dollars. (I hope you all have a budget...if not, now is the time to crunch the numbers.)
I often have friends ask me how our family stretches our budget on one income so I thought I should start sharing some of what works for our family. Yes, we get creative, cut "luxuries" out of our budget, and try to enjoy free activities to make it work, but we truly feel like we never go "without".Though being thrifty is nothing really new for us at the Little Blue Bungalow, I thought I'd start sharing a thrifty tip starting on Thursdays. Beginning this week, I'll will be giving you a little sneak peak on Thursdays into the cost-saving techniques we use at the Little Blue Bungalow.
My first tip is actually a special treat that is created from my kids left-over fruit. When my kids began eating I was really shocked and saddened to see how much food I was throwing away on a daily basis. No matter what I did to combat it, I still felt I was throwing away too much food. However, one day I decided to start throwing all of the fruit they left on their plates into a freezer bag. Every sporadic grape, 2 bites of banana left, etc I popped them into the bag and into our freezer.
In a couple of weeks I had a quart size freezer bag of apples slices, mandarin oranges, smashed bananas, a kiwi slice, random green grapes, etc. I set the bag on the counter for about an hour to thaw it a bit. Later I threw the contents of fruit bag, some skim milk, a few frozen blue berries I had on hand and honey (to taste) and turned the blender on for a few seconds. Walla! Instantly I had created a delicious fruit smoothie (or "ice cream" as my kids call it...ha, ha!) from the left-over fruit that would have ended up in the compost or garbage. What a cost saving and my entire family LOVES this special treat! The cool part is if you have any left-over smoothie you can just place it in a freezer container and place it into the freezer for another day. (Just scoop it out like ice cream...a little bit of heaven!) Our family has been enjoying these fruit smoothies for over a year now.
Hey, a penny is a penny. And we all could use an extra penny these days...well maybe more than a penny!
From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean
1 comment:
Katie - Keep on blogging. I read your posts quite often and feel like I know what's going on in your fam. You've inspired me to update my blog more often.
One of these days, I need to come and visit!!
Jenn (hisjm.blogspot.com)
Post a Comment