Homemade Jam

About a month ago, my mil Jan and I, got together at my house and made homemade jam. It was lots of fun and it turned out pretty good, too! I had fun spending the day with her. She is the one who intruduced me to home canning.

The year Max was born we got a ton of peaches from her parents and we canned our little hearts out. We made peach jam and then canned peaches. My kids love having homemade jam on their pb&j's. Later that year or the next year Jan's parents brought down a bunch of apples and plums, so we canned those, too. We made plum jam with the plums and then made applesauce and apple pie mix with the apples.

Last year I made a batch of strawberry jam on my own and it turned out fine, but I didn't have much fun doing it by myself, so that's why this year I decided to invite Jan to help me.

I wish I would've waited a few weeks, though, because last week strawberries went on sale for about .50 cents cheaper than what we paid a month ago! Oh, well, we still got a pretty good deal on the strawberries. That is exactly the reason I have started a price book, so I can track the price that I pay for our groceries and know when the rock bottom prices are.

Here is a pic of the fruits of our labor.

I love a good deal!

I did my weekly shopping this morning and did well, I think. I try to keep to $100 a week budget for the 6 of us and our dog, Buster. This also includes all cleaning and hygeine supplies. It's hard to do! I'm hoping to get my stockpile bigger and then drop my weekly budget to $75 a week. Rob and I both get paid every other Friday, so I start my grocery budget on Friday. I'm (hopefully) done shopping until next Friday. So far I have $6 left from my $100 this week.



I used to be an avid couponer and I loved doing it. I would get 4 Sunday papers a week and clip and organize my coupons weekly. I have not done this regularly this past year. Life has just been too crazy. I've vowed to start again, though. I really see a difference in my grocery budget when I do coupon.



I hit the GM sale at Albertsons this morning and got all this for $32.88. I did save a total of $53.68, which is more than I spent! I think I did ok. My total would have been less if I would have been saving coupons, but I still did well. I got 6 boxes of cereal, 2 boxes of tuna helper, (I make these for lunches) 2 boxes of hamburger helper (Rob makes these for dinners when I work), 2 pkgs of Ball Park Franks (my kids LOVE these and we bbq hamburgers and hot dogs at LEAST 3xs a month in the summer, they are happy when they get the *good* hot dogs) and over 12 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I was very happy to see the chicken on sale, because I was completely OUT!

If you want to check out other good deals, go to Call Her Blessed and see what she got at Albies last week!