Friday, November 10, 2006

Saving Money with Muffins

Muffins have helped to thicken my waist and shrink my bank account. Hugh Chou, the calculator man, estimated that I have spent enough on muffins to buy a new desktop computer. Honestly, I want a new PC or laptop more than I want to eat gourmet muffins for $3 each.

So I've become a baker. (I want to have my cake and save it also!). This week, I baked 21 muffins for $4 using a Betty Crocker muffin mix. Two of my homemade muffins weigh about the same as the $3 muffins I typically buy from a wonderful cafe. I spent about 40 cents to make 2 muffins compared to buying one muffin for $3. (I've rounded up both sets of numbers for my busy brain). That equals a daily savings of roughly $2.60, $13 a week, $52 a month or $624 a year, before interest.

Plus there are other benefits of home-baked muffins:

1) fun activity with kids
2) nice smell in the house
3) fewer calories...because the muffins were smaller, I ate less.
4) warm, oven-baked chocolate chips


Here are links to my ongoing muffin saga:gourmet muffins and my frugal diet and the muffin update


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Digg!


The Frugal Duchess BoutiqueThe Frugal Duchess Boutique
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your blog. Are you interested in being paid to write? If so, email me at scotsd50@yahoo.com.

best,
Derek.

Anonymous said...

Love the muffin calculator, and how cute that it was made just for you. But now I'm hungry.

Frugal Duchess said...

thanks derek for the kind words.

Hey BluntMoney:
Thanks for liking the muffin calculator. I'm hungry also. I'll have my second muffin of the day. (My homemade muffins are small).
Take care,
sharon

Anonymous said...

Sharon, I applaud your decision to make the muffins at home, but ... Betty Crocker?? Either get a decent organic muffin mix (that doesn't have the bad ingredients BC has) or just make 'em from scratch. They're not too hard!

Frugal Duchess said...

Oh Sally, you are so right! There are artificial ingredients in the mix. EEW! I'm even a member of an organic food coop. I'll look around for an organic (and kosher) mix.

I didn't try to do it from scratch.
It was the old convenience vs. cost arguement.

The Betty Crocker mix takes 3 minutes from the package to the oven. That's faster than going to the store and standing in line for a muffin.

But I'm also a heath geek.
Do you have an easy recipe?

Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, I don't have a good recipe as I tend to eat LOTS of muffins if I bake them, so I avoid baking them. But you could find a good recipe from Vegetarian Times or at allrecipes.com. I love allrecipes because of how many people bother to leave reviews of recipes.