My grandchildren love to eat cereal for breakfast and at times…as a snack. As a grandparent, I don’t mind them having cereals (in moderation), but I admit, I don’t like the high prices that I had to pay at our local grocery store. Even with a money-saving coupon, I find that the majority of breakfast cereals are way over-priced!
My frugal way of bringing down the cost of cereal is to buy the cheaper “generic” brands and jazzing them up with fresh fruits, dried fruits, granola and/or marshmallow ourselves.
When generic granola is on sale…I’ll buy 2-3 bags of it at a time and keep it in my pantry. When the kids want granola mixed into their cereal or oatmeal, I just pull it out of the pantry and add it into their cereal.
I always have fresh and frozen fruits on hand, so when they want fruit added to their bowls, I can quickly and easily toss in some sliced banana, strawberries or blueberries.
However, up until a few months ago…adding in marshmallows was a huge problem! I could easily find marshmallows that were made for hot chocolate or for baking out in the retail marketplace, but those don’t work well for cereals. Finally, they started making and selling the perfect marshmallows for cereal, oatmeal and ones that could be used in hot cocoa too, and they were selling them at a fabulous price!
For example, stores in my area will sell large bags of the marshmallows made for cereal (think Lucky Charms-type) for $1.00 per bag, but often times they put them on sale for 2 bags for $1.00. That’s when I like to stock up, when they’re .50 cents a bag! I’ll often pick up 4-6 bags of them at a time!
By purchasing generic cereal and adding in our own marshmallows I’m saving BIG TIME as compared to buying those “name brand” cereals that have the marshmallows already in it. I figured it out last week and I’m saving 49% per serving, by doing it this way! If you have several kids in the family (or even adults) who eat cereal, this savings can really add up over the course of a year!
In my particular area, we can find these bags of marshmallows in most of our major grocery stores and some of our farmer’s markets & bakery outlets are also carrying them. Again, look for them on sale to really maximize your savings! The two bags I’m featuring on the blog today I picked up for .50 cents a bag…what a deal!
I like all of your tricks for the cereals. My favorite cereal is still Lucky Charms but being diabetic I’ve had to cut back on it. One trick I do is I have some huge glass storage counter jars. I keep them filled with kroger brand cheerios that I mix lucky charms in. I still get the taste of my favorites but much better for me. These marshmallows are not at my kroger yet, too bad. What I do is take some bags of marshmallows & bake them in the oven at 250 degrees (low temp) for about 30 minutes. It completely dries them out which is exactly how they make the ones in the Lucky Charms cereals. It gives them a little crunch which I like. I also mix in a huge bag of generic raisins and a bag of unsweetened coconut flakes to my jars. It is really great in the cereal bowls. If I just have a plain ole bowl of cheerios (which I don’t love), I add a squirt or two of my sugar free pancake syrup to the bowl. Then it is maple flavored awesomeness It Also I make my own granola it is so much better & cheaper. Easy to do. It is basically just baked oats that you spice up with whatever you like. All the stuff you are already buying would work for the granola. Oats are super cheap if you buy in bulk.
Made me smile reading this .. you mentioned Lucky Charms when those first came out ((MANY YEARS AGO)) my nieces loved them. They were going to be staying with a few days, got up fixed bowls for all of us…………… that cereal was so sweet and I had to pour out could not eat.
You have some great ideas here
I love this idea of jazzing up plain cereals with other items, but I try to stay away form items that are too sugary. i prefer nuts and fruits.
I LOVE those marshmallows. What stores did you buy them at?
We found them at Big Lots, Giants and Weis. In addition, I see them all of the time at our local Farmer’s Markets too.
I’ve seen these for sale online, too. Of course, the problem is I would be eating them straight out of the bag, lol.
I have never seen these bags in our area. I think this would be a great way to jazz up cereal, and marshmallows are better than sugar dumping for sure. I would have bags and bags of them too. I have only seen these online, but will have to see where they are being sold.
(Frugal Tip: Jazzing Up Inexpensive Breakfast Cereals) I am glad that the one thing the cereal companies did start doing was cutting down the amount of sugar that they put in now.
I try to stay away from sugary cereals. I like to add fruit to my oatmeal.