10 Tips and Tricks for Homemade Cost Cutting

Hi and welcome to this week’s episode of the Homestead Education Podcast. I’m recording a little late this week cuz I enjoyed the 4th of July with my family and I hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend as well. Can you believe this is the 12th episode already? When I started podcasting I planned a year’s worth of content with my first season being 12 episodes to see how it would go, and I have to say, I have absolutely loved every minute of every episode. The feedback has been so wonderful and encouraging. I have a few fun ideas up my sleeve for the show over the next few months, so add the homestead education to your favorite podcast player to make sure you don’t miss any of the great information. Next season is gonna be all about continuing to homeschool and homestead after the pandemic and going into these supply chain shortages that we’re being warned of.

I’m gonna have some guests on the show for the first time talking about how to finance a home life, making your own products, stocking up on food stores and a few others that I’m still working on scheduling. It’s gonna be an informative season and I’m really looking forward to it. On to today’s episode. Homemade cost cutting. I thought this topic would be ideal for today for two reasons. One, it kind of aligns with next season and two, with kids home for the summer, eating everything and parents having to pay for childcare and insane inflation. Everyone could use a few tips right now. I have told the part of our story that includes going all natural a few times, but that’s also how I ended up cost cutting as well. We took our family of eights’ food budget from 1500 a month to 300 a month. I did this without coupons or buying a bunch of cheap box food.

The first thing I did was meal planning, blah, blah, blah. I’m not talking about a detailed schedule on a whiteboard in the kitchen that you have to follow to a tee that’s not real unless you’re a stepford wife, and there’s really no reason to stress yourself out trying to be one. I’ve talked about our method before in episode nine on how to get it all done on your homestead, but this is about the money part at the beginning of each pay period. Ours was monthly for a long time, but weekly and biweekly work too. I number the lists of however many dinners I need to make that pay period and I start adding meals in no particular order. What I will do is make sure I have an equal number of easy meals that my kids can cook, or if your kids aren’t old enough, easier for you or your spouse to whip up meals that I can put in the crock pot and other long cook options like braising and harder to cook meals.

Then, I shop my freezer and pantry for the ingredients before I make my shopping list. This does two things. First, it makes sure that I’m not doubling up on things that I’m buying and second, when you go shopping, you’re keeping yourself from having to go to the store every day and potentially buying things you don’t need. Now put the list of meals on the refrigerator and whoever cooks dinner that night should have everything they need to make the meal and they can cross it off what they’ve cooked so whoever cooks the next night knows what the options are. It’s kind of organized chaos, but you’ll be surprised how much you end up saving. Plus we usually end up having leftovers for one or two nights, so then we have rollover meal options for the next pay period. Saving you more money. This next tip is great if you have a bunch of kids at home or if you’re you or your spouse, pack a lunch every day.

Also pack a lunch as often as you can. First, invest in a large number of small stackable freezer safe containers. I bought something like 30 on Amazon for $15. I did a few things with these. One of them was every night after dinner, if there weren’t enough leftovers for another meal, I pack them in the little containers, label them and put ’em on a dedicated shelf in the freezer. After a while, there becomes a stockpile of some of these along with some other things I’m gonna mention and your kids who yourself can just grab one off the shelf for a ready made super cheap or essentially free lunch that otherwise would’ve been thrown out or fed to the dog. I know a lot of people do this next option, but what I’m gonna highlight is how to make it sustainable and not get burned out.

One option is frozen burritos. Now those frozen burritos from the store are super expensive, so I watch for refried beans to be on sale or I make my own. It’s really cheap, especially if you have an Instapot. I just rinse a pound of dry beans, add it to the pot with four cups of chicken broth or water, add some seasonings- I like to use my taco seasoning blend and set it on manual for 45 minutes and then release pressure naturally afterwards, mash or slightly blend with an immersion blender and shred a block of cheese. Then wrap a tortilla and freeze. These make for super cheap and fast lunches that maybe take 10 minutes to prep. Kids can go ahead and add some extra salsa or sour cream after they heat ’em up. 

One that my kids love is homemade uncrustables. These are the sealed frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can buy one of those sandwich sealers online, but as my kids have gotten older, they don’t really mind a whole sandwich. This is another easy one. The next time your kids want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just make a whole loaf’s worth and freeze them in baggies or wax paper. They thaw in just a few minutes and they’re really, really tasty. This also works for single pieces of pizza, pre-cooked extra hamburger patties or go ahead and pre-cook a bunch. I do it on my George Foreman Grill and even little containers of extra soup. Make a grilled sandwich and you have a whole meal. Next thing you know, you’ll have a shelf or two with tons of lunch and snack options that don’t break the bank and if you get too many, stop prepping for a couple weeks until they clear out.

Okay, I just realized I’m going backwards on meals, but my next tip is for breakfast. I’m convinced that the commercial breakfast industry is banking completely on kids, the crazy expensive breakfast cereals that are all fillers and sugar just blow my mind. This is one place that I’ve really tried to make a difference. I’m not saying that some of my options that I put together are sugar free, mostly far from it, but they have mainly whole ingredients and some use honey and have the option for organic raw sugars. One favorite is the homemade instant oatmeal packets. I’ll be linking that recipe in the show notes and it’s been a little while since I did the math, but last time I checked I wanna say that the oatmeal packets were only a few cents to make up to maybe a quarter depending on which ingredients you use.

Even at bulk stores, the cheapest I found is 40 cents a piece. Oh, and did I mention my cost is for a double packet? If your family really likes oatmeal, there are some other options that we have tried and really liked. I don’t have the recipes offhand, but just Google ’em or go to Pinterest. One is overnight oats. I love this option for me. I make a big batch that has oatmeal, yogurt or kefir fruits and nuts and put it in the fridge. Then for a few days I can just scoop a serving and eat it hot or cold. Another one that I like to do on cold mornings is starting a batch of oatmeal in the Instapot while we do our morning chores. When we come back in from the cold, we have a hot breakfast for everyone ready to go. 

Okay, back to pre-prepared foods.Some that my crew like are banana and zucchini breads. I’ll make a few loaves at once and freeze individual slices. Then they can just be popped in the microwave or toaster oven in the morning. If they get a little crunchy from reheating, a spoonful of yogurt makes it delicious. Then of course there’s the old standard breakfast burritos. When my kids can eat a whole box of cereal in the morning that costs $5 and I can switch them to something that costs only a dollar. That’s a savings of over a hundred dollars a month. 

Alright, my fourth one is bread. Let’s talk about bread, tortillas, and pasta. These felt the biggest and most daunting to me when I first started down this road, but like always, I have found a way to make them work into my everyday life. First of all, with bread, don’t make one loaf. That is a ridiculously time consuming thing to do for something that only costs a few dollars at the store. This change is to make a less expensive loaf of bread along with keeping you out of the grocery store, buying unnecessary items. So whether you knead your bread, work it in a mixer or use a bread machine, always make more than one loaf. If you won’t eat the one loaf before it goes bad, then double your yeast and freeze the dough after the first rise if needed. So how I do it, before anything, I mix all my dry ingredients for one batch into Ziploc bags. I usually try to have about 10 bags in the pantry at any time. This makes it easier and quicker to get started. Also makes it where it’s easier for the kids to help out. Then I use bread machines. I feel no shame in using bread machines over hand kneading because I hand knead with my French breads and I’m trying to do this to save time and money, because let’s face it, time is money.

Whichever day of the week I’m going to bake bread, I pull out both of my machines. I heat the milk and water to a hundred degrees, dump in my dry bag and add in my other wet ingredients. Now this is where I do it differently. I hate the loaves made in bread machines. They are huge, odd shaped and always have a hole in the bottom from the mixing paddle. So I use the dough setting. This is also great for pizza crust. Once the cycle is done, I punch down the dough, do a light knead and split each batch into two loaves and shape nicely into greased red pans. I cover them with a tea towel, let them rise for about an hour and then bake them. Because I use two machines, I end up with four loaves. This is often all we need for the week and it’s very little work for me.

And also when we go back to breakfasts, my kids love homemade bread with jam or peanut butter or even just butter on them. If you want my full recipe, you can get my free ebook. Homemade cost cutting. When you subscribe to my website, I’ll link it in the show notes.

Tortillas and pastas. Okay, I’ll admit I haven’t found the greatest hack for these yet, but I have found that they’re way easier to make than I’ve always been led to believe and can be made right before a meal that they’re needed for and tasted way better than anything you buy from the store. One tip I do have though is if you’re gonna be using a tortilla press, buy a big enough one. Mine is too small and I wish I would’ve spent the money to get a bigger one. 

My next tip is lunch meat.

This is my go-to to save money. Like why is just a few ounces of meat so expensive? So I watch for roast to be on sale or we grow our own, but I’ll talk about that one later. I marinate ’em or dry rub ’em and then smoke or slow roast, even cook in the crock pot or braze them in the dutch oven and then I slice them real thin. I have a meat slicer that I love and it makes things a lot easier. Then I split them into 8 to 16 ounce packs and freeze them. This saves so much money and tastes way better than the slimy store lunch meat and is better for you. This can be done with pork, beef, chicken, breast or Turkey breast, even low end, even low end cuts that are slow roasted. Just put them in a crockpot and they can be really delicious.

Now I said I’d talk about growing your own meat. If you can raise your own and already have the facilities, this can be much cheaper than buying from the store. It can have some higher upfront costs of buying the animal and feed, but if you’re someone that gets paid seasonally, this is a great option. 

Okay, next tip. Coffee. I am not an expert on this. I’m not a huge coffee drinker. Maybe one cup in the morning and I almost never buy coffee, shop coffee mainly cuz I live almost 45 minutes from the closest one and I’m gonna need my coffee in the morning long before the 45 minute drive to town. So I perfected a sweet cream coffee creamer. That is delicious. It’s also in my cost cutting ebook. Basically with this one though, and to make it work for you at home, set your coffee pot to be ready when you wake up, find a creamer or syrup that you love and drink coffee at home. I’ll even make a pot in the evening and put it in a fridge, or put it in a pitcher in the fridge. This makes for great iced and blended coffees. 

Laundry detergent and other cleaners. There are so many recipes out there for cleaners. Some of them are in my book as well. The one we use most in our family is homemade liquid laundry detergent. I have been making this for years and our clothes are always clean. It has never degraded any of our high-end clothes or ruined our washing machine and it even smells good. Now, I’ll be honest, I keep a jug of commercial detergent on hand and a bottle of bleach. These are just for some of those messes that require the strongest detergents available. However, when I make my own detergent, it costs me the same amount for one month of store-bought detergent as it does to make a year’s worth of homemade. Did you hear me? A year’s worth of homemade.

There are some other great recipes out there for household products using the same ingredients as the detergent. I have rarely bought any commercial CL cleaners for the last five years. This is because when I would grocery shop every month, I was sometimes spending more on these types of items than I was for food and that was a problem. 

This next one might be a little controversial because for us, it includes Amazon, but there are other options out there. I just haven’t found the time to find one. And this is monthly subscriptions of products. We have all of our paper towels, toilet papers, diapers, and a bunch of other regular items shipped right to our house on a monthly basis on a subscription plan, and if you have several things, you get a huge discount. I can find the best price without driving all over town and it keeps me out of Walmart.

The closest one for us is over an hour away and that takes a lot of gas. Plus it is so easy to impulse buy. 

A thing I do to keep my finances straight is that I have a dedicated credit card for all my subscriptions. This includes Netflix and other subscriptions like that. Then I just budget paying that bill at the beginning of each month. That brings me to tip number nine, budgeting. Know how much you’re spending every month. Make a list or a spreadsheet of all your ins and outs and due dates. Simply being aware and having to see it helps because avoiding overdraft charges or late fees are so important because really, all you’re doing is just throwing money away every month. Like I mentioned before, if you’re a credit card person, I’m not suggesting you go into debt, use a couple of credit cards to buy just your groceries or gas or pay for your subscriptions. Then pay them off completely at the beginning of the month so you have a set amount for your budget and then you don’t incur any interest fees, which is just another way of throwing away money. 

Okay, for my 10th and final tip, stocking up and dividing out costs. I know I said I don’t use coupons, but anytime there’s a sale or I have a coupon for something that I use regularly that’s a dry good or something that can be frozen or dehydrated, I buy all that I can reasonably afford. This is where shopping your pantry from step one ends up really paying off. Another option is buying in bulk. I often buy 50 pounds of flour, oatmeal, sugar, or rice. Then I always have them on hand and usually get them cheaper by buying in bulk. I always try to do my best to keep them from going bad, but if occasionally they do, I just feed them to the chickens or pigs. If you don’t have animals that eat these products, they’re good for compost or trade with someone with chickens for a dozen eggs. Trading is another good option, but might be a topic for another day. 

Something else I try to do is budget a small amount every month to keep the kids in socks, underwear and t-shirts. Then I rotate who gets new jeans and thrift stores are not off the table. Shoes are seasonal. New dress boots before fair every summer, new muck boots every fall before the rain. New tennis shoes at Christmas and new sandals on Easter. This way the kids always know that it’s coming and I don’t have surprise needs or feel bad that one kid is getting something while another kid isn’t. Sometimes this doesn’t work with babies who grow out of shoes every five minutes, but usually by school aged I can slip them into the rotation.

So to sum it up, my 10 tips for homemade cost cutting are meal planning, prep for lunches, prep for breakfasts, make your own breads, make your own lunch meats, stop buying from coffee shops, make your own cleaners, get subscriptions, budget your subscriptions and everything else and buy in bulk and divide your costs. The key to any of these tips are making the change and turning it into a routine so it doesn’t feel like extra work and just becomes a part of your day. Most of these are outlined in my ebook, homemade Cost Cutting. I mentioned it before, when you subscribe to my newsletter, it should come straight to your email and I’ll link that below. If you have already signed up for my newsletter, you should have it in your email. If you don’t, go back and search it and if you really want it, send me an email. I’m sure I can get it sent right over to you. Before I sign off today, I’d like to take a minute to refresh. 

Refresh on everything I have to offer on my website and social media. So Homestead Science, this is my bread and butter. It’s a full year science curriculum for grammar school aged children. It’s available on my website in print and digital versions. The middle school and high school introduction to Homestead Science is also available. My website has a whole list of freebies for your homesteading, homeschooling, and home cooking. Take advantage of those while they’re free, because I never know what direction my products are going to take in the future. 

For those of you that are ready to take your homestead to the next level, I offer a two hour coaching strategy session on starting or expanding your homestead businesses money saving with time management and sustainable budgeting, food safety plans, and household management. In this call, I can help you find the clarity you need and the next steps that need to be taken. I will follow up with a written plan and resources to implement your plan along with a follow up one month later to see how your plan is working for you. Act fast and you’ll get one month free trial membership to the Homestead Business Community launching this fall. 

If the business community seems more of a fit for you than the call, be sure to sign up for the wait list. This community will include monthly courses, resources, zoom, accountability and strategy calls with other homestead business owners and a community forum. 

Did you know I have two Facebook groups to help you with your journeys? One is Homestead Science to discuss homeschooling and how my curriculum fits in your family. The next is The Homestead Education, which is an extension of this podcast, to learn and teach about homesteading. I encourage relevant content creators to share their information and promotions in this group as well. Everything will be linked in the show notes. And be sure to add the Homestead Education to your favorite podcast player to catch season two as soon as it comes out and follow your paths of self-sufficiency one step at a time. 

This episode of the Homestead Education is brought to you by Layman’s Hardware, your one-stop home setting supply store that ships all over the United States. Thank you for joining me today at the Homestead Education, and I hope that I have given you something to think about this week to help others find me. Please comment and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. You can also follow me on Facebook at the Homestead Education and Instagram at Homestead underscore education. 

Do you have questions that you would like answered or just wanna say hi? Please email me at hello@thehomesteadeducation.com. Until next time, keep growing.