Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies Every Day

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I love convenience, after all saving time is a big part of frugality.  What I don’t like is the cost of convenience.  I mean come on- is it worth $3 bucks for an 8 pack of instant oatmeal?  You still have to measure out the water.  You can get twice as much oatmeal from an instant canister that costs $1.  (here is my post on how to flavor the whole canister with cinnamon and sugar so you can just do one scoop with your water) Our family goes through a canister in about 2 weeks, so we’re saving nearly $5 x 26 = $130 a year (Nearly $160 after deducting the income tax/SS/medicaid/tithe to be able to have $130 to spend).

So in my quest to lower costs, but still enjoy the little things in life I decided to do up some chocolate chip cookie dough to keep in my freezer.  I figured if they can make those little packages that yield about 12 cookies and charge upwards from $2.50 a package that surely I can figure something out.

Attempt #1
I started by trying to duplicate the tube of cookie dough.  I made up my dough using a freezer recipe and rolled it into a tube and wrapped it in wax paper.  It baked ok, but it was a mess to get out each time and the paper would tear.  Fail.  Maybe I should have used a ziplock back instead?

Attempt #2
I had really been craving cookies again.  I checked the date on my eggs and since it was over 2 weeks away I wondered just how long the cookie dough could stay in my fridge, so I called my mom.  She said it could certainly stay in the fridge until the date on the eggs and probably a week past since I was going to be baking it anyway.  So I mixed up the regular recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package and we’ve enjoyed chocolate chip cookies anytime I used the oven or toaster oven.  The date on the eggs just passed, so I took the last of the cookie dough and rolled it up into balls.  I put them on old butter tub lids (you could just use cardboard), stacked them up, and sealed in a ziplock bag. Success!

This has worked perfectly.  We have freshly baked cookies whenever we want, and enjoy the convenience that those expensive cookie dough packages without the cost.  Think you don’t have time to make “ready to bake” chocolate chip cookies?  Invite a couple of friends over.  Do up three batches and spend the hour visiting while you work.

Ok, I really was going to stop there, but by now you know how my mathematical brain runs wild.  After my dear friend Pary Moppins showed me how much money she saved (it’s a dream job sort of salary) by making her own vanilla extract I’ve been hooked on finding out my new salary of savings.  So far my tracker on the side bar shows I’ve saved over $7,000 this year.  That doesn’t count savings like this from finding a less expensive product or choosing not to spend money on something we don’t need.

Here’s the cost breakdown of the cookies and my yearly rate of savings/ pay:

Store price for 12 ready to bake cookies $2.50 (on sale)

Cost to make 5 dozen cookies at home:
.21 for flour
.12 for white sugar
.30 for 2 sticks of butter
.18 for vanilla extract
1.42 for chocolate chips
.20 for brown sugar
.15 for 2 eggs
total: $2.58 (and most of that was paid for with RRs at Wags!)

If we go through a batch of cookies in a month’s time we save $9.92 a month or $119.04 a year.

Take it a step further and factor in my family’s current tax rate, social security and medicaid cuts, and tithe:  My husband would have to make $152.62 for me to have that $119.04 to spend on ready to bake cookies.

What creative things do you do that save your family a good amount of money per year?

Comments

  1. Glad to find your blog- fellow Texan here. I do the cookie dough too. I put the scoops out on my cookies sheets and freeze. I go back in a couple of hours and pull them all off and just put in the Ziplock bag. Easy! And I usually have a kid help so it goes super fast.

  2. I was going to chime in, but Glenda beat me to it. I “flash freeze” a lot of things. When you freeze something so it is mostly frozen on the outside then pop it in a freezer bag & it doesn’t all stick together. I have had a lot of problems making cookies this way, though. Frozen cookie dough balls taste AMAZING and often do not make it into the oven before they are eaten!

  3. Think of how much more $ you’d save if you made your own vanilla for this recipe. 😉 Love it and with the amount of cookies we go through here at The Little Pink House, I would go broke if I didn’t make them! :) Thanks for this.

  4. Thanks Glenda and Leah- I wish I could have flash frozen these but I didn’t have enough across space. I used to flash freeze a lot back in the days when we had two freezers. Sausage and ham in particular. oh well. :-)

  5. Pary- at the rate I currently use (I used a lot more years ago) vanilla it would take me about 6 years to go through one of those bottles when it’s made a home. Maybe someone can just use that as a Christmas gift one year when I start to get low :-)

  6. thanks for visiting Couponing Texas…now your newest follower

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