Baking bread from scratch DOES take a lot of time

Baking from scratch isn't feasible, time-wise, on a daily basis. I do have other things to attend to! But that doesn't mean that my family need go hungry, or skip out on grains, ever.

When I just don't have time/energy to bake bread, rolls, or other items to go with meals, I simply switch out the bread that I might have made,with a starchy food that takes less time and energy. A potato takes only minutes to "bake" in the microwave, compared to the an hour or more to bake muffins, rolls or bread to go with a meal. A pot of rice requires minutes of hands-on time. No toast for breakfast? Oatmeal-for-a-crowd can be made in the microwave in minutes.

A family can still exercise frugality in meal preparation, without daily baking, just by choosing other, low-cost, but time friendly, starchy foods, such as oats, rice and potatoes. When I know I will be in a time crunch for a week, then I save any homemade bread I have for to-go or on-the-run meals. Then at dinners, and other meals at home, we eat those quick or easy grains and starches. And to keep rice, potatoes or oats from being ho-hum and boring, I think about these starchy alternatives as I would the desired bread product. If my plan had been to make French bread pizza for dinner, but I’m out of French bread or buns of any kind, then I might make pizza rice, topping plain rice with all of the usual pizza toppings. Or, if I had hoped to have toast for breakfast, I also know that oatmeal with my favorite toast toppings of peanut butter and jam is quite delicious. And if I had wanted to serve toasted cheese sandwiches with a bowl of soup, but all out of bread, well then, a microwaved potato, topped with cheddar is also yummy.

I remember growing up, it seemed like a crisis if we were out of bread. Someone in the house would be sent out to the grocery store to pick up a loaf, because what would we eat if we didn't have bread?! The same thing with milk. If we were out of milk, well what on earth would we eat for breakfast the next day?! And I know that my childhood household was not alone in this type of thinking. This is common. Whoever plans the meals/does the shopping realizes that the house is out of some common food item, and makes that last-minute rush out to the store.

Well, at least with bread products, this family has found many solutions to the all out of bread problem.  And yes, I am enjoying a bowl of yummy oatmeal, topped with jam and peanut butter, this morning for my breakfast!

How I bought our new supply of bath tissue (and saved $26.89!)

Okay, so I mentioned at the end of my last post on ship to store shopping that I would be stocking up on bath tissue in the same way that I stocked up on baking soda.

I spent several days looking into the various places that I could buy bath tissue, including our local Cash and Carry, Dollar Tree, and a couple of office supply stores. Yes, online office supply stores.

Why would an office supply store carry bath tissue? Well, offices usually have bathroom facilities, right? And they have to keep some items (bath tissue, hand soap, paper towels) available for use in those office bathrooms, right? And a business would most likely shop in bulk, as I do, right? Well then. . .

Staples' website has a very long list of bath tissue to scroll through. I found a product similar to what I've been buying for many years, at Albertson's (a store-brand version of Scott's 1000). Although our family manages with a very inexpensive bath tissue, you should know that Staples' website carries Quilted Northern, Charmin, Angel Soft, Seventh Generation, Kleenex Cottonelle, and Scotts, in addition to the institutional brands that businesses/restaurants often buy, such as Brighton (the brand that I bought this time) and Tork.

It may be worth taking a look at their website, if you have a Staples in your area. If you use the ship to store option, you will save on shipping charges. You will have to drive to the store location that you choose to pick up your order.  If it's not inconvenient to make that drive, and Staples carries a brand that you would try, for less than your grocery store, then this might work for you, too.

About my purchase and my savings -- as I said, our usual brand is the Albertson's house brand of Scott's 1000. I buy it in the 20-roll package, for $14.99, on sale. I went online to Staples website, and bought Brighton 1000, in a case of 96 rolls. The individual sheets of Brighton are slightly bigger than the Albertson's brand. The list price at Staples was $51.79, or the equivalent of $10.79 for 20 rolls.

But wait, my price gets better. I put the case into my cart and looked around at other deals on their site. While I was doing this, the site put a special offer into my cart, good for 20 minutes. I knew I was ready to make this purchase, so I took the extra discount, an additional $6.73 off of my purchase, if I acted then. So, I did, of course.

My final price on the bath tissue was $45.06, or $9.38 for every 20 rolls (plus sales tax). I saved over $5.00 per 20-roll package, on our new supply of bath tissue, or $26.89 total, on the 96 rolls.

I could have had my order shipped to my home address, but instead chose to bypass the shipping charges, and have it shipped to my nearby Staples storefront, free of shipping charges. The online stores which offer this free ship to store option are hoping to just get you in the door and look around and buy more stuff while there. And probably many shoppers do just this. But, if you're like me and can walk in, pick up what you're after, and walk out, then there's no "spending-risk" choosing ship to store.

I do admit, I've never tried this brand, that I'm aware of. So, this was a roll of the dice on the purchase. But the way that I look at it is this. If we absolutely don't like this brand of bath tissue, then I never have to buy it again. My new supply will last us about 9 months. The very worst case scenario is we have to live with this for 9 months, then I am free to choose another brand. The very best case scenario is this product was satisfactory for us, and we saved money to put towards our financial goals. Either way, we saved a chunk of cash with this purchase.

It's hard to know how to compare the dollar value one brand of bath tissue to another. The sheet sizes are all over the place. And with two-ply, one-ply, you can't really compare the linear amount. And even when you think you have all things in consideration being even, the manufacturers can use a thinner tissue sheet for their rolls, giving the impression on the label that you are getting more mileage than you will, in practice. The bottom line, financially, is how how long will a dollar's worth (or $10 worth) of bath tissue last your family with the various brands.

My best method of calculating which bath tissue is the best deal is to actually time our use of bath tissue. I mark on a package when I open it. Then, when we finish that package (or fraction of that package, if I'm making a calculation based on a very large package, and don't want to wait that long), I calculate as follows: price of bath tissue divided by weeks of use we received. I can easily compare 1 brand to the next, based on our use to dollar ratio. It does mean that I will need to try a couple of brands/styles to reach my conclusion on which will be the better value for our family. Every time I've run this calculation on bath tissue, I've come up with 1000 sheet, single-ply as the most cost-effective bath tissue for our family, when sticking with a store house-brand, or now, with an institutional/restaurant supply brand.

All of this very lengthy post, just to say, look around at other possible places to buy your bath tissue. You may be pleasantly surprised where you find a great deal. And in case you're wondering, the case I bought was quite large in size, and didn't fit in my trunk! I had a dream about this very thing the night before, and found myself wide awake for an hour, strategizing how I would get this home. My default plan would be to open the case in the parking lot and unload into the trunk, roll by roll. (As it turned out, the case fit into the back seat of my small sedan, so no problem there.)