Friday, September 21, 2012

" Eat the Butt" and Save Money

While shopping, I compared bread costs to try come up with an educated guesstimate of the average price.  There was a wide range of prices depending upon type of bread, name brand, amount of "whole grains"or other specialized ingredients, and size.  Prices ranged from .99 cents for Stop and Shop brand basic white bread to $5.39 for Barowsky's Bread Organic Whole Grain 100% Whole Wheat. Obviously there is a huge difference between ingredients and quality, but, regardless of how much you spend on bread,  you can still create yearly savings for yourself by doing one simple thing: eat the butt!
I know, I know, most people, and children, have a huge problem with the end of the bread, or the butt, as most of us call it.  I used to think that crust was "poisonous" as a child, so that explains my fear until I finally saw that my friends who ate it were still living and breathing.
There are several uses for the butt.  I have children, who are not butt-eaters, who are unaware of my sly fox ways: they eat butt, but don't know it!  My tip is to turn the sandwiches outside in when you make them, meaning, put the butt on the INSIDE of the sandwich.  This works particularly well with grilled cheese sandwiches; however, I have also gotten away with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my son.  He eats so fast that he doesn't even take a moment long enough to look at his food and figure it out.  I also make french toast out of them.  Once they are cooked, cut up, tossed about on the plate and covered in syrup, it is almost impossible to recognize the butt.
Of course, there is also the classic bread crumbs. Just ripped the slices into small pieces, zap in a food processor to blend until your desired consistency and then toast lightly in the oven.  Another classic use is croutons: cut your slices into small cubes, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and any other spices you like.  Then toast the cubes in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes, stirring to toast all sides.  In both cases you can store in a tight container in a cool, dry place for several days.
OK, now for the yearly savings.  For this example, let's use the average cost of $3.25 for a loaf of bread.  We typically go through 2 loaves of bread per week.  In our bread, there are about 12 slices of bread, so in 6 weeks of eating the butts, instead of throwing them away, we would create an extra loaf of bread. We save, $13.00 per year.
I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but what can you buy for $13.00? More food, gas, a couple of shirts on sale for the kids from Target, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or WalMart (some of my favorites--more on that later)?  In the savings game, every penny counts.


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Do you have any tips on saving money or cutting costs?