Alpha Consumer

Frugal and Festive Cooking with Beer

By Kimberly Palmer

Posted: December 24, 2008

Still struggling to figure out what to bring to your holiday hostess? Lucy Saunders over at The Best of American Beer & Food explains how to make your own beer-infused treats without resorting to laying down big bucks for gourmet packages. One suggestion: Barley Wine Marshmallows.

While pre-made packages typically retail for $6 and up, you can make these yourself largely with ingredients you already have in the kitchen. (Although you may have to run out for the key ingredient, Barley wine.) Saunders says she recently saw a package with a dozen marshmallows on sale for around $12 and that these ingredients cost around $9 per batch of 50.

Saunders' suggestions got me thinking about other homemade treats that make great -- and affordable -- hostess gifts. Barefoot Contessa's granola is my all-time favorite. What about yours? Please share tips -- there are still a few hours left before it's time to go to grandma's house!

Speaking of Beer... (No Joke)

Speaking of beer, and this is not a joke, we stumbled upon a very amusing and funny free deal here:

http://www.uberi.com/?p=8442 (or just go there and search "beer")

Given that this is the "Alpha Consumer" section, I thought I would mention that we saved quite a bit of holiday budget to wait for the expected after-holiday sales. That was part of our plan ahead of time. Since then, we have been looking through bargains worth picking up. It’s not about being overly frugal, but simply smart shopping. In fact, we bought a large LCD TV over the holiday. We also sold or gave away some stuff on Craigslist to those who can need some stuff more than we do.

As consumers, we are all trying to make do and get as much as possible for each dollar spent. Lately my family and I have been doing more research before buying anything, and have also done more online shopping and looked harder for better deals. As mentioned previously, we have not stopped spending, however.

One of the online sites we have found to be useful is:

http://www.uberi.com

They do have some interesting bargains listed that are not available even on price search engines. We were able to get more for each dollar. Hope that's useful info for some.

John of WA @ Dec 29, 2008 03:30:52 AM

Sounds great! Thanks for the ideas!

Kinberly Palmer of @ Dec 26, 2008 11:39:07 AM

Fun homemade gifts

Something easy I like to do for holiday gifting is make little sachets out of fun vintage fabrics and organic dried lavender. It makes a pretty, low-cost, and easy gift that everyone enjoys!

Food wise, you can't go wrong with homemade oreos. I've done these two years in a row. I found a wonderful recipe on Smitten Kitchen: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/05/my-kingdom-for-a-glass-of-milk/

libvandesign.com of NY @ Dec 24, 2008 12:47:04 PM

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Alpha Consumer

Alpha Consumer

Kimberly Palmer, senior editor for U.S. News & World Report, writes about how to save money, avoid scams, manage debt, and be a savvy shopper. Send your personal finance questions to her for expert money advice.


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