This year I’m helping out my daughter’s family by purchasing the after-school snacks for the grandchildren. Every 2 weeks I load up on different items and drop them off at her home. But let’s face it…those snacks can get pretty pricey if your paying full retail price. I’m not! Luckily for us, we have a grocery outlet 5 miles from our home. They offer some of the best deals on food and beverages in our area.

Two weeks ago I went there and picked up 10 boxes of Tastykake and Entenmann’s baked snacks in a variety of different flavors. All packages were within-date (none were expired) and weren’t damaged at all. They always have a nice variety of mini muffins, full-size muffins, cupcakes, cinnamon buns, donuts, brownies, snack bars, fruit leathers, gummie snacks, etc.

In addition to purchasing the after-school snacks I also make homemade snacks to go along with them. I will often bake mini loaves of banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, iced cupcakes, shoofly pies, homemade popsicles, homemade ice cream, etc. This ensures the kids get a really nice variety of things to snack on. In addition to these things…my daughter makes sure they each eat 2 pieces of fresh fruit every day (usually at breakfast time and one in the evening). Wish they would eat more…but 2 is a great base line for now. Pudding and jellos are a staple in their refrigerator too.

Now…I don’t give them all of these snacks at one time. I typically drop off 2 boxes of purchased snacks and 1-2 of homemade treats to their home. Kids would eat them all if I left them all there. Yeah, typical kids…so if you’re leaving out after-school snacks, make sure you don’t overload the kids!!!

I know not every community has a low-cost grocery outlet. I wish we would see more of them across the United States to help families save on their grocery bills.