Creative Ways To Save

Matt and I have been making an effort lately to spend less money. Focusing on food alone is helping out a lot. We only go out to eat maybe twice a week now. Usually once a week for lunch at Jimmy Johns (at $14 it's an expense that is well worth it) and once out to dinner on the weekends. Spending less on eating out of course means that our grocery bills are going to be higher. Now the challenge comes to reduce our grocery bills.

We've started buying some items in bulk with our Sam's Club card and we make sure we eat our leftovers, but I still think the grocery bills are high. I've subscribed to coupon emails and I clip out of the newspaper. Did you know that Target has coupons online? They do! It took me a while to find them but they're right there! Target is probably one of the most expensive places you could possibly buy groceries, but sometimes they'll run a really good coupon for like, 50 cents off Silk Soy Milk which Matt drinks like it's going out of style.

Still seems too high though. What's another way to cut costs? How about making pantry staples from scratch? I just read a great article about how to save over $100 a year on spaghetti sauce. We buy a lot of spaghetti sauce in our house. We've always wondered how to make it ourselves but never really tried to figure it out. It's a pretty genius plan. Make one giant pot of it and then freeze it? Duh. Easy.

Now I just need to learn how to brew my own Leiney and we'll be set.

What other grocery staples are easy to make at home?