Cooking at home is one of the most accessible money saving activities for any household. Whatever you skill level in cooking, preparing foods at home instead of eating out saves money.
We all have our favorite kitchen tools, some of which help us save food/money more than others.
What are your favorite money-saving kitchen tools and how do they help you save?
Here are 3 of mine:
- rubber spatula -- I can usually get about a quarter to a half a portion out of a bowl or jar by scraping it well. I have 6 rubber spatulas and at least half of them are used each day. If I save a partial portion of two or three foods every day, that adds up to about 365 bonus portions of random foods by the end of a year. Little bits add up. And spatulas are inexpensive tools for making that happen.
- my freezer -- I would have no place to store all of the beautiful free blackberries we forage each summer without my freezer. I also stock up of foods when on sale and keep in the freezer, plus I freeze surplus produce from the garden. On the pro side -- freezers can save a lot of money, but on the con side -- they cost a lot up front. Fortunately, most stand alone freezers continue to run for many, many years, even decades.
- an extra-large, shallow bowl -- I used this bowl to mix and knead dough for our homemade sandwich bread for many years. This bowl is larger than my largest mixing bowl, so large that I was able to go from mixing the dough for 2 loaves of bread at a time to 4 loaves of bread. It was a game-changer for me, as I didn't have to bake bread as often, and I could bake more at one time, using less electricity for the oven. We still use this bowl for mixing extra-large batches of a lot of foods. I originally bought it at Target for about $7. It was one of those bargains that pay for themselves quickly.
How about you? What are some of your favorite money-saving kitchen tools?
