Baking or Buying

I recently sat down and wrote out a very strict budget and decided I would stick to it even if it killed me. Since I am writing this you know it hasn't as of yet. I budgeted $120 a week for groceries for 4 adults. This amount includes breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. We may eat out once a week. I basically had spent my $120 for the week and I still needed a few more items. We needed bread, hamburger buns,tortillas and pizza dough. All these things take a lot of the same ingredients just different amounts. All ingredients I already had like flour, sugar, oil, yeast, salt and baking powder. I figured had I bought all these things from the bakery at out local grocery it would have been at least $20. Making them was proababy under $5 plus I did have all the ingredients already. It would have been easier to buy these items. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen kneading, rolling, mixing and baking. Not to mention all the cleaning but I saved $15. That's a total of $780 a year. Think about all the mixes and premade things that we buy. What if every time we decided to make something from scratch we put the savings in a jar. I think you would be surprised about how much that would total in a year. I think you would be happy with how much better it tasted too. This week we will be having chicken pot pies and quiche. I have my dough made and ready to go. I will probably save another $15 before I go back to the store later this week. Maybe I can get my grocery bill down even lower. Pie Crust 2 cups all purpose flour 6 Tablespoons butter, lard or coconut oil 2 teaspoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar 1 small egg or 1/2 if you by large eggs I have chickens and get all sizes depending on their moods) 1/4 ice cold water I put all my ingredients into the food processor except then water. I just pulse until it starts looking crumbly. Then I turn on the processor and slowly add the ice water until it forms a ball. This may not make sense but I promise it will when you try it. The dough will be sticky but it looses that when you chill it for at least 20 minutes. You may not use all the water and thats okay too. You can store dough in your fridge for 2-3 days or freeze for 3 months. This should make two 9 inch crusts.