Beans Save Money!

This is another money saving tip from me. Beans. They save you a lot of money! Not only are they a ton cheaper than flesh foods, more versatile, but they expand, they are easy, you just can't go wrong with beans!

It is not nearly as cheap if you buy them canned, though. So here's the deal. With the exception of kidney beans (which need to be boiled for ten minutes first), throw them in your crock pot! Cover them with a few inches of water and cook them for 6-8 hours. So, if you do it by 8 or 9 am, they will be ready to use for dinner time. This also means no horrid soaking overnight. Everytime I soak beans overnight, they sit in the fridge un-used until I have to toss them out. THIS does NOT save me money. I like this crock method MUCH better.

Here is what I used:

           It cost us about $2.50 for a small (2 lb) bag of black beans. That bag, expanded into..

THIS.

That gave us roughly 1.5 cans per bag. At four bags, that is 6 cans worth. Here, a can of black beans is around $1.30! Which means that a $2.50 bag of beans made $7.80 worth of canned beans. That is over a $5.00 savings! I LOVE beans. I didn't have anything smaller to freeze the beans in, excuse the excessive plastic!

Not only did we save a ton of money, but we reserved the liquid in the bottom of the crock after cooking the beans to make gravy. There was about three cups of brown beany liquid left. To this I will be adding some Miso paste, spices and a variety of other delicious items (garlic, mushrooms, a bit of thickener). This saves us another $2 on gravy! I'll be freezing the jar for later use.

Refried beans for breakfast, anyone??

My husband makes them and we put them over rice. With tomatoes, garlic, onion and the rest is a mystery to me.