Budget friendly snacks

One of the easiest ways for me to trim my grocery budget is by making snacks instead of buying snacks. While I am stockpiling for the first couple months of school by buying store snacks (such as granola bars, fruit pouches, chips) as I come accross sales, I have turned to making snacks sereral times a week these past 2 months. The boys are home and the boys are hungry!

When home in the summer, the boys have 2 snack times during the day, around 10 am and around 2 pm. These are the choices they typically have and I encourage them to limit themselves to two snacks:

• dairy: yogurt or cheese
• fruit (banana or precut fruit from fridge)
• pantry snack or in this case on the counter snack

I do buy individual size yogurts typically from Aldi unless Kroger has a great sale but often time I prefer to buy the tubs of yogurt of whole milk vanilla yogurt from Kroger ($1.79) because the kids can either mix in honey or a lil jam for taste. We buy whichever fruits are seasonal and on sale and I try to cut them to make it easier for the children to serve themselves.

Homemade waffles or pancakes always make for a good snack or emergency breakfast and I try to make extras to keep in the freezer for a quick bite.

My favorite inexpensive snacks to make are granola bars, granola and muffins. The recipe I use for my granola bars is the Chewy no bake Granola Bars that I found on Crystal Paine’s website Money Saving Mom (recipe).

To make granola, I simply bake 3 cups of oats stirred with 6 tbsp of honey and 6 tbsp of oil at 300 degrees for 45 min, stirring the oats to coat them every 15 minutes. Then I add raisins and chocolate chips. My oldest loves it mixed in with his yogurt.

We have 3 favorite muffins we like to make:

• applesauce muffins (vegan)
• banana blueberry buttermilk muffins
• banana chocolate chip muffins (vegan also)

I am sharing the applesauce muffin recipe which I found in the following book

The recipe is very simple and my 5 year old usually helps me make it.

• 1/2 cup oil
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup salt

Cream oil and sugar. Add all other ingredients. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Makes 12 to 15 muffins.

Looking at where your money goes in your grocery budget can give you insights on where you can make some cuts or which items you should try to stock up when they are on sale. For me those problem areas are snacks and dairy, specifically yogurts and easy, ready to eat snacks. The more I buy, the more the boys will eat them. Those items are usually more processed and less healthy than the version I can make at home so that is another reason for me to make snacks especially that I do have the time in my schedule to do that.

Remember though that what works for one person may not work for another!

A bientôt!

Please take a minute to subscribe to the blog to receive an email letting you know when a new post goes live. I usually post Monday, Wednesday and Friday but sometimes have a bonus post during the week. You can also follow me on instagram @chezmireillefashiontravelmom.com

I link up with these fabulous blog link ups!