Have you found that choosing organic foods for your family often comes at the expense (no pun intended) of saving money? I know I have. But today I want to show you one way that we have incorporated an organic item into our breakfast routines AND we are saving money in the process!
Tropical Traditions sells so many wonderful products, and the one I am highlighting today is the their Organic Thick Rolled Oats. They are sold in 5 lb or 10 lb bags and are useful for anything you’d normally put oats into (cookies, breads, and of course, oatmeal).
Tim really loves to eat oatmeal. I try to watch for coupons and in-store deals on instant oatmeal, but thanks to the wonderful blogosphere, specifically the blog The Simple Dollar, I learned that if you are a regular oatmeal eater, making your own is more cost-effective.
Let me break it down for you! Typically, a store-brand variety of instant oatmeal costs .20/package. If you go organic, the standard price goes up to about .62/bag. Yikes. We made our own packets using our Tropical Traditions oats, and our cost per bag came out to .14 (not including the small bit of sugar and salt we added…so let’s just say .16/bag). I totally hear you that this isn’t a far cry from the store brand price, but remember that the store brand stuff is NOT organic. This is MUCH cheaper than buying instant organic oatmeal and even a little cheaper than buying the store brand non-organic stuff. Pretty awesome, right?!
So what’s the down side? Well, 2 things. First, you do have an initial cost of all the plastic bags you will be using. But since they are just holding your dry ingredients, you can use them again. We are on round two of using our plastic bags for making oatmeal, so there was no additional expense for us this time around. This isn’t the right idea for someone who eats oatmeal once a month, but if you and your family members eat it a few times each week, this is definitely worth doing!
Second, thick rolled oats aren’t instant. We did some experimenting, and reached the conclusion that they just had to be cooked on the stovetop. It takes 10 minutes, which is much longer than the 1 1/2 minutes that instant oatmeal takes. BUT, you may just find the texture to be even better than the instant stuff (we did).
So, even though we have to spend a bit more time preparing it, we are very pleased to be making organic oatmeal that is delicious for a fraction of what it costs to buy its instant counterpart in the stores.
Buy it!: Tropical Traditions Organic Thick Rolled Oats come in a 5 lb bag for $11.75 or a 10 lb bag for $23.45. If you are an oatmeal eater, but a little extra time in and go organic! Your body will thank you and your wallet won’t hate you! 🙂
Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader is going to win a 5 lb bag of Tropical Traditions Organic Thick Rolled Oats! The contest will run until April 22nd at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected using Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.
Mandatory entry: Share one way that you have gone organic. Has the decision impacted your overall budget, or did you find a way to make the choice not so expensive?
My answer: I also buy organic whole grains (bulgar, millet, etc.) for Darah, to add to her meals. I use the bulk bins to save some dough!
Additional entries:
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Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary item for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
