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Hello Everyone!
So I’m officially re-booting this series! This is a great way for all the parents out there to save money (and have control over what goes into their baby food)!
When it comes to making your own baby food there are of course positives and negatives to the process. I personally think of it as more of a positive – think of it like this – if YOU make the food YOU KNOW exactly what went into the food and YOU have complete control over what exactly is in the food. Those are things that give me peace of mind when it comes to food in general (even for myself).
First off you will obviously need to obtain the supplies. You can get a special ‘baby food maker’ like the one here , a hand blender, or a blender in general. Personally for me when it comes to ‘blending’ things my family uses a Vitamix– I would highly recommend this – I personally think it is well worth the investment. Plus it literally amazes me how well it blends whole items into the perfect puree.
You will also need items to freeze the baby food you make in. Some of the baby food making blenders have their own add ons – I personally really like the Baby Pinch Boutique Silicone Freezer Tray you can find here. I have found that they work really well and are safe to use for baby food as well.
Of course you will also need the actual food to make into baby food. This is where you can save so much money – but you have to buy the food right. For items like sweet potatoes and the like – which don’t perish as quickly as others – it is better to buy those when they are on sale and hold onto for a week or so rather than just buying all the items you need when they are full price in prime season. Other items like fruits that perish much faster you will need to buy closer to your actual ‘baby food making day.’ A great place for cheaper fruits and veggies could potentially be your local farmers market.
The part that slows everyone up – is the actual execution of making the food on the planned day. What I recommend doing is getting everything all geared up and ready for the first batch – make the puree you want. Then put the Purees into the Freezer container. The problem that occurs is that you end up with more puree than Freezer tray spots (and I would recommend using more than one Freezer tray). If this happens some people then put the puree-ing on hold and wait for the tray to be free. This is honestly the biggest waste of time ever!
Once you are on a puree roll don’t stop! Put the excess in a bag or bowl, clean what you used, prep for the next batch, and puree away! This can obviously be repeated as many times as you need with as many different foods as you would like!
Once the baby food in the Freezer trays is frozen (usually around 2 and a half to 3 hours or so) you can then re-use the freezer trays for the remaining purees you have in a bag or bowl waiting on deck.
So here is the cost breakdown – strictly the numbers of the situation. A non organic jar of baby food cost about $1.00 for 4 oz. – this means it’s about $0.50 per serving at 2 servings/jar.
Now there are MANY different kinds of baby food you can make – I shop at a local farmers market so the actual cost to me is MUCH lower than if you were to go to the grocery store and buy the food. But for the sake of this post – we are working with grocery store prices.
Let’s look at sweet potatos – sweet potatos would cost about $.99/lb at my local grocery store which is about $.80/potato – obviously potato size can vary. Each potato will make about 7-8 servings of baby food. This means it cost about $0.11 per serving. This means homemade sweet potato baby food saves you around $.29 per serving. But for arguments sake lets say you are only saving $0.20 per serving. (allowing for the more expensive foods you might want to make to bring down the savings average). If you child eats 3 servings a day that means you are saving yourself $0.60 per day by making your own baby food. That means for the year, you actually saving yourself $219 by making your own baby food. THAT’S A LOT!
On top of saving money you have the added peace of mind that you know exactly went into the food – you don’t have to worry about all the preservatives and other things because you know what you put into the food!
PLUS there are SO many apps that give you money back on vegetables on a weekly basis – whereas they don’t often have baby food rebates. You can check out the different apps Here.
For the purposes of this post I will say you could save about $150 per year using this method – but I already showed you above you can save much more than that.
Saved with this methods $150
Total Saved: $568
If you Missed any part of the Series be sure to Catch up:
1. Over 50 Ways to Save Over $50: #1 Use Coupons
2. Over 50 ways to save Over $50: #2 wash clothes in cold water
3. Over 50 ways to save Over $50: #3 Buy Meat in Bulk When It’s On Sale or Marked Down
4. Over 50 ways to save Over $50: #4 Have A Garage Sale
5. Over 50 ways to save Over $50: #5 Shop at a Farmer’s Market
6. Over 50 ways to save Over $50: #6 Canning
[…] 7. Over 50 Ways to Save Over $50: #7 Make Your Own Baby Food […]