#30 Make it from scratch.
One of the most flexible areas of our budget is the grocery budget. If things get tight around here this is the first place I look to trim expenses.
Cereal costs $3-4/box, or if you match a coupon to sale you might only pay $1.50. Don't forget to include the cost of milk. For my kids the servings per box are only 6-8, regardless of what the box might say.
Instead of cereal bake muffins. My chocolate breakfast muffins cost about .75 for 12 servings. I use whole wheat flour and greek yogurt that, along with a little shmear of peanut butter, keep my kids feeling fuller much longer than a bowl of cereal.
We replace store-bought breads with healthier, less expensive homemade, and stock the freezer with homemade "convenience" foods for busy nights. Birthday cakes are homemade and pizza for pizza night is grilled on the back porch.
The grocery budget at our house hasn't changed in over two years, despite three children who now eat more than the adults and rising costs. I owe the ability to stretch our grocery budget in large part to making foods from scratch.
I use Photoshop Elements - I've had it for 2 years and I still know only about 5% of what it can do, but it only cost about $50 bucks. They have a button called "auto adjust" and I normally just fix my pictures that way.
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