I love cold cereal. I have been known to eat it for any meal of the day, especially when I’m pregnant. When we lived in town, I was great at combining coupons, sales, and manufacturer deals to get bargain prices on cereal. I rarely paid more than a dollar for a box of cereal. Now that we are far from stores, stopping in for every deal (or even only the good ones), just isn’t possible or cost effective.
In our home, cold cereal has become a highly valued commodity.
Instead of enraging the children by strictly rationing cereal, we turned cereal consumption into an anticipated weekly event. We now have cold cereal only on Sunday mornings. The kids look forward to “Cereal Sundays” all week. Because we are consistent, the kids don’t even ask for cold cereal if it isn’t Sunday.
When I find a great deal on cereal when I am in town, I still stock up, but those boxes now last months instead of days. Designating Cereal Sundays not only helps with the budget, but it makes Sunday mornings run smoothly and efficiently. Instead of spending time cooking (and cleaning up) a hot breakfast, I can get myself ready for church, then help the kids get ready after they eat.
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Yarrow Morgan says
July 11, 2014 at 2:05 pmIf you love cereal, I think you will REALLY love this. We buy dried wheat berries, and
cook them overnite in our slow cooker for breakfasts. I like mine nuked about a minute
with fruit and yoghurt, my SO likes them cold too. They have a ton of protein and stick
with you all morning. We started getting them at the regular grocery store, but now
order by 20 pound bag from Amazon. I think it is Bob’s whole grain winter wheat.
I love what you are doing. Yarrow
Stephanie says
July 12, 2014 at 3:39 pmThanks Yarrow! I have never done anything like that! We buy wheat in bulk since that’s what I use to make bread. When you put it in the slow cooker overnight do you put water in too? I would be interested in giving it a try!
Yarrow Morgan says
July 15, 2014 at 3:33 pmYes, definitely. The ratio is 3 and 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of wheat berries. Our crock
pot just died yesterday, and we did it on the stove–it took about 2 and 1/2 hours on the stove. I bake our bread too, and make salad dressings, and we cook from scratch. It
makes so much differences and the food is so much better!
Out of curiosity I plugged our actual spent grocery money to a government program, and discovered that we were at almost their lowest level and considered deprived. So
different from the reality.
Stephanie says
July 17, 2014 at 8:22 amI’ll have to try this sometime.
It is amazing how little you can spend without feeling deprived. There will be a learning curve for people who are used to convenience foods, but it’s worth it. I think the government programs don’t take skills (like buying ingredients and cooking from scratch, or smart shopping) into consideration.
Coco says
February 9, 2015 at 10:20 amThis is such a great idea! We have church at 9, and luckily it isn’t a far drive, but getting 4 kids ready and a lesson prepared and all the odds and ends switching to cold cereal on Sunday would be great! Thanks for the idea.