These sound so good! Breakfast is the meal that aggravates me, it's just me and DH----I get up early, he gets up late. I'm not really a breakfast person, but like it more around 10 or 11 o'clock. I start my day with a Pepsi. This is my little routine.

Then, later in the morning, DH is ready for breakfast and sometimes will just grab a boxed Grits or Oatmeal. He has never eaten my oatmeal, has never liked oatmeal!!

Here is one frugal thing that he does like----I use stale bread and make French toast. This freezes well and reheats well in the microwave. But, I did notice that the heel of the bread gets tough, I won't use them again.

I told him today that I'm working on a Meals schedule---hopefully, I can improve the breakfast situation.

He's also addicted to the Grands biscuits. This will take some effort to switch over. LOL

My fastest, reasonably frugal breakfast is a PB&J with a piece of fresh fruit. Sometimes a glass of milk, too.

I also eat leftovers from last night's dinner, usually cold.

I freeze leftover pancakes. I put them in the toaster oven to toast when the kids are hungry and I don't feel like cooking. The kids don't usually like the cooked breakfasts anyway.

We are late sleepers and all off the preschool programs start at 9:30 so we eat breakfast on the go a lot. I give the kids stuff like yogurt in the container with a straw or pieces of block cheese cut up into cubes. Bananas and sliced apples are another big hit.

Ripe babanas can be frozen in the freezer until you have enough to make banana bread. Banana bread can be frozen for a quick breakfast treat also.

WalMart has, by far, the cheapest prices on cereal. Sometimes it is cheaper on brand-name, than the grocery has for their generic brand.

It is worth the extra trip for me to buy cereals there. It's an even better deal if I happen to have coupons for the brand I am looking for.

Yuck, why eat canned fruit? No wonder you have to try hard to eat it. Don't forget that a lot of the reasons to eat fruit -- vitamins, minerals and fiber -- are compromised by the canning process. Fresh fruit is much better for you and tastes vastly better.

Buy fresh fruit that's in season to save money. Try to buy fruit that's reduced for quick sale. It's often very cheap and frequently much tastier than the full priced stuff. Much of the fruit sold in supermarkets isn't ripe, so setting in the store a few days actually improves it. Too many people buy fruit based on how it looks, rather than whether it's actually ripe.

We do try to eat fresh fruit in season, but in the winter it gets expensive. We can a lot of our fruit in the summer and it gets eaten in the winter or frozen and eaten later too.

I can alot of fruit in season and then mix it up into muffins, pancakes, cakes...just about anything in the winter. We don't care for the store bought sugared products on offer. My latest fast easy morning breakfasts are quiches made the day before and kept in fridge...nuke and eat.....and also waffles....I just used up a 4 litre container of egg nog...DH forgot to tell me he bought...made mountains of waffles and we are eating those up so quick it is unbelieveable....the cost was low as the egg nog was on sale....and you don't add milk or egg to the scratch waffle batter...so it is cheap cheap cheap.... I made a whack with blueberries, some plain and some peach...just tossed my canned peaches into the blender and munched them up. MMMMMMMM Good!

Budster, your breakfast sounds so good that I'd like to come over for one with you - but you're so darn far away!

Oh, well - I expect to visit British Columbia next summer.

Maybe we can get together then.

Good wishes to all for a great New Year.

ole joyful

Citrus fruits can be very cheap in the winter. And a lot of tropical fruits -- mangoes, papayas and bananas -- get cheaper as the winter turns into spring. I've seen kiwis lately selling very cheaply. If you shop carefully, fresh fruit is never so expensive that you couldn't afford to eat it at least every other day. And your nice home-canned fruit would be more appealing if you didn't feel obligated to eat it every day.

And, like I said, check out the reduced-for-quick-sale bins.

I just want to say for my family we don't feel obligated to eat our home canned stuff...we just prefer it. We do buy lots of the reduced stuff and eat loads of fresh as well....so for my family there is no obligated to eat it feeling...it is what we prefer, when it becomes an "obligated" feeling then it doesn't give me the same frugal kick. And I love being thrifty...doesn't bother me in the least.

My shameless promotion of fresh fruit was actually in response to the OP who wanted "to do better about having fruit with every meal."

I agree that home-canned fruit is much better than store-bought, and, if put up when the fruit is in season, cheaper as well. Still, I would rather have a nicely ripe pear, say, than even the best home-canned.

To each his own but I appreciate your response.

Another favorite low fat breakfast is:

Whole wheat english muffins cut in half
Canadian Bacon
Marmalade or preserves
No fat cream cheese

Spread no fat cream cheese on a half an english muffin. Add piece of canadian bacon. Top with marmalade or preserves.

Broil until edges of muffin are browned.

Greetings all.

On my earlier post I meant to say that I like to add some sesame seed, flax, etc. to my oatmal, wheat or rye flakes' porridge. Recently I heard that the coating on the flax is so efficient that the seed goes right through me without my digestive system being able to wrest any nutritional value from it. What kind of sadness do you think that information added to my frugal thought patterns?

Now I hear that I need to grind up the flax to obtain nutritional value from the seeds as they travel through my system.

Sister-in-law tells me that a coffee grinder will do the job. I guess that one will need two grinders, though, should one lack enthusiasm for flaxified coffee.

But one should do only a small quantity at a time, as it gets rancid rather quickly (not during this cold weather, I think - though it isn't really cold inside). Once could store a small bottle of the ground stuff in the frig.

Wheat germ is a nutritional addition to porridge, also - but one should store that in the frig, as well, as it gets rancid if stored at room temp for too long.

I remember having a few raisins added to porridge occasionally, which added some interesting variety. Something like adding them to rice pudding.

I have taken to cutting about half a dozen cooking dates into small bits to add to my porridge for one, as well. That adds quite a different and interesting flavour!

When we were children my youngest brother (currently the retiring farmer), hated oatmeal porridge - he'd sit looking at it for half an hour (and it was cold by then, of course). He scarcely ever eats it, yet.

On my recent trip to the prairies that brother, who grows them, gave us a couple of bags of lentils.

My brother's neighbour, who shares work with my brother quite a bit (his Dad was my brother's pal) braved the -25 degree cold to get most of a gallon ice cream pail of flax from his bin for me just before our return.

I thanked him warmly for his effort.

May your New Year bring the fulfillment of some of your worthwhile dreams and the visioning of some new ones. To be following by some implementation, of course - when you get around to it.

ole joyful

P.S. Have you ever seen a round piece of prettified paper or other material stuck on a frig, etc., with "tuit" written on it?

When spouse says that s/he'll do so-and-so when s/he, "gets around to it ... " - give it to him/her.

When your kid asks what that is, tell her/him that it's a "round tuit" that they're always saying that, " ...I'll do when I get a .... "

Good project for spouses (or is that "spice"?) of procrastinators would be to make one such and quietly add it to the frig door, don't you think?

OJ