Budget Friendly Productive Morning

The easiest way for me to stay on a budget, especially a food budget is to make and freeze cookies and homemade bread. 

Dave Ramsey recommendations to getting out of debt is eating rice and beans. I have found better and more appetizing ways to keep on budget then just rice and beans - although they are great fillers to stay on budget. A steady diet of rice and beans makes your palate sad. I need treats to survive. I wish I didn't, but I do. 

I usually go about a month before I have to go to a grocery store. This is because when we are hungry, we go in the kitchen and open the fridge to see what we can eat. Nothing looks good because we really want a snack (out of meal time). 

I try to keep my freezer full of bags of homemade cookies so that we always have cookies on hand. I take a day every other week or when needed to bake bread and cookies and put them the freezer. That way I always have them on hand. When a bag is nearly empty I pull another bag out of the freezer to thaw. They are just as good as when newly baked and I only have to heat up the oven for one day of baking.

If we have things to eat on hand, then I don't go to the grocery store until we are out of milk, eggs, veggies and fruit. If we crave chips and are out we pop some popcorn which takes care of the same craving. 

This morning while it was still cool outside and my windows were open, I baked up 3 batches of cookies because I took the last bag of cookies out of the freezer last week. 

Lately I've been making homemade Oreo cookies too, but I was out of cake mixes and cream cheese. My freezer won't have them again until I go to the store and stock up again.

Today I made Ginger Snaps, Peanut Butter Crisscrosses Cookies and Chocolate chip with Peanut butter chip cookies (tastes like a Reeses Peanut butter cup in a cookie). 

My freezer is full again to keep me on budget. When I don't go to the store I don't spend money! The longer I can stay away from going to the store, the more money I save.  I love food storage and always keep the following on hand at all times (A years supply) - flour, sugar, brown sugar and spices, plus I always keep eggs in the fridge to last a month. That way my freezer is full of cookies and bread. 

One final note, I re-use the freezer bags because cookies aren't liquid and the bags are still good to use again. I just wipe out the cookie crumbs and they are ready to go with a new batch of cookies. I'm frugal that way.