Store-bought baby food is one of the most overpriced food items I can think of!  Think about how much you’re paying for that tiny little jar of food that doesn’t even taste very good!  I would much rather pay mere pennies to make my own food…especially since I know exactly what is in it, how it’s prepared and how much better it is for my baby!

I never made my own baby food when Ava was a baby.  I even had the KidCo F5000 BabySteps Complete Natural Feeding System and I rarely used it, except to mash up avocados a couple of times.  With Kelvin, I got up my courage and started making all his food as soon as he started eating fruits and veggies.  Looking back, I’m not sure what I was afraid of when Ava was a baby.  I guess the whole process seemed too overwhelming, but it’s really not.  It’s so simple and doesn’t even take up much time!

If you’re not sure what is involved or are a little overwhelmed like I was, here’s a step-by-step rundown.  Tonight, I made beef casserole (beef, peas and potatoes) and carrots.  I usually make at least two different kinds of food at a time to save on set-up and clean-up time.  I’ll tell you all about the different kinds of foods I make later in the post.

First I got all the food cooked.  Here are the potatoes and the carrots.  I heated up frozen peas in the microwave and had the ground beef pre-cooked from earlier in the day.

After all the food was cooked, I got everything set up.  I mixed the beef, potatoes and peas together and got out the breastmilk (I’d rather use that than water to get the food to the right consistency).

Here’s a close-up of the food before it was mixed.  I used 2 cups of ground beef and a cup each of potatoes and peas.  You can easily scale that down if you don’t want to make that much, though.

Here it is in the food mill, all ready to go!  I put about half of it in there at a time.

All pureed!  I know the color is really gross, but this is Kelvin’s absolute favorite meal!

Then I spooned it into freezer trays.  This tray came with the food mill, but I also use regular ice cube trays (as you’ll see later).  I actually prefer regular ice cube trays because it’s easier to pop them out once they’re frozen.  With this tray, I have to pry them out with a knife.

Don’t forget about the carrots!  I steamed them for about 15 minutes and saved the water I steamed them in for thinning purposes.    Then I pureed them and mixed a little baby cereal and breastmilk in (I like to mix a little cereal in with most of his food so he gets some extra iron).

And here’s the finished product!  It only took about half an hour to produce all this baby food!  Then I just stuck it in the freezer and tomorrow I’ll pop the cubes out and store them in Ziploc bags until I’m ready to use them.

You might think that this homemade food will be less convenient at feeding time than jarred food would be.  But you would be wrong! Here’s what I do:

I keep all my baby food in this bin in the freezer.  Every evening, I pull out this bin and three feeding dishes and put several cubes of food in each dish, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Then I snap lids on the feeding dishes and put them in the refrigerator to thaw overnight.  At feeding time, I just pull the dish out, heat it up for about 30 seconds, give it a quick stir and it’s ready to go!

Of course, there are far more possibilities than beef casserole and carrots!  You have your basic single foods like apples, peaches, beans, etc.  And there are endless combinations to try!  Here are some of our favorite combinations:

• Apples and strawberries
• Plums and nectarines
• Beef, squash and pasta
• Beef, potatoes and green beans
• Chicken, pasta and carrots
• Turkey, rice, carrots and peas
• Tomatoes, pasta and cottage cheese

And that’s just to name a few!  You can’t ever get bored with making your own baby food!  Sometimes when we have leftovers of a dish Kelvin likes and that is appropriate for his eating abilities, I puree that up and freeze it, too.

For more frugal tips and ideas, visit Frugal Friday!

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• Windex products – go here.
• Jamba Juice – Buy 1 smoothie, get a second one for only $1!  Expires September 27.
• Gap Outlet – 10% off your entire purchase!  Expires September 24.
• Shortcuts has added some new electronic coupons for you to load onto your store card.

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Home Made Simple is releasing another coupon book, with $35 in coupons!!  The booklets feature coupons for brands like Swiffer, Febreze, Cascade!!  All you have to do is sign up here and you will receive it in the mail in 6-8 weeks!

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The $5/1 Luvs coupon is here!!  This is an amazing value for a diaper coupon and it will make a great deal because Luvs diapers cost less than Huggies or Pampers.  All you have to do is sign up for the “special money-saving offer” at the Luvs website.  Your coupon will be mailed to you!

I signed up this morning and it took just a minute or so.  You want to act fast because there’s a limited amount and I’m sure they’ll be gone soon!

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Old Navy is having an awesome 40% off sale on baby clothes (0-5T) and maternity clothes right now!!  The sale goes until September 24, so make sure to get in there and take advantage of this!  The sale prices on most items are pretty comparable to Target and Walmart.

If you’re shopping in-store, be sure to visit Old Navy Weekly first to snag a great coupon!  They even have some $75/$100 coupons that go fast, so check back often!

If you’re going to shop online, you can use coupon code “SHIPFREE50″ to get free shipping on orders over $50.  This code is only for the baby and maternity clothes and expires on September 24 (the day the sale ends).

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• Monday: Chicken Noodle Casserole, Fruit Salad (carried over from last week)
• Tuesday: Beefy Macaroni Casserole, Steamed Green Beans
• Wednesday: Scrambled Eggs, Beef Sausage, Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
• Thursday: Chicken Fettuccinne Alfredo w/ Broccoli, Garlic Bread
• Friday: Roast with Potatoes and Carrots, Fruit Salad
• Saturday: Leftovers
• Sunday: Chicken Garlic Pizza

For more Menu Plan Monday, visit I’m An Organizing Junkie !

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Are you ready??  You don’t want to neglect buying your paper tomorrow because there will be FIVE inserts!!  That rarely happens, so take advantage of it!  There will be three Smart Source inserts and 2 Red Plums.

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Here are the transactions I plan to do at CVS this week (see Deal Seeking Mom for the full list).  There are just two simple transactions, for under $5!  And if you have any ECB’s from previous weeks, you’ll pay even less!  The coupons that you’ll need are printed in blue.

Transaction #1:
Buy 1 Listerine Total Care, $3.99
Use one $2/1 Listerine Total Care from the 3/15 Smart Source or 4/26 Red Plum inserts

Total After Coupons: $1.99
ECB’s Earned: $2.00

Transaction #2:
Buy 1 Colgate Total Advanced Toothpaste, $2.99
Buy 1 Reach Toothbrush (2-pack), $3.99
Buy 1 Clean & Clear Deep Action Cream Cleanser (trial size), $0.99
Buy 1 Schick Disposable Razors (trial size), $1.29
Use one $1/1 Colgate Toothpaste here or from the 9/13 Smart Source insert
Use one $2/1 Reach Toothbrush from the 6/14 Smart Source insert
Use one $1/1 Clean & Clear from the 8/2 Smart Source insert
Use one $3/1 Schick Disposable Razor from the 8/16 Smart Source insert
Use $2 ECB from Transaction #1

Total After Coupons & ECB’s: $1.97
ECB’s Earned: $4.00

**Note that in Transaction #2, you can buy as many Clean & Clear products and Schick Disposables Razors as you have coupons for, without affecting your total,  since they require no OOP!

Grand Total OOP: $3.96
ECB’s Remaining for Next Week: $4.00

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Here’s what I plan to do at Walgreens this week (see Deal Seeking Mom for the full list).  There are just two s imple transactions, for under $5!  And if you have any RR’s from previous weeks, you’ll pay even less!  The coupons that you’ll need are printed in blue.

Transaction #1:
Buy 2 Neosporin, $3.99
Use two $1/1 Neosporin coupons here or from the 8/2 or 8/23 Smart Source inserts
Use $2/1 Neosporin Walgreens coupon from the Children’s Activity Book (it will apply to both items, making it worth $4)

Total After Coupons: $1.98
RR’s Earned: $3.00

Transaction #2:
Buy 1 True North Nut Crisps or Clusters, $3
Buy 1 Keebler Cookies, $1.99
**Small filler item (see note)
Use one $1/1 True North coupon here
Use one $1/1 Keebler Cookies coupon here
Use $3 RR from Transaction #1

***Total After Coupons: $0 (see note)
RR’s Earned: $3.00

Transaction #3:
Buy 2 Band-Aid Tough Strips or Ultra Strips, $2.99
**Small filler item
Use two 0.50/1 coupons from the 8/2 or 6/28 Smart Source inserts (some regions got $1/1 in the 8/2 insert)
Use $3 RR from Transaction #2

Total After Coupons & RR’s: $1.98
RR’s Earned: $3.00

Grand Total OOP: $3.96
RR’s Remaining for Next Week: $3.00

**In Transactions #2 and #3, you will need a small filler item.  Walgreens requires you to have an item for each coupon you use and they count RR’s as coupons.  Aim for a cheap filler item, such as a pencil (I think they’re around $0.10).

***In Transaction #2, your total would actually be $0.01 overage, but because you have to add in a filler item, you won’t have any overage and the register shouldn’t beep at you.

Thanks to Lynn at Maven of Savin’ for pointing out what my Mommy Brain missed late last night!  The deals are now fixed and Register Rewards should print for all 3 transactions.

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This week we made some real progress with the “only grocery shopping once a week” plan!  I did go to Walgreens on Sunday, but other than that we did all of our other shopping on Tuesday!  I managed five stores with two kids in just under three hours!  Not too bad!

At Walgreens, I spent $4.57.  We saved $22.49.  You can see all details of my trip here.

Our first stop on Tuesday was Dillon’s.  They were running a promotion where you buy 3 Kellogg’s cereals or select Keebler cookies and you get a gallon of free milk.  So I bought 6 of those items (2 boxes of cereal and 4 packages of cookies) and got two gallons of milk for free!

Here’s the breakdown:

• 2 Kellogg’s Cereal
  3.59 x 2 = 7.18 – two 1.00 coupons = 5.18 or 2.59 each
• 4 Keebler Simply Sandies Cookies
  2.00 x 4 = 8.00 – two $1/2 coupons = 6.00 or 1.50 each
• 2 gallons Milk
  FREE with promotion (valued at 5.00 total)
• 4 Kroger Ranch Dressings
  1.00 x 4 = 4.00 – 0.60 Shortcuts coupon = 3.40 or 0.85 each
• 2 Reese’s Peanut Butter cups
  0.50 x 2 = 1.00 – two 0.55 coupons doubled to 1.00 = FREE with -$1.00 overage!!
• - $3.50 catalina from the Fruit Shapes deal last week

Total w/ tax: 11.96; Total savings: 22.91

Next, we went to CVS, where things did not go quite as planned (I wonder why I ever expect them to…something is always out of stock and throws off my entire deal!).

Transaction #1:

• 1 Schick ST3 Disposable Razors
  6.99 – 3.00 coupon = 3.99

Total w/ tax: 4.51; Total Savings: 4.00
Received $4.00 in ECB’s

Transaction #2:

• 2 Schick Quattro Razors
  11.49 (BOGO) – two 4.00 coupons = 3.49 or 1.75 each
  
• Crest w/ Scope Toothpaste
  4.89 – 0.75 coupon = 4.14
• - 4.00 ECB from Transaction #1

Total w/ tax: 4.85; Total savings: 24.24
No ECB’s because I bought the wrong size of Crest.  They were out of the correct size, I returned it for a refund of $5.25, which made the entire transaction more than free!

Our next stop was HyVee:

• 2 HyVee Butters
  1.68 x 2 = 5.36
• 2 Cheezit Whole Grain Crackers
  2.09 x 2 = 4.18 – two 0.75 coupon = 2.68 or 1.34 each
• 2 Sugars
  1.58 x 2 = 3.16
• 2 Green Bell Peppers
  0.50x 2 = 1.00
• 2 packages Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
  5.30

Total w/ tax: $16.77; Total estimated savings: $5.50 (HyVee doesn’t calculate savings on their receipts)

At Aldi, I spent $28.78.

No coupons at Walmart.  I had brought a couple for certain snack foods, but decided we’d gotten more than enough snacks at the other stores, so I saved them for future weeks.

Walmart Total w/ tax: $15.47

For the whole shopping trip, we spent $81.66 and saved $79.14…I almost saved as much as we spent!!!!!

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