Annual credit report free credit report Maryland

The end result of these methods is that for the month of August 15 to September 15, our grocery bill was about 50% lower than our average month of groceries. At the same time, weve also banked annual credit report free credit report Maryland several meals into the freezer that well be able to use in future months. (Yes, part of that reduction was due to an influx of vegetables from the garden, but not nearly all of it.) The biggest reason why this has happened, in my opinion, is that were drastically reducing our impulse buys. Even with a grocery list, we usually tend to make a few impulse buys on each grocery store visit. This not only saves us money, but it also helps with our health as well. Time, money, health this move is a triple win, in my eyes. Saving Pennies or Dollars is a new semi-regular series on The Simple Dollar, inspired by a great discussion on The Simple Dollar’s Facebook page concerning frugal tactics that might not really save that much money. I’m going to take some of the scenarios described by the readers there and try to break down the numbers to see if the savings is really worth the annual credit report free credit report Maryland time invested. Ive been told it can be really cheap, but from what I can tell unless you are growing your own, it isnt worth it. Sarah and I do a small amount of canning, mostly tomato-based things in a water bath. We can things like tomato sauce, salsa, pasta sauce, and so on. However, beyond that, we actually dont can very much. business free credit report We find it more cost-efficient to freeze vegetables in the fall and use them in the winter instead. Canning requires jars, lids, annual credit report free credit report Maryland and rings.

Youll also need a large pot (for acidic items) and/or a pressure cooker (for other items). I wont include the pots in this calculation because theyre easily used for other purposes. Ill also only count 1/10th of annual credit report free credit report Maryland the cost of the jars because they can be reused quite a few times. You can annual credit report free credit report Maryland also get bands and lids for about $0.70 per set, and since youre able to reuse the bands, you can also get just lids for about $0.40 apiece. Thus, your cost per canned jar for the materials is about $0.54 with some additional startup costs. Canned goods You can buy a pint can of many canned vegetables at the store for $0.89 or $0.99. Many other items will cost substantially more than annual credit report free credit report Maryland that. free 3 credit scores Thus, its pretty clear that if you have a source for fresh vegetables, you can save significant money by canning yourself. Flash frozen goods You can get about a quart of flash frozen vegetables at the store for $1.39.

Obviously, as with canned goods, annual credit report free credit report Maryland the selection at that price is fairly limited. Freezing requires containers and a freezer.

As I calculated before, the cost of maintaining and using a deep freezer is about $130 a year. On average, we freeze an item for six months and it takes up about annual credit report free credit report Maryland 1/2% of the freezer, so our cost for annual credit report free credit report Maryland that individual item in the freezer is $0.32.

We use freezer containers over and over again to freeze items, so the cost for the container is $0.01 or $0.annual credit report free credit report Maryland 02. This gives us a total cost of roughly $0.34 to freeze a quart of annual credit report free credit report Maryland vegetables ourselves if we use it in six months.

Simply put, the raw cost of freezing or canning is cheaper if you do it yourself, but only if you have a source of free or extremely inexpensive vegetables and fruits. The cost of even deeply discounted fruits and vegetables easily pushes the cost of freezing and canning yourself up into the range of no longer a bargain and most likely a loss. identity theft protection Freezing and canning yourself has startup costs, too. You can save dollars, not pennies by canning (or freezing) if you have an abundant garden.

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