My neighborhood Walmart has bakery pies priced only $2.50 apiece this week. That makes a home-baked version using kid-friendly canned ingredients about the same, provided you use generic ingredients. The 69-cent pumpkin at Aldi made my total cost less than I expected.
Ingredients from Aldi:
can of pumpkin $.69
evaporated milk $.69
2 eggs .25
frozen pie crust .60
sugar plus spices .25 (?)
or about $2.50 for each pie, plus electricity and cleanup. (This cost would be almost doubled if using Libby pumpkin, Carnation milk and Pillsbury pie crust.)
Amy Dacyzyn's The Tightwad Gazette includes an in-depth study of pumpkin pies. She freezes cooked pumpkin for all kinds of uses, including pre-made mini pumpkin pies for lunchboxes. True tightwads will look there first.
Of course, I could have easily make our two pies cheaper by:
- converting powdered milk into evaporated milk
- pureeing a post-Halloween pumpkin or a pie pumpkin
- making my own pie crust
13 comments:
I only use Aldi pumpkin and am so impressed with the price on this ingredient. I stock up on the pumpkin since they only offer it as a seasonal item and I use pumpkin year-round for a ton of recipes. Same with their turkeys, which I think are an amazing deal, because they are only offered for that short time.
You are really making me hungry for pie ;)
As I was reading I was thinking, "she can make evaporated milk cheaper". hehe. Glad you have the same resources! Oh, and for soy drinkers.. you can buy soy powdered milk and once again enjoy the yumminess (is that a word?) of a pumpkin pie!
I always make our pumpkin pies because I have to make them with Splenda for my husband. It is so good made with Splenda that I swear you can not tell the difference between a pie made with sugar and a pie made with Splenda.
Thanks for the blog. It is wonderful.
I wish we had an Aldi in our area. We do not. We have Wal-Mart super centers, H.E.B. (Texas based) and Randall's. (Safeway)
I am going to Randall's tonight to buy our turkey at .29 a pound..I have to spend $25.00 to get that price but that won't be a big deal as they have a few other loss leader items I am going to stock up on for the rest of the month...Roxie
Meredith,
Thanks for the link! :)
I totally agree that it's worth it to make them from scratch - in addition to learning cooking and math, Andrew's learning to contribute to the family and that's priceless!
Definitely worth it: I'm sure the homemade will taste far better than storebought. More fun, more rewarding, more flavor. What's not to like?
Those store bought pies are just so yucky! They don't even compare to homemade so I defintely think it is work the extra effort and a little bit more "dough"
hehe
I appreciated your point about how, while you might be able to make the pie even cheaper, by using canned pumpkin and ready-made crust, you've created a great experience for your son. I'm sure I've read somewhere (here or at Frugal Hacks) that sometimes you have to spend a bit more for whatever reason (here, to make it kid-friendly, other times to save time).
Now, I'm off to Aldi...
I've had success using regular milk in pumpkin pies, which also helps the cost.
Cathy
Your pumpkin pie sounds delicious.
Thanks for the link to the page about using powdered milk. The price of milk has been going up, of course, but I was shocked at how much I paid for it on my last trip to our good old neighborhood Wal-Mart.
My mother in law used to mix powdered milk and regular milk way back in the day when my dear hubby was young, in order to stretch her budget to feed a hubby and four growing children. I've done it, too, but never on a regular basis. It seems that now, I probably will.
Someone mentioned powdered soy milk. Where can you find that?
Ah, but nothing seems to taste as good as homemade pumpkin pie. Hope you had fun making them.
You have your priorities right! A child who is not allowed to "help" is a poor child indeed.
Thank you for sharing your life so transparently and I do appreciate the photos.
Miss Meg
I guess I've been in Japan too long! Your pumpkin pie posts dumbfounded me...
Somewhere in the dark recesses of my memory I do remember pie with canned pumpkin and evaporated milk - but the memory is dimmed by 30 years far from beaten paths. Walmart pies aren't even on my map!
I'm afraid my (5) children thought it was normal to go to the pantry and get a kabocha (sort of pumpkin like squash), bake it and make pie (in the blender with whole milk and brown sugar) using the recipe on page 120 of "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy". The pie crust (from my Rodale cookbook) is the easiest part: 1 1/2 cups ground oats, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/3 cup oil, and 1/4 cup icy water pressed into the pie plate.
BTW, I love your blog - I have it bookmarked.
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