Frugal Fridays: Homemade Jellies & Jams

Lately, I've been really trying to cut corners in order to save money, and I've been thinking of more ways that I can be more frugal when it comes to grocery shopping. It's such a struggle right now with the price of food on those grocery store shelves. Last week, I made a batch of homemade peach freezer jam, and I got to thinking about that a little more. If I were to buy a jar of specialty flavor jam like that in the store, it would probably be $3-4 for just that one jar. So, I got my pen and paper and started doing some figuring.

Our family is a family of 4 right now, meaning with jelly, we don't go through it that fast. I bought one carton of a dozen jars for $7. Sugar is about $2 a bag right now, depending on sales. The Sure Jell is about $1.45 for one box. The fruit or juice I would use to flavor my jelly would probably be between $2-4, also depending on sales. That comes out to about $8 for 6 jars of jam/jelly. Now, if you use bigger jars, each jar will last longer as well. The price comes out to a little over a dollar for one jar of jelly. That's a savings of around $10 for 6 jars of jelly.

Hope I didn't confuse you there....but I just wanted to show how much could be saved by actually getting in there and making your own jelly, not to mention you wouldn't be feeding your children all those yucky preservatives in so many of our foods today. You could reuse the same jars over and over, so you wouldn't have to buy more, depending, of course, on the size of your family. Plus, you can make just about any flavor you want (no need to stick with grape, since it's usually the cheapest). Freezer jam/jelly is super easy to make. I think it took me maybe 30-40 minutes to make my first batch. That's because I had to peel the peaches. If you're using juice, voila, it's easy as pie.

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