Pumpkin pie frugal hacks: 4 frugal hacks for the pumpkin itself

So, the talk is a canned pumpkin shortage this year. While I'm sad to not have the abundance of canned pumpkin that we've had in previous years, I also realize that these things happen, and I need to find a way to manage. This is what I do, and what may work for you, as well.

Frugal hack #1

Canned pumpkin is actually something of a convenience food item. Someone else has already done the work to process the whole pumpkins, making them ready for baking and cooking.

So, the first frugal hack is a no-brainer.

Cook and puree your own pumpkin. With your Hallowe'en Jack o' lantern, carve it  no earlier than Hallowe'en afternoon. Save any scraps in the fridge, for cooking the next day. Set it out for decoration on Hallowe'en night (maybe in a window, if you've got pumpkin smashers in your neighborhood). After trick or treaters are done in your neighborhood, put the carved pumpkin in the fridge with the scraps. Then in the morning, on November 1, cook and puree the pumpkin. Freeze in 2-cup containers.

When you thaw home-cooked pumpkin, it will be a little watery. Dump the thawed pumpkin into a mesh sieve over a measuring cup. This will strain out some of the excess liquid. Then you can use this "water", mixed with powdered milk to make some of your baking liquid for the pie, or you can save this pumpkin liquid to add to soup anther day.

I bought 3 whole carving pumpkins this year for 19 cents per pound.  According to Good Housekeeping (source, here), 3 pounds of fresh pumpkin will yield about 3 cups of puree. A pound (2 cups) of home-cooked pumpkin, enough for 1 pie, will take 2 pounds of fresh pumpkin. So, based on Good Housekeeping's information, my cost for 1 pound of cooked pumpkin puree will be about 38 cents. For reference, the small can of Libby's pumpkin weighs 15 oz., and the store-brand is currently on sale at Fred Meyer for $1.25.

But wait! I'm cooking my Jack o' lanterns. They have a slightly higher water content than sugar pie pumpkins. So, let's say it takes 3 pounds of Jack o' lantern pumpkin to yield 2 cups of puree (that's actually very close to what I've had in the past). Then my cost per 16 ounces (or 2 cups) of puree is about 57 cents. Even so, this is far less than the cost of canned pumpkin. And the bonus is pumpkin seeds for roasting! And (one more "and") if this was your Jack o' lantern that you bought anyways, it's basically "free" pie filling.

The way to maximize your resulting cooked pumpkin is too cook all of the stringy goo, too. It's just pumpkin flesh, and nothing weird. I promise. If you oven-roast or microwave the pumpkin with skin on, you can scrape all of the flesh out of the cooked skin with little trouble, and little waste.

Frugal hack #2

From what I understand, canned pumpkin isn't even really canned pumpkin, but a type of squash similar in texture and flavor to butternut squash. So, frugal hack #2 is to buy a butternut squash, cook and puree. Butternut squash is less watery than Jack o' lantern pumpkin, so the same weight butternut will yield more cooked puree. If you can find butternut squash on sale for 39 cents/lb (that's what I paid at Fred Meyer on Friday), then 2 pounds of squash will yield 2 cups of puree (about 16 ounces), at a price of 78 cents per 16 ounces, still cheaper than canned pumpkin. And again, the seeds are edible. (Actually, you can use any type of orange-fleshed winter squash in place of pumpkin. Use what's cheap and abundant for you.)

Frugal hack #3

Let's say you don't like cooking squash or pumpkin, too much work and mess with the cleaning and all. This is a frugal hack that I've used successfully, takes only a little work, and "stretches" whatever canned pumpkin that I do buy, by two-fold. I cook and puree carrots to blend 50/50 with canned pumpkin.

Fresh carrots are about 40 cents per pound in the fall months, for me. Even with trimming the carrots, my cost per pound is under 50 cents. If I cook and puree the carrots, I can blend with purchased canned pumpkin, bringing my pumpkin/carrot-cost portion of a recipe down to about 75 cents per pound (if buying canned pumpkin for $1 for a 15-oz can). The spices in most of these recipes nicely mask any carrot taste. And no one seems to be the wiser. And actually, cooked, pureed carrots have been a substitute for pumpkins in pie, for generations. Some call this a faux pumpkin pie, others just call it "pumpkin" pie, and leave the secret with the cook.

To make using carrots as easy as possible, I cook them up in large batches, puree and freeze in recipe-size portions. And preparing carrots in this way is a whole lot easier than preparing whole pumpkins for baking.

Frugal hack #4

If you live where sweet potatoes grow well, then they may be an affordable substitute for half of the pumpkin in your pies. I typically find sweet potatoes for about 79 cents per pound in November. Sweet potatoes are very dense, and there is very little waste, just the peels, when processing for recipes. For about 85 cents worth of sweet potato, I can get about 2 cups of puree, and yes, that's still cheaper than any canned pumpkin. Blending half sweet potato puree with half pumpkin puree (canned or home-cooked) makes a very nice pie.

If you're using pureed carrots or sweet potatoes to stretch your canned pumpkin, then one 15-ounce can of pumpkin, which "normally" makes 1 pie, can be stretched to make 2 pies. And if you only need one pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but might like another at Christmas, then you can freeze half of your can of pumpkin and save it till the next month.

(I know that all sorts of folks, with all sorts of budgets read this blog. I just want to point out that this tip to use half a can of pumpkin for Thanksgiving and the other half at Christmas, by stretching with a veggie like carrots, could be useful for a family that uses the services of a food bank for much of their groceries. I know that our own food bank has limited amounts of items like canned pumpkin, and allots only 1 can per family. It saddens me that this is the case, where a family might not have the resources to afford to buy more canned pumpkin, on their own. So, I offer these suggestions, as workable solutions, if you are in this group of folks just trying to have a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Derail over.)

Even without a shortage, canned pumpkin is on the expensive side for veggies, for me, at over $1 per pound. I try to keep our vegetable price per pound under 79 cents. So if I'm not finding any spectacular deals on canned pumpkin (as I did last year in the #10 cans at the wholesaler), then I use one of these hacks in my pumpkin baking. And my family is the happy to eat anything "pumpkin-y" that I bake.


note: methods for pureeing cooked pumpkins, squash, sweet potatoes -- food processor, blender, hand-held blender, food mill. Using a food mill has the option of leaving the skin on the pumpkin, when cooking, according to the Foley company which has been making food mills since the 1920s. The screen on the mill catches the skin.

What do you think about surveys to earn cents off on gasoline purchases?

Do you do the online surveys, found at the bottom of some store receipts? Some of these surveys have the perk of entering you in a drawing for gift cards to the stores for the surveys. I occasionally fill those out.

But there's one type of survey that I make sure I always fill out. The store survey that gives me reward points to redeem for cents off of gasoline purchases.

Our local Fred Meyer chain offers 50 points for each survey completed. 100 points gives 10 cents off per gallon. In essence, that 50 points is equal to 5 cents off per gallon, which for my car yields about a 75 cents savings with each monthly fill-up.

The limitation to these surveys is that you can only fill out one survey per 7 calendar days, and you must complete the survey within 7 days (no saving up surveys to use later).

To maximize my gas savings, I wait to fill-up the car until I am down to my last gallon. And then I fill it completely. For my vehicle use, this will get me through the month, most months. Occasionally, I'm needing to use the car more often (as when I have to pick up my daughter regularly from rehearsals, in the city), or travel farther (as when we drive a distance to see family). In those months, I fill completely with the discount, then late in the month, I add just barely what I need to get into the next month. (We're no longer allowed to fill gas cans with extra gas with our discount.)

This savings is so great, and the work involved in filling out the survey is so minimal, that I add "survey completion" to my weekly to-do list. On average, I receive 150 points for surveys per month, which translates to a 15 cent per gallon savings, on top of the savings from rewards points from the original grocery purchase. Before I added "survey completion" to my weekly to-do list, I found I was forgetting, or not doing the survey in the right time frame, therefore missing out on these potential gasoline savings.

When I am done filling out the survey, I mark on my receipt when I completed the survey, so I will know when I am eligible to fill out another one.

And I track my points, by looking at the bottom of my receipts with each shopping. Some months, I can time my survey completion for better benefit. If I am near the end of the month, and that 50 points for the survey won't put me over another threshold for rewards, then I "save" that survey until the first of the next month, when I can actually use the survey points.

It's mid-month, and I currently have enough rewards points for next month's gas to save 20 cents per gallon. So I know that I will save at least $3 on my gasoline purchase next month.

As for time involved in filling out the survey, I spend about 5 minutes per survey, and I earn rewards points equal to 5 cents/gallon, or 75 cents per fill-up. I can spare 5 minutes of my day for that. When I wonder if it's worth the time to do these surveys, I ask myself, "how many 5-minute increments do I waste on mindless online activities?"

And because I just like to do the math -- on average I earn 150 points through this grocery store survey per month, which is 15 cents/gallon savings. I add about 15 gallons of gasoline per month, using the rewards points, multiplied by 12 months of the year. Using the survey bonus rewards, alone, I save about $27 per year. That's a quick-service lunch out for the family, or a movie night, with popcorn, for two, or, 27 items of clothing from St Vincent de Paul's 99cent Sundays, or about 3/4 of a tank of gas for my car (with our current low-ish gas prices).  :-)