Cooking from Scratch

I have always enjoyed cooking from scratch because it is fun, tasty and economical. However, with this being said, I still enjoy buying mixes, pre-made cookies, frozen prepared foods and other "fun" items at the grocery store.

With the price of gas going up, and our grocery prices rising yet again, I began wondering just how much a person saves when making foods from scratch.

Lets start with homemade peanut butter cookies;
After calculating just how much I pay for each ingredient, I had a very clear picture of how much one batch of peanut butter cookies would cost.

Flour came out to 5-cents per cup

White sugar came out to 15-cents per cup

Brown sugar came out to 25-cents per cup

Margarine came out to 20-cents per stick

One egg was free since I have laying hens

Peanut butter came out to 48-cents for half a cup

For the remaining ingredients (salt, baking powder and soda) I added 3-cents

My batch of peanut butter dough made 50 cookies and weighed just over 1 1/2 pounds. The total cost came out to 1.02; peanut butter was the most expensive ingredient.

Our local Wal-Mart has Chips Ahoy on Roll Back for 1.98 per package; each package weighs anywhere from 9-ounces to 13-ounces. The Wal-Mart brand cookies were priced 1.16 for a 1-pound package.

Most of my baking ingredients are purchased on sale and stock piled. If I had gone to the store and purchased each item when I wanted to bake then my final cost would have been higher.

Sew Perfect and So Fun

Thanks to a coupon in my Jo Ann's flyer I was able to purchase a fun sewing notion.My coupon was for $5 off one regular priced item valued at $5 or more.

The pins sell for $6.99; after tax and my coupon I paid $2.15.

I "sew" love these pins!

Another T-Shirt Memory Quilt pt. 3

Last week I completed the first commissioned memory quilt.

I added a little personalized message at the bottom as well as a few patches. The quilt turned out so nice!

A Time to Play

A fun part of home school is play time.

While the kids play and burn energy the moms get to relax and visit!

When it Rains it pours, and pours, and pours

Winter has paid us a visit this week and left us with frozen busted pipes, backed up plumbing and an overflowing water heater; thankfully the water heater had a drain pipe that allowed the water to flood under the house instead of inside the house!And it's been so cold the eggs froze and cracked.

So, how are we dealing with all our troubles? We are improvising! A plastic cup and spoon works well for cereal....and paper plates for sandwiches.

We are using the dish pan to wash our hair; thankfully we were able to collect water from the water heater to use for drinking and washing.

Elizabeth loved having her hair washed in the dish pan and wants me to start washing her hair this way from now on!

Thankfully we still have heat and electricity but I am really longing for summer and it's warm sun!

Another T-Shirt Memory Quilt pt. 2

I completed all the blocks last week and waited until yesterday to assemble them in stitch order.
My favorite block is this one, that little girl is so cute!

Once the squares were arranged I began adding the sashing.

All I lack now is the outside borders and adding a few patches for the top to be complete.

When the top is complete it will be time to piece a back and start the quilting.