My family and I were in Target the other day to pick up a couple of essentials. We wandered in through the snack aisle, and the kids started asking about getting prepackaged granola bars to use as school snacks. I glanced at the prices and got sticker shock. It seems that the prices have gone up and the number and size of these prepackaged granola bars have gone down.
In another life, I might have grumbled over the price but still put a couple of packages in the cart. In this life, I asked the kids which kind of granola bars they most wanted to have, and then I made a note to look up some good recipes for similar bars.
Sure, making homemade granola bars, or any other kind of homemade snack might not be on the top of your list of things you want to do, but when you are trying to save money homemade snacks can do the trick. For most snacks, you can make four or five times the amount for the price of the prepackaged stuff, plus be sure that there are no extra chemicals going into your kids tummies.
Granola bars are actually relatively easy to make. Usually, you just mix up a bunch of ingredients, such as oats and chocolate chips, press the mixture in a pan and bake for a few minutes. After cooling, you can cut the granola bars into any size you want.
Other easy homemade snacks include cut up fruit, muffins, cheese and crackers, portioning out bulk packages of pretzels or fish-shaped crackers (okay, not exactly homemade, but money-saving anyway), popcorn, English Muffin pizzas, homemade cupcakes, homemade applesauce, and fresh bakes cookies, of course.
To save the most money on snacks, identify your kids favorites and then look for recipes that will duplicate them. There are a ton of great recipes out there, although you may have a bit of trial and error. Reading reviews of the recipes can help.