Five things that will derail your food to the table train.

Five things to avoid buying,  

1. Bottled water. Seriously, you are paying a buck for water ?     Water is free. ( kinda) .  It is necessary  for  you to drink it; but ,why pay a buck essentially for a thin plastic bottle.     Basic rule  :  don't pay for MT calories.    Water has NO calories.    You want the MOST bang for your buck.
2. Pre - packaged  individual servings:  no surprise here.  You are paying for the labor and all that plastic or paper-- not to mention extra space to ship.   It's like buy your oatmeal in bulk, it takes,no more time to measure out a 1/2 cup from a canister than it does to open the package.    It takes one and a half minutes in the microwave to cook.   Just add water and cook.  Scant one  cup water, 1/2 cup oatmeal, and 1- 1/2 minutes.   Add a banana, 1/2 an apple chopped, some raisins or craisens.....keep cinnamon sugar in a shaker......the possibilities are endless. 
3. Meal boxes or frozen meals.    Again you are paying for something that takes so little of your time if you are efficient.    Many are not what they are cracked up to be and are full of preservatives and things you can pronounce.    Many take no more time than making them from scratch,   There are a lot of easy meals out there that don't make you take something out of an over priced box.   My daughter and I tested a hamburger meal box a few years ago. They have improved their boxes since then, but the same premise  holds true.  My daughter cooked one, I cooked the meal from scratch.   We both used cooked "hamburger" .  The difference in time was seconds.    Mine looked better, had more product and had more cheese and vegetables.    The meal box consisted of little more than four ounces of pasta, and 1.57 ounces of a cheese sauce that you added the milk to to make it cheese sauce.    I suspect that Mac and cheese in a box consists of a small amount of macaroni and a cheese packet you add milk to.    Scratch isn't that hard.    There is a recipe for no brainier pasta I made up on another blog.  My nephew made up the name.   LOL. 
4. Snacks like potato chips and such.    Don't buy empty calories, make your calories count.    A lot of us are on diets to loose unwanted pounds or because our doctors have diagnosed us with a disease that we need to adjust our diets for.    Most of them don't include high salt or sugar.    Make your money count and buy real food.   An apple or an orange is much better for you than a package of potato chips.   
5. Soda pop, carbonated beverages-- what ever you want to call them. They,  too are empty calories.    Some say that the carbonation leaches calcium from our bones, most doctors say we don't need the sugar and the alternative is not much better.   There is a lot of hype out there; and for every yin there is a yang.  Bottom line is the food value is nil.   

And one myth:    Scratch pasta sauce does not cost less than pre made.   Pre made sauces in cans are about the same or less than buying the tomato sauce.    When you can get them on sale, they are less.   

I see that dollar tree is carrying a smaller can than what I am seeing at the grocery stores.    Ina, still finding it for a dollar or less.    Hunts peels their tomatoes with steam,   Some other high prices tomato companies do it with chemicals.   If you have to buy your tomatoes, real scratch pasta sauce is really pricey.    Finding tomatoes less than a dollar a pound is rare on our world.    Most of the time they are close to two dollars.   It is definitely cheaper to buy it made.   

Thanks for stopping by 

Jane 

Dissecting hamburger box.   7/21/12
The above article is the sole opinion of the writer.    It's just my educated opinion.