Here is a great tip I got from a reader, Rachel F.,  last night as part of an entry into our giveaway- I like it so much that I asked if I could use it! (See? I told you that your tips could apear here! ;) ) So here it is:

I make all my own baby food for next to nothing! I invested about $2 for a steamer insert for my pot. I start when I'm pregnant, buying fruits and vegetables in season at their rock-bottom prices. I wash the veggies, then throw them in the steamer in my pot with about an inch of water and steam until the veggies are tender. Then toss them in the blender and puree until smooth. Pour into ice cube trays and let freeze. Remove the cubes and seal in a freezer bag. Two cubes is one serving. I let the fruit ripen as I usually would, and when it's very soft, throw it in the blender, then freeze it in ice cube trays. Since I start when I'm pregnant, by the time the baby is ready to eat solids I've made baby food from fruits and veggies in every season. My kids have devoured peaches, strawberries, green beans, pears, peas, blueberries, plums, bananas, apples, squash, pumpkin, etc. To make all the "stage 1" baby food, I typically spend less than $10, and it is about a six-month supply. When your baby can eat chunky food, I don't buy the pre-packaged meals. I take whatever we eat for dinner and if there are leftovers I throw them in the food processor, pulse a few times, then either store it in the fridge or freeze it in the ice cube trays. And it costs me nothing, because I'm using just little bits of leftovers of food that I've already made. When I first started making my own baby food, I thought it would be a major hassle, but it really wasn't. Most of the stage 1 food is made before the baby is even born, and the rest of the stuff takes less than 5 minutes during after-dinner clean-up once a week or so. It's nice to know your baby is eating healthily, and I love to save the money!

Thanks you so much, Rachel F., for sharing this tip with our Fab Steals and Deals community!!
Do you have a tip that you would like to share? Let me know, and it could appear here!
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If you know anything about couponing, and if you have read the info on this site about Stockpiling, you know that one of the best ways to save money is to wait for items to hit their rock-bottom price and then stock up on what you need until it goes on sale again. This keeps you from having to run to the store and buy something when it is not sale, costing you a lot more $$.

One of the things I love to stock up on is meat- especially when Family Packs are even LOWER in price! But what do you DO with all of that MEAT??

I generally will wait for meat prices to fall under $1.99/lb- for anything except steak, which I don't usually buy, and bone-in chicken breasts, which I only buy if they are under 99 cents/lb. I will buy the biggest packs available, usually several of them. For BSCB, I put one or 2 in a ziploc bag (not touching), separating the entire pack this way. Some of them I will cut into strips, like chicken fingers, and freeze 3 or 4 in a pack (not touching). This makes it very easy to defrost only what my family needs for a meal instead of a whole pack, and makes them easier to store in limited space. I do the same with pork chops and fish.

When it comes to bone-in chicken breast, I will go ahead an cook those by boiling them (I don't often use bone-in chicken for anything else, but they can be frozen individually as well). After they cool, I cut the skin and fat off and then shred them or chop them up (and don't forget to freeze that broth!), and put the shredded chicken in ziploc bags in the freezer. That way I have them cooked and ready to add to soups, chicken pot pie, etc.

As for ground beef and turkey, I will usually go ahead and brown it completely, drain it, and let it cool for a while. Then I will measure it out (into 1 lb. increments) into ziploc bags. This way, when I am making spaghetti or tacos or anything else that needs ground beef (anyone eat hamburger helper?), it is cooked and ready to go. Nuke it in the microwave for 2 minutes to defrost, and a! It is quicker and easier on busy nights, and a lot cheaper than buying the 1 lb. packs from the store. :)

Be sure to label your ziploc bags with whatever is in it and the date that you freeze it! I hope this tip helps you- it saves us a lot of money and a lot of time on busy nights!
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I'm sure we all know the basic concept of making chicken broth, right? However, I know that I quite often forget to do it when I am cooking chicken. Well, here is a great reason why saving that broth is a great frugal tip: It makes a lot of broth in very little time for very little money!
Think about this: A carton of chicken broth can cost upwards of $3. That is for about 4 cups of broth! Sure, we can get it on a BOGO sale- and that is fine, stock up when it is cheap. But it is SOOO nice to have broth that didn't cost you any extra $!
Here is what I did tonight: I bought a rotisserie chicken on sale at Kroger for $3.99 for dinner. I cooked that, a bag of Birds Eye frozen white corn (FREE) and cut up a cucumber (50 cents!). Dinner for my family of 5 (keep in mind that my kids are 5 and under) cost about $4.49, or 90 cents/person. Here are my steps for making broth out of that chicken:
1. After I cut up the rotisserie chicken, I filled a pot with water and stuck the carcass in there, covered it, and let it boil while we were eating dinner.
2. It boiled for a while, and then I let it cool a bit and poured it into some glass measuring cups (I poured through a strainer so that none of the fat/skin/etc. was in the broth- only the broth went through).
3. I measured it out  (1 cup increments) into ziploc bags, closed them, and stuck them in the freezer.
 
I got about 8 cups of broth for the cost of 1 chicken that we ate for dinner anyways! That is almost equivalent to 2 cartons of broth, or about $6 in savings! So, we saved more cooking the chicken for broth than we actually SPENT on tonight's meal! (And when you add up the savings from everything else we ate for dinner...that's a pretty huge savings!). Now we have 8 cups of broth in the freezer, divided into small portions for easy defrosting, and ready to add to soups, mashed potatoes, rice, or a million other dishes that could use some flavor. :)
Anytime you boil chicken (I often cook chicken and shred it for homemade chicken pot pie) you can reserve the water for broth. Add some onions or leftover veggies for added flavor. Easy! Cheap! Go for it. :)
(oh yeah, and the ziploc bags were 50 cents/box, so those were cheap too!)
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