Normally I wouldn't consider the food goodies to be frugal. I usually would have spent more money on food items than I did on all the rest of the gifts! In past years, I've had food stamps, so there was no actual cash going out of my pocket. I'm sure that's why all those years ago I even started baking bread and cookies and making some kind of candies and such.
I was worried this year as to how I was going to do the baking.
Here is a photo of the total of 11 boxes I fixed up.....whew! got them done about 1 pm this afternoon.
Now for the fun part. The Lord works in mysterious ways and does provide!!
I was chosen to do a giveaway through myblogspot with Chex cereal and Kroger. The prize package included a $25 Kroger card to make my favorite Chex cereal holiday recipe. I've been making the Muddy Buddies for a few years now. These were TOTALLY paid for, including the Ziploc bags with the gift card! Plus, there was some left over for a few other groceries as well.
I "cheated" this year on the cookies. I used Krusteaz cookie mixes. They were on sale at my store for .99 a box and there were $1 coupons out! I had 6 coupons, and therefore got 6 boxes of cookies mix free (just paid the sales tax). I did peanut butter and frosted sugar cookies (powdered sugar for the frosting was left over from making the Muddy Buddies)
Then, I won a blog giveaway for a $25 Del Monte gift certificate good on fresh fruits and veggies. The bananas for the banana bread all came from that (along with 3 pineapples and 9 large tomatoes).
Steve bought the ingredients I was missing.....1 dozen eggs, 2 boxes of stick margarine and a bag of brown sugar.
And, even the boxes I used I didn't pay much for. They were all part of a larger bag full of the boxes, plus some gift wrap that I picked up at my church Christmas fundraising sale for just $1!
So.....how did I do? I want to say again, that God works in mysterious ways...and here's proof that he listens to prayers and does provide!
Here is wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas!!
