is money to you or your organization? Is saving $400 worth it? Is saving $1,000 worth it? What if an employee doing this you could use the money their savings for retirement? What if the employee could use that money to save for their child’s college fund? What if an employee could use that money to buy pampers for their infant? What if your organization could save thousands of dollars each year, teach individuals the skill to maximize their dollar on food costs and use that money to cover the increase in fuel costs? What if possibilities do not have to be a dream? Make a plan, implement it and watch the dreams become reality.
