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When I shared with you about my veg men, I mentioned that I would purchase things like tomatoes in bulk for use in sauce. Today I want to share with you exactly what six pounds (sterling, not weight) will actually make.

Yesterday, my son bought six pound baskets worth of fresh vine-ripe tomatoes for me from the veg men at Finsbury Park. So today, I spent the morning turning them into spaghetti sauce, ketchup and stewed tomatoes for cooking as well as selecting four of the freshest for salads and sandwiches this week. Out of those six pounds, I was able to make:

(3) 500 ml servings of spaghetti sauce – cost of Ragu in the store would be approximately four pounds

(4) 250 ml servings of stewed tomatoes – equal to three tins approximately one pound

Over half of my large ketchup bottle – about two and a half pounds retail

Plus the four tomatoes that would cost me about two pounds in the grocer.

Total value of the products = nine and a half pounds or a savings of fifty-percent.

But my efforts rank high on all of the Frugal Fam core values:

Family first. My three year old daughter absolutely adores helping mum in the kitchen, especially with the ketchup which we learned to make from Playhouse Disney’s Mighty Sprouts show.

Saving money. Well, we have already discussed that one.

Environmentally friendly. The only thing that was leftover from my efforts was a bit of skins and seeds that I will use in my garden as compost. I was able to re-use old plastic containers for freezing everything. And that is three glass jars, three tins and one plastic ketchup bottle that will neither end up in a landfill nor recycled, because I reduced the demand just a bit.

Healthier. This ranks just as highly as the saving money and environmentally friendly, because by making these items from scratch I am able to control the amount of salt, sugar, preservatives and artificial colours in my family’s food.

I hope you will consider what stock items you purchase could instead be made from scratch. For me, my next goal is to learn to make homemade mayonnaise.