Changing My Spending Habits

For the new year, I've decided to actually stick to my grocery budget every month instead of going over by 80 or more dollars. Yeah, I clip coupons and make a list, but it never fails that I buy stuff that I probably don't need.

For example, I buy cookies for school lunches. I have decided to bake the cookies, not just for the house, but for school as well. I bought a box of ziplock quart size freezer bags to use for this purpose. I usually bake cookies for the house, but had slowed down a bit until recently. The other night I baked 4 1/2 dozen oatmeal peanut butter cookies and put a dozen and a half in one of the bags and labeled it "for school lunches". I put the other 1 dozen and a half in the cookie jar and the rest in another bag labeled "home cookies". When home cookies start running out, I will replace them with freezer bag home cookies. Tomorrow I plan on making snickerdoodles and doing the same thing. A few days after that, I will bake some other kind and rinse and repeat.

This way, I will always have an assortment of cookies not just for home, but for school too! I'll let you know how it's going. I figure I am saving $14 a month since I shop once every two weeks and buy about $7 worth of cookies each time.

I'm also keeping my receipts from the store and based on stuff I usually buy, I will go over my list and write down what I feel the prices will be. This way I will get an idea of how much I'm spending before I go to the store. I clip coupons and use the ones based on what I need for the two weeks. I plan out my dinners two weeks at a time and actually write out meals that I will cook. This way I get exactly what I'm supposed to get at the store. I just have to stick to the extras. I'll write more about this later...

Who's with me on the sticking-to-the-budget-thingy for 2009?

Short Cut (ish) for Cooking?

I love to cook and bake. I made my older son's 19th birthday cake out of a Betty Crocker box mix. I can bake from scratch, but I really like taking short cuts. I guess I don't really consider it a short cut since I'm still taking the time to mix everything together and bake in the oven. A real shortcut would be to drive to Costco and get one of their cakes already made and decorated (I've done that too!).

Anyway, I've also used the cookie mixes from a bag, cake frosting, cake decorating tubes,and muffin mixes. I'm busy and the time savings are awesome! I really like the holiday cookies that come already cut out in shapes, so all you need to do is bake them. Every time I've made sugar cookies from scratch (real scratch), I can never roll them out good enough to cut them in shapes.

I want to know what are your favorite short cuts for cooking? I haven't made a biscuit from scratch in a year!