When I was a child, we lived on a farm that had a grape arbor loaded with Concord grapes. Each September, my mom would can jars upon jars of grape juice, and I have fond memories of evenings around the kitchen table as our family ate popcorn and drank that delicious stuff (which doesn't taste like anything I've ever purchased from a store).
Well, apparently, nostalgia set in this year, and I ordered 1.5 bushels of Concord grapes. (And if you're wondering how much that is, it felt like a whole vineyard.) The grapes came earlier than I expected, so I texted my husband that morning: “The grapes are here and they're RIPE. We need to can the juice tonight.”
He texted back: “Sounds grape.” Yes, he really did.
So that's how we found ourselves — on our anniversary, no less! — late at night, plucking grape after grape after grape off stems, stuffing jars, wiping up grape juice, and feeling very, very tired.
My thoughts went something like this: This is a stupid way to save money. And then to an even scarier thought, Am I even saving money?
Does preserving your own food save you money?
Besides the grape juice, our family canned and froze lots of other produce, too. Back then, it was a way to save some serious money. But my mother also used to sew a lot of our clothes for the same reason: It was cheaper. However, it is not cheaper to sew my own clothes today, so I wondered if food preservation should fit more into the “hobby” category in my budget. And what a labor-intensive hobby it would be!
Here are my grape numbers:
- 1.5 bushels of grapes – $37
- 56 quart jars – free
- 56 rings/lids – rings were free, lids $10
- Sugar – around $4
- Electricity – I have no idea, although according to this article, it costs between 2.3 and 3.4 cents per quart (or $1.90 for 56 quarts, using 3.4 cents per quart)
- Canner – free
- Jar lifter and canning funnel – free
Using the above numbers, my costs were 94 cents per quart.
First, drinking water would be way cheaper than this. And, the crazy thing is, we usually do drink water, milk, or the occasional iced tea. This grape juice will be used judiciously. But let's say we did buy grape juice regularly. At my grocery store, a quart of grape juice is close to $1, just about the same amount.
Finding canning components
As you can see in my equipment list, my favorite word is mentioned a few times: free! I have had no problem finding free canning supplies. In fact, I have turned down offers for canning jars.
Anyway, look in the usual places (Freecycle, Craigslist, etc.), but also ask empty nesters or people who are downsizing. When my mom downsized earlier this year, she had boxes of jars and rings to give away. She also gave me the jar lifter, but didn't have a spare canning funnel. However, I asked my best garage-saling pal if she could keep her eyes open for one — and surprise! — she had two extras. And then there was my (free) pressure canner and (free) water bath canner that were given to me by someone who was getting older and didn't want to mess with canning anymore. So it has been really simple for me to amass the equipment needed for canning.
I bought my jar lids in bulk, but they were not reusable. However, there are reusable jar lids that I found for $8.50 a dozen. Based on these costs, I would have to use them over four times to equal the disposable lids. I haven't used them, but maybe they are cheaper somewhere else. I always like the idea of reusing something.
Freezing, the cold alternative
With canning, the energy use is on the front end. With freezing food, there may not be any consumption on the front end, but storing frozen food isn't free. Obviously.
I have more experience with freezing produce. This year, I bought 80 pounds of blueberries for $2.29 per pound (not cheap, but so delicious). Most of them made it into our freezer. Getting them ready for the freezer required little more than a quick rinse. Easy. And then there was our bumper apple crop that netted us 100 pints of applesauce for the freezer. That was a little more time-consuming: cook the apples, puree them into sauce, and freeze.
I also got some free plastic freezer containers from someone who prefers to use plastic freezer bags. I actually prefer the freezer bags, too, but I occasionally still use the plastic containers.
There are other pieces of equipment you may need. For instance, my applesauce was pureed with a part that pops onto my big mixer. These extra pieces could be borrowed, or I am sure you could find them by using the strategies above.
Finding inexpensive produce
1. Grow your own. If you grow your own produce, freezing and canning make sense, especially if you're trying to prevent wasting a surplus. But there are other avenues to find good produce — for less than you think.
2. Fruit trees and gardens are a lot of work. Perhaps you can barter your pruning skills in exchange for some peaches. I have been given free pears and apples by people who had picked all they needed, but didn't want more to go to waste. My Grandmother's neighbor couldn't pick her grapes, so she was relieved when my Grandmother picked them and used them. The grape jelly didn't hurt, either.
3. U-pick farms and produce stands aren't necessarily inexpensive, but sometimes they have “seconds,” produce that doesn't look as good, even though the taste is just fine. This produce is less expensive than the pretty stuff.
Getting started with home canning
High-acid foods like jams, jellies, pickles, and some salsas are an easy way to start preserving your own food without stressing about botulism; recipes and instructions abound on the internet. My favorite canning blog (yes, they exist) is Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and she's a pro at creating small batches in an evening hour or two. If you've tucked fruit into the freezer this summer for later use, check around for a canning recipe for a mid-winter day's work.
I especially like that glass canning jars are reusable year after year and don't need giftwrap when given away. They are welcome homemade gifts that won't turn into clutter (unless you're my Dad, who has an entire cupboard packed with food I've made for him over the last five years — long story). And I was excited to find a source for BPA-free reusable canning lids through the magic of the internet. I split an order with two friends and used them for the first time (easy!) on a batch of dill pickles the other night. One more step toward self-sufficiency; now if I could just grow and refine my own sugarcane…
A word of caution: You'll still find recipes that tell you to seal canning jars by turning the jars upside down or by simply packing them with very hot food and closing them immediately. USDA recommendations call for a boiling water bath — usually between 5 and 25 minutes — for safe canning. Without the boiling water bath, your jars may seal, but they won't be sterile and could develop mold. It's worth the effort to do the boiling water bath step.
Apricot Essence Preserves
(Makes 2-3 pints)
- 3 pounds apricots, pitted and chopped (about 24)
- 1/2 cup canned apricot nectar
- 1/2 teaspoon unsalted butter
- 3 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh or bottled lemon juice
Puree the pitted fruit in a food processor. In a non-aluminum 8-quart pot, combine fruit, nectar, and butter. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
Reduce heat and stir until apricots are softened, about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Reduce to a slow simmer and cook until it is thick enough to mound on a spoon, about 30-40 minutes.Stir frequently. (Remember, it will firm more as it cools—you can put some on a chilled plate to gauge how thick it is.
Ladle into clean pint or half-pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rims clean with a damp paper towel and add lids and screwbands. Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes. When cool, check the seals. If sealed, remove the bands and store in a cool, dark place. If it didn't seal, you can either re-process it or store it in the fridge for up to a month.
While I didn't experience the joy of canning while I was in the middle of it (it's a lot of work!), I do admire my colorful jars lined up on the shelves in my food cellar. Each sip of grape juice takes me back to my childhood, and that tastes pretty sweet.
For more information on canning, check out:
- National Center for Home Food Preservation
- PickYourOwn.org: All about home canning
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Complete guide to home canning
- BALL Complete Book of Home Preserving
- Blue Ribbon Preserves: Secrets to Award-Winning Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, and More
Is food preservation worth it to you? Has anyone used the reusable canning lids?
Author: Lisa Aberle
Lisa Aberle is a college professor by day and a freelance writer by night. Always an aspiring writer with an interest in money, she once ironically misspelled “mortgage” during a spelling bee. Most of her current adventures take place on the four-acre mini-farm she shares with her husband in the rural Midwest (where she writes with gel pens whenever possible).
Wow! What a fantastic supply of great food you have. Well done! I borrowed the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving from the library this summer and it truely is a fantastic source of information. I highly recommend it too.
Wow that IS a lot of great food! I am thinking I might try this at some point because I love going to the farmer’s market but sometimes don’t use everything before it goes bad. It would also be nice during the winters here in Maine to have some fresh summer vegetables. Thanks for the post!
Heh, last night and this morning we canned 22 Qts. of pickels.
8 Qts. of dill chips and
14 Qts. of bread and butter spears.
And 2 Qts. of green beans.
Our garden is small and diverse enough that we’d been able to keep up with everything up until we took a 4 day trip last week and found an invasion of cukes when we got back…
This was the first time that we really took care of our garden (last time we didn’t weed) and it was pretty amazing how prolific squash can be and how much watering corn needs. It certainly gave us a better idea of how much of different veggies to plant next time.
I picked over a kilo of blackberries today, from the fields that back onto my house, in less than half an hour. I’m planning on freezing rather than canning, though.
My mom is great – she still cans stuff for us; the biggest thing that I love are canned peaches; she’ll also do tomatoes (for tomato sauce), and she’ll also can mustard beans and pickles.
For beans, usually, my mom just blanches them and throws them in the freezer…
But in all honesty, unless you are getting the veggies and fruit for a really really good deal, sometimes canning is not the best use of your money. For instance – is it really worth the cost to spend $3/lb for peaches, and all the money and time for canning, when you can just go to the store and buy a can of peaches every once in a while?
My folks ran into this this year – they are not young, and my mom usually does a massive canning of dill pickles – but they don’t eat them too much. My mom made the executive decision this year to not can pickles, and to instead just go and buy a jar when they crave them.
This is great! We subscribed to a CSA farm over the summer and were able to eat most of what we received. However, I did freeze some of the veggies for later use (green beans, berries, etc.) We didn’t get enough to do canning, but I have canned in the past and enjoy it.
Is this a form of pack ratting?
I am always put off making jam by the cost of the sugar. Have you kept track of those costs? Perhaps it’s not as much as I think it is.
That is awesome! My wife and I just did our first round of canning. We canned 5 jars of apple butter. We plan to do more canning, but are starting off small with some apples we picked last weekend in western NC. Both of our families canned when we were children and we want to teach the practice to our children. Thanks for sharing.
I would be interested to see a breakdown on the cost of canning _____ (filling in the blank) vs. the cost of buying the same quantity of that product in the store. I know there is no price we can put on home grown and knowing what is in your jar, but it would be nice to know how much more or less it costs to do at home.
I am 22 and have, along with my 24 year old roommate, have canned various things (so far Apple Butter, various Jams, and dozens of quarts of Apple Sauce). When we tell people about it, or pass out our bounty, they are rather disbelieving. They view it as an art of the past, not something that my generation can be doing as well.
This weekend we moved my Grandmother into a retirement community and I inherited her big old pressure canner! Now I am excited to do even more canning.
I was talking about this with my mom the other day. She grew up canning as a girl. It was basically an all day event. My grandma would wake all the kids up at 6AM and they would can and bottle fruit and vegetables from their garden all day long.
I’d like to get into that sort of thing. I just don’t know how to do it. I’m letting my Mormon forebearers down.
Oh, I always recommend the Ball Complete Book. My latest favorite is also Stocking Up by Carol Hupping – some other neat recipes and other growing/harvesting tidbits that are fun to have on hand. My grandma canned like she was preparing for nuclear fallout, and I’ve apparently inherited that tendency, which is kinda fun, just not at 3am on my 3rd round of applesauce. ;)
Very jealous! (But in the best of ways…we have a small kitchen…too small to can in right now!)
Any way to extract the salsa recipe from you? If it comes out well after canning, it has to be good and I am currently on the lookout for one that will work.
I have never canned but I have made blackcurrant jam with freshly picked blackcurrants and that was absolutely fantastic!
@Kirsten, the cost of sugar is not much compared to the cost of jam – this can literally last you all year from a couple of pounds of fruit. Plus homemade jam makes a great gift to friends, so you can save money on gifts as well.
I have just read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and her summer chapters are all about canning and preserving. It’s a lovely book – well written and accessible and inspiring in lots of ways.
We’ve been canning for some time now. Most of our information comes from my Alma Mater: http://extension.usu.edu/foodsafety/htm/publications/by=category/category=319
I’m impressed! I agree . . it’s easier than you’d think to can and so satisfying to have everything stored up for the winter. It’s true, the cost is much less than you’d think. Also, you can control the ingredients. For example, you know that there won’t be any low-quality corn syrup in your jam!
We do quite a bit of canning too each summer. This year we’ve done mostly plum jam and nectarines with a few pickles. We still have umpteen jars of applesauce, pears and tomato sauce to do.
If you want something to make her lids look a little bit more cheerful, I designed these canning lid labels for my blog readers. You are welcome to enjoy them too:
http://asonomagarden.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/canning-lids-download/
I think it’s great that you do canning, I used to help my mom can and also freeze vegetables. And although it might not be cheaper now, nothing compares to Canned Peaches or anything for that matter especially since you know exactly what your
ingrediants are.
My wife, Liz, and I get great deal out of your website and really appreciate it as an educational source. At times, it seems that we are living a very similar life to the two of you, only on the opposite end of the country in central Pennsylvania.
As a kid in the 1960s/70s, I used to help my mother plant and tend a large garden every year. Each summer and fall she would can and freeze a significant amount of our family’s fruit and vegetables for the next year. Interestingly, we just started doing this ourselves these past couple of years. We also experience harvesting, canning, and freezing as liesure activities and great times to work together on a common interest. It reminds me of the people that were quoted in the Orion Magazine article “The Gospel of Consumption” who perferred working a shortened work week. It enabled them to do things like canning as an extended family and provided a path for connection of family members. Pretty cool.
Kudos on all the great canning! Here is my list of all the ways this a great beyond just being more cost-effective per ounce:
1. It’s more sustainable. You make an initial investment in the supplies up front, but after that you can reuse the jars over and over. It drives the costs down AND it minimizes storage container waste in the landfills.
2. You have more control. Since you know how you grew your fruits and vegetables, you know exactly what sort of pesticides/chemicals you are being exposed to (or not).
3. You can pick the food fresher so it’s healthier/riper. Even ripe food in the stores has been off the vine for a while. Unless you’re buying your produce locally, even fresh doesn’t measure up to the sort of freshness out of your garden.
4. You are doing a great thing for the earth in reducing the transportation costs associated with your food. It’s all from your garden, so no gas was burned shipping your food to a store or driving to a store to buy it.
I’m sure I could come up with more. But you’re my heroes! I’m jealous.
My mom used to can and she made the most delicious zucchini and carrot pickles ever. I don’t know why she stopped.
Sounds like you really like this batch of Salsa. Would you care to share how you made your salsa? I’m struggling with a good recipe for it. Thanks!
Uhh JD, why is there a WoW ad on the feed today? *tsk I thought that you gave that up.
Google Reader KNOWS ALL!!! :P
We get a box of canned jams, jellies, pickles and relish every Christmas from a beloved aunt.
It is heaven. I do secret trades for my favorites. Canning is a lovely thing to do.
I just canned 10 qts of tomatoes yesterday (1/2 bushel from the farmer’s market) and have plans to do you-pick apples and raspberries this week.
I’d really like the berry applesauce recipe!
Our garden hasn’t produced enough to can, but I’ve been bulk-buying from the farmer’s market and you-picking to get our favorites. This season we’ve canned: 20 1/2 pints rhubarb jam (rhubarb is free), 20 qts dill pickles, 1 1/2 bushels tomatoes (about 20 qts whole tomatoes and 20 pts spaghetti sauce), and 11 pints applesauce. I’ve also frozen a bushel of green beans, a gallon of blueberries, a gallon of raspberries, 12 additional cups rhubarb, and I’ve got 13 green peppers waiting to be chopped and frozen tonight. I’ve never done more than jam and applesauce, so it’s been a big year. My four year old does remarkably well with an apple slicer/corer/peeler.
(I didn’t think of doing it for vegetables, but maybe I will next year.)
I advertised really late in the summer, but still ended up with enough free fruit to can nine pints of pears, six pints of plums, three quarts of applesauce, six jars of apple butter, five jars of plum-pear jam, a dozen jars of plum jam, and I honestly don’t know how many jars of blackberry jam (it’s been put away in a couple of cupboards and I’m too lazy to hunt it down). I’ve also frozen a bunch of blackberries for winter shortcakes and to add to bread pudding.
The jam jars are different sizes, from 4 to 16 ounces, so I’m not sure what it adds up to — but there’s a lot of it. (Next year I’m keeping a log, I swear.) I’ll give much of this away as gifts; it’s especially good for those people who already have everything.
Just finished my penultimate batch of plum jam and my apartment smells WONDERFUL. This year I tried making it without commercial pectin and was pleased with the results, although it meant more boiling and stirring. While I cooked this batch I did the math and figured out that it cost me about 16 cents per 8-ounce jar. The sugar was on sale, and I got a splendid deal on jars, rings and centers at a yard sale earlier this summer. And the fruit, of course, was free. :-)
Watch yard sales and thrift shops for canning supplies, but also rummage sales and estate sales — people are cleaning out attics and garages.
Recently there was a coupon for Ball canning products in the Sunday coupon section: Buy three boxes, get one free. I had two coupons so I bought eight boxes of centers (96 total) for just over $11, or about 11.5 cents apiece.
I urge people to give preserving food a try — but be warned that it’s pretty addictive. Even though I probably have enough blackberries, I still want to go out and pick some more because, well, they’re growing right around the corner. And they’re free.
Like I said: Addictive.
I haven’t seen anyone mention the difference in taste. For us, a jar of fresh canned peaches is like a jar of sunshine, even the expensive store bought ones in the glass jars don’t come close to the summer ripe taste of home canned peaches. While other preserves also have improved taste when done at home, the biggest difference in taste for us is in the peaches. We also grow our own beef and pork, and while the beef is good, home grown pork has a flavor nothing I buy from the store comes close to.
To the person who felt this was hording, sure is, just like money in the bank. Recently Money ran an article on the the best financial advice you ever got. One of the comments was, if you only had $1000 to invest, put it in non-perishable food. I compare my pantry to a good emergency fund, and it gives me the same satisfaction as a barn full of good hay. Nothing like the secure feeling of a full emergency fund, full pantry and freezer and a barn full of hay as winter looms around the corner. While not many people crave a barn full of hay anymore, most people have room for some summer fresh preserves.
I would also like the salsa recipe and I did want to do it this week, but I suppose I can wait…. (I’m reading from Poland. Salsa over here is something like $6 for a small jar of Old El Paso.)
All of those jars must have cost you alot of money??
Canning equipment can be very inexpensive. I got my Boiling-water-canner (practically new with rack)at a garage sale for 3.00.
I get tons of canning jars from older relatives who no longer process their own foods. You can also find them at garage sales and thrift stores. These last forever. Just check for any cracks or chips, especially around the rim. Cracked or chipped jars should not be used.
I also got tons of new lids, still sealed in the boxes at a garage sale. 11 boxes for 2.00. That was a score!
I do a lot of trading. My neighbors give me free pears if I give them pear jelly, applesauce, etc. I give my BIL hot pepper jelly and he gives me fresh-caught salmon, smoked salmon, pheasant, etc.
I guess you could call canning pack-ratting. At least it’s a constructive form of pack-ratting. It’s a way to save money, support my local farmers at the u-picks, and enjoy home-canned food that tastes soooo much better than anything you can buy at the store. Also, here in Michigan, you need to have some sort of emergency foods. There can be times in winter when you don’t want to (or can’t) venture out for a week at a time. Okay, and the pretty jars of jams, fruits, tomatoes look so pretty on the shelves too!
Have you tried dehydrating? I’m curious to try it–hear it preserves nutrients better than canning does.
I totally love this. I thought I was the last person under 40 into canning. :) Its awesome. It’s hard work in short bursts but so very satisfying. I absolutely love the post about bartering for free fruit. I never thought of that.
I actually just finished up my first canning experiments – 6 half-pint jars of spiced pear butter from free pears that I got from my boyfriend’s sister’s mother-in-law’s tree. (Third-hand, but still.) I also used local Pennsylvania white wine in the first step.
There’s an apple tree on my walking route to work and I’m seriously thinking about asking the nice people who live in the house if I can go pick their apples in exchange for some eventual apple butter.
Taking the idea of buying in bulk and repackaging in smaller containers, my mom once bought a #10 can of chili sauce (it was very cheap) and processed it into pint jars. That was last year and we still have jars of it around. Also, for freezing stuff, I highly recommend the Food Saver vacuum sealing stuff. The initial outlay is high, but the quality of frozen food frozen vacuum sealed compared to just plain plastic bags is beyond compare.
You can send me the green beans!
My daughter’s friend’s mom has apple trees. This year the fruit is abundant. I’ve been giving her 1 liter for every canner full I make from her fruit (7 liters).
I’m glad and I think so is she. My mom got me the Victorio Strainer at a yard sale for a couple of dollars a few year back and it is WONDERFUL. Everyone loves turning the crank and it seems like a miracle how that ugly stuff comes out and the applesauce comes out the other side.
The jars CAN be expensive at first (ha) but if you let people know you want to do it, I’ll bet that there are plenty of people in the area who would look out for jars at yard sales/sales for you.
Here in Poland we just use the jars that they sell other things in. They don’t have the system that we have in the states. You can reuse the lids as well. It really is cheap. But I do prefer the throw away lids as they seem to be more mistake proof.
I have a zucchini confetti relish that I make that people here love, so I make a couple of double batches to use as presents.
Yes, it can be addicting, but it is a fun addiction and one that my kids love.
The taste of my homemade peach jam and what we can buy…no comparison, mine is better. On the other hand, I prefer store bought canned peaches. Weird, huh?
For those of you just starting, my advice is to start simply. Make jam the first year to get your feet wet, using only the boiling water bath, then advance to actually canning other things like pickles, vegies and fruit concoctions. Getting a pressure canner and doing green beans is another step. It’s not really hard is only really in your imagination. It just takes time. If most people would cut out their tv time, they’d have the time they need. It’s only seasonal.
I love to can and every year I do more and more of it. Yesterday I canned 9 pints of pears. Today I have canned 10 quarts of applesauce and I will do about 10 more tomorrow. Also this summer I have made blackberry jelly, blackberry/raspberry jelly, blueberry jam, pickles, 2 batches of salsa 1 spicy, 1 not, and am going to make apple jelly later this week.
I would second the recommendation on the Ball Blue Book of Preservation – it really is a must have if you want to can. It has all the info you need for just about anything. Canning is not nearly as hard as people think and it is very satisfying work. When I finally sit down after spending a few hours canning and look at the jars neatly lined up on my counter cooling I can’t help but smile at the thought of all that good food being eaten by my family this winter. I love it!
Hi there,
Thanks for this post; I really enjoyed it. We’ve done canning before (salsa and applesauce) and we love the results. The only problem for us is time. How many hours did all of that canning take?
This is one of the most inspiring posts ever! My sister in NC can’s, but I have never had much luck. I think it may be time to give it another try though. To all of you who can, my hat is off to you, thank you!
FYI, there’s a 3-page canning how-to in the latest issue of Bon Appetit magazine (p. 116).
Mmmmm, spiced apple chunks and cinnamon apple wedges!
Allow me to be the contrarian here:
I now can a lot less than I used to. Part of this is because I now live in a milder climate, but… To those with gardens I say:
rethink your garden layout,
try compact/container seed varieties,
and explore climate-extending techniques.
In many areas of the country you can eat fresh veggies earlier and later than you think – by selecting early/late varieties from a seed catalog instead of settling for what the garden center offers. And by using inexpensive season-extending methods.
Look into Square Foot Gardening and Raised Bed Gardening – both of which make it easier to use cold frames, mini-greenhouses, black plastic mulches, polytunnels, row covers, and other season extenders.
If you have enough space for trees, you can select varieties that spread the harvest out. A lot of garden and orchard advice is geared towards commercial farmers who want a large, uniform crop ready all at once. Instead, the home orchardist/gardener wants the exact opposite.
I now only can seasonal items that cannot be dried – largely berries and fruits that ripen in a short time window. Since I live in a place with hot, dry summers, I dry more peaches, grapes, and apricots than I can. Instead of laboring in a steaming hot kitchen in the heat of the summer, I put the fruit in trays and let the sun do the work for me.
Canning is a lot of work, and can use a lot of energy in processing. In many areas of the US, it’s not the optimal solution for food production or preservation.
To avoid the heat in the kitchen (since we don’t use AC) I can everything on a propane grill side burner. I try to batch as much of my canning together as I can to keep the water hot, and only half a propane tank will do all of my summer canning.
I looked at our grocery receipts last month and realized that because of our own garden, our normal eating budget was down by $100! So I looked at some sales of things we eat every day (certain cookies and pretzels that always go in lunches) and I spent that $100 that I saved because of the garden on those sales, effectively saving $50 by stockpiling those items. This month, because of the garden, some strategic stockpiling, and my own canning, our grocery bill should be half what it normally is.
Hi there–
So glad to see that so many others are into canning too! Out of my large family, I’m the only one who still does it.
We are currently working on 2 bushels of plum tomatoes bought from the local farm stand, which we are turning into sauce via vintage canning equipment from my grandmother’s day. (Next year we will plant enough so that we don’t have to buy any.)
I’m curious about other people’s tomato sauce canning technique: the books usually say that the jars should be boiled after filling them and putting the lids on, but we’ve never done that, and we’ve never had problems with the lids not sealing or the sauce spoiling. Does anyone else just fill the jars with boiling-hot sauce, close them up, and let them seal on their own?
Thanks for such a great site, btw.
I’m curious about other people’s tomato sauce canning technique: the books usually say that the jars should be boiled after filling them and putting the lids on, but we’ve never done that, and we’ve never had problems with the lids not sealing or the sauce spoiling. Does anyone else just fill the jars with boiling-hot sauce, close them up, and let them seal on their own?
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I’d never do that. I always boil or pressure-can everything that I jar.
All it takes is one batch of botulism to ruin your family’s day.
As for the costs of canning: the biggest recurring cost is the darn lids, which seem to go up in cost every year, and are never on sale. You can get jars easily from the paper…its a dying art and people are always looking to get rid of jars.
Canning is not so much a cost saving technique, but more of a value added technique…the savings can range from moderate to minimal to nominal (especially if you factor in your time), but the flavor of your own canned products is far superior to the stuff you buy at the store.
I always water bath or pressure can everything that goes in the pantry. Yeah, I’d prefer not to meet Mr. botulism. I believe that putting the lid on hot foods was how folks used to can (like people used to use the rubber rings, inversion, wax, etc.) but I believe there’s since been more research done on it and the water bath and pressure canning are safer.
As for cost savings… I did u-pick for strawberries ($1/lb), green beans (5gal bucket for $5) and so on, in addition to “free” stuff from neighbors and their trees and my own backyard (and since I’ve started saving my own seeds, that cost has gone down as well!). Considering I’m able to make and can things that are at the peak of their flavor and nutrition and lacking in high fructose corn syrup (I detest those commercials), it’s just a world of difference. Feeding my young kids the good stuff is almost priceless. My 5yo *loves* green beans, and will happily tell anyone and everyone that his favorite vegetable is broccoli. :) My 2yo will munch down an entire apple from the tree in the yard, and would try to sneak strawberries from the strawberry beds this summer. It’s just a fabulous way of life for us – and one way for me to keep grocery costs down since we’re a one-income family.
We recently got into canning. One tip: getting the canning jars at a resale shop like Goodwill can save 30 – 50% then buying them new.
I am surprised to see all the talk on canning vegetables and fruits, we have canned for decades, however we can everything meats, stews, soups, chowders (not with milk/cream until it is opened) I live in an apartment, and still manage to can approx. 1,000 qts of vegetables, fruits, meats, soups, stews, every year. For me it is just an ongoing year round process, like going shopping.
However, doing it at home, you control Sodium, and preservative etc.
I also can, lots of chicken and broth, beef and broth, pork and broth.
Chicken Leg quarters are cheap by the 10 lbs bag in the store, and you can, can all sorts of recipes. The very expensive little cans of canned chicken breast in the store can be home canned very cheaply, just raw pack in wide mouth pints and put 1/2 tsp salt on top, pressure can 10-15 lbs for 90 min.
I would be lost not canning!!!
On the topic of tomato sauce, here in rural western Virginia (high density Old Order Mennonite area) I learned from an Old Order lady years ago.
Cook your tomatoes into juice, let the stock pot set on the stove top until the next morning, all the solids (after juicing) will settle to bottom, leaving the clear yellowish clear liquid on top (we refer to as tomato whey)skim all this off,
cook for about 30 minutes to reduce a bit, then go to the store and buy the largest cans of to tomato paste. We purchase gallons at Costco for 3.99 add the can to your sauce, cook a bit, and can!!
The fact that you cook tomato sauce so long, uses all sorts of electricity/gas, cooks all the nutrients out. and we often end up canning 30-40 qts from this.
Since the average Mennonite home cans food not in the hundreds of quarts per year, but the thousands per year, they have learned techniques to help speed the process along, I know some homes with 4 gas stoves and 8 pressure canners going all summer long.
Pressure Canning vs. Waterbath
I have not water bathed anything for decades!!
When I can tomatoes, fruits etc. that they call for water bath, we use 5 lbs for 5 min.
Some really soft fruits, we will bring to pressure after venting and turn off the canner.
Some other fruits we will process 5lbs for 15 min.
We have found that 99.5% of all pressured canned foods seal, this fall, I canned 350 qts of soups, stews, meats, and vegetable soup and I had only 6 jars that did not seal.
Please be careful when canning green beans. They have a very low acid content and such are ripe for botulism colonization, even with proper preparation. My great grandmother accidentally killed her first two babies with canned green beans back in the early 20th century.
This is to comment on Courtney’s comment, in the early 20th century most all home canners primarily use a water bath for canning green bean. Today it is recommended to process green beans in a pressure canner which we do, at our altitude which is about 1200 ft. we use 10lbs pressure for about 75 minutes. We have done this for decades with no problem. I recommend pressure canning for all things.
I was recently introduced to canning and I find it really interesting. I have a few meat meals that I would like to try to can. I noticed that there are not many recipes for cooked meat. Then there are those that are called ‘canning recipes’. So I was wondering is it possible to can any sort of cooked food? or there are only a few recipes that can be canned?
Thanks for the post, and the link to the jar lids. I’ve been pickling for a couple of years but have just started making jam this year…So far so good. Experimenting with no pectin, pomona’s pectin fruit juice-sweetened, and traditional recipes. Making my own pectin is, as of reading your post, on my list in the coming months…Thanks!
I’m happy to see the trend in canning, as well, though I dislike the competition at yard sales sewingirl describes (half kidding).
Also, I share your love of Food in Jars…It’s a great blog.
My 6 yo son and I have only managed to master freezer jam here, but are anxious to try some veggies in the coming days.
It is great to see more people keeping up the tradition of preserving their own foods.
Great article! Enjoyed your fresh, easy style as much as your canning. :) I’ve never thought I’d have the time and energy, but my mom used to help my grandmother can a cellar-full of fruit.
Great post, Love it!! I’m wondering about home made barbecue sauce. Right now we’re canning it but putting it in the fridge until we get it-obviously its not lasting very long. I suppose it should be bathed as well. I have a canner. Also, I’m wondering if Chris would share how much expertise she believes necessary before one moves on to a pressure canner, if ever.
I’ve been working on homemade baby food this year, and freezing our garden vegetables this summer. Would love to try making jams and jellies but I’m leery of all the sugar that I see in the recipes. I buy no-sugar-added jam at the grocery store. On the other hand, I buy plenty of ice cream and other treats so I don’t know why the sugar called for in the recipes bothers me so much.
I am finding the process a bit addicting myself–last night’s batch was gooseberry jam. My grandmother always had a pantry full of canned food–fruit, vegetables, pickles, tomato products, but I wasn’t old enough to learn how to do it from her before she died. My mom never canned so I’m figuring it out on my own as an adult!
You could try growing sugar beets, but the processing would probably be formidable for the yield. In Michigan, that’s how sugar is made.
More practically, you could have honey bees.
I don’t think you have enough room for enough sugar maples. Probably doesn’t have the right climate for a good sugar season there anyway. Too warm.
My husband started canning this summer. We’ve had great pickles but the peach preserves he made the other night are runny and very sweet.
I’m handing over your apricot essence recipe to him right now!
I just read “Putting Food By”, by Janet Greene- it’s a great how-to on preserving food for beginners.
I can my own food as well – everything from jam/jelly that makes great gifts, to pickles from the garden (beans, zucchini, cucumber, beets), to salsa, diced tomatoes, and pasta sauce from August’s tomatoes.
In addition to saving money it makes me feel less dependent on the machine of capitalism for my daily sustenance. And more secure – I’ve got a good 6 months’ worth of food in the pantry most of the time.
I have a steam juicer that I use for many things throughout the fall although it’s main job is to make grape juice for us! :) I’ve been married 21 years and we’ve never bought a jar of jam! I make about 40 pints of different freezer jams each summer and it is all gone or almost gone by the following summer. Of course, it makes a difference that I am making pb&j sandwiches for school lunches all year long!
I’ve never made my own pectin and I dont suppose I will ever try. It sounds lovely though! And speaking of used lids, Gwen, uses flats 6 or seven times or more! This is the first year that I used lids off of last years jars and I was pleasantly surprised to find that every one sealed! I’ll be doing that more often!
To people asking how to get started, I really liked this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Homemade-Living-Canning-Preserving-Chutneys/dp/1600594913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282407234&sr=8-1
It was the first one I bought, and has recipes as well as really good instructions for people who know nothing about canning. I also use the Ball Blue Book occasionally (the recipes are pretty boring, but tried-and-true.
And then there are two amazing, really thorough recipe books (they won’t teach you how to can), one on jam and one on pickles:
http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Pickling-Revised-Flavor-Packed-Vegetables/dp/1558323759/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282407324&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Jams-Jellies-Other-Sweet-Preserves/dp/1558324062/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
None of the recipes in these books require boxed pectin, and she has recipes for lots of weird things that you can grow in your garden like ground cherries and sunberries.
I’ve been canning for a few years and recnetly I’m on a kick to get all of the chemicals out of my food supply. The Ball lids are made with BPA and can leach into the food when the lids are heated or even off gas. We picked pounds of peaches, nectarines, plums today but I can’t get to work on them until I find replacement lids and seals that don’t have BPA in them. I found this brand Tattler online, but don’t know how to use the rubber seals. Is BPA a concern to you? Have you tried other canning supply companies besides Ball or have any of the readers?
indio, I use Weck jars – they’re expensive (I got them as a gift) but all the parts are reusable and it’s all glass so no BPA. If you’re up for making an investment they’re really beautiful.
Seems like when I was a kid, farmers wives made jam using any old glass jar and covered it with little cellophane circles…..you had to put the cellophane sheets into water to soften and then they were put on the sterilised and filled jar. the cellophane then got tight as it dried and was held on with a rubber band. Other people would seal the jam with melted wax. This was growing up in New Zealand…..40 plus years ago. Anybody remember stuff like that in the USA?
So you know how a steam juicer differs from the results of the grinder type, nutritionally? (how is that for convoluted prose?) I am sort of in the dark as to how the steam models work but wondered how they treated the nutritional elements of fruits, etc. Off subject but curious. Thank you.
Charles
I made a lg batch of spaghetti sauce, used jars so no bpa freezing in plastic bags… Do I have to do the boiling process and actually can or is it ok to just freeze?
I made quince jelly last year for the first time, it requires no pectin at all because of the amount of natural pectin in the fruit. It was really good. An elderly women up here in the Gulf Islands, BC Canada (pacific northwest) told me to help myself to her quince tree because she didn’t use them anymore. Hope to ask her for more this year. Wonder if you could use quince pectin for canning?
A little joke:
Q: Why do I eat so much home made jelly?
A: Because I CAN!!!
haha.
My wife and I have our eyes trained on the free section of Craigslist and on Freecycle this time of year watching for people trying to clean up their fruit trees. This year we’ve already scored 42 quarts of applesauce just by picking up apples from someone’s yard.
Thanks for the link to the reusable lids. I’m afraid we would have to use some single-use metal lids and some reusable lids since we give away so much of what we can. Do you give away your reusables, or do you only share with people you’re sure you’ll get them back from?
Also, I really like seeing these articles. They add character and a human touch to the blog, which helps differentiate it from other pf blogs.
My husband and I went to the Columbia County fair and after looking at all the preserves, the thought of entering my own creations has definitely crossed my mind.
If you haven’t already, try pickled cherries. I don’t process the jars, because they get eaten so quickly.
@Amanda – yes it’s okay to freeze tomato suaces. They dont need anything special done to them. If you freeze something you dont need to first can it. Some vegetables need parboiled first or blanched but other than that the freezing process is sufficient.
One thing about the BPA and the reusable lids: It would be awesome if they just went to all stainless steel lids and there was no BPA, but I looked up the plastic polymer MSDS sheet for the Tattler lids and they are just as bad or worse than BPA. Canning still exposes you to less chemicals than commercial food because the food sits in glass, not in a fully-lined can. Maybe a petition can go around to BAll to get them to remove the BPA entirely.
For those who think preserving food has nothing to do with finances, you are incorrect! I made 13 jars of Tomato Basil pasta sauce last week. Everything was fresh with no added chemicals of course. Including the jars, it cost me ~$1.40 per jar. Good quality sauce where I am even on sale is never less than $2.50/jar. Next year, it will cost even less as I can re-use the jars. Pickles and jam are even cheaper.
While there is some disinformation out there – there is also a equal and opposite tendency (especially in government-issued guides) to go overboard in the Quest For Sterility.
This can be rather off-putting to the beginner.
I learned jam and jelly making from educated-but-relaxed Europeans who sealed jam jars with paraffin and used Euro-style canning jars – both of which have worked for centuries, but are now frowned upon by the Prissy Canning Police.
There are easier, more laid-back ways to get started in canning. And if you buy European style jars you do not have to worry about replacing lids every year.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned in this article is that some county fairs will pay you money if you win ribbons etc. Not a lot, but even at our little county fair you can win cash prizes depending on how your item places. like $2, $3, $4. But I know people who save and enter their kid’s artwork in the county fair in various art categories just so they can try to win money (and ribbons for the kids).
Speaking of canning jars and yardsales – I once heard a yardsale horror story about yardsale seller who was giving away free jars of her homemade jelly since she made too much. One rude yardsale buyer came along, opened a jar – dumped out the contents on the lawn just because they wanted a free jar!
I’m so glad so many people are picking up canning. Over the years, a lot of older people have given me their canning supplies (or i’ve picked them up out of the trash – seems like when Grandma dies the people who clean out her house don’t value her tools at all.) and given away hot water bath kits to several people.
For people who want to can low-acid stuff and don’t want to shell out for the pressure canner, it’s worth asking around for one to borrow/inherit and refurb(like it is for the dehydrators); a lot of people buy canners and don’t use them much. Presto sells parts for every canner they ever made, as far as I can tell.
Canning is probably a great method for homesteaders, but I find it hard to believe the extra time spent really saves anything in the end. How much money does canning really save when you factor in the cost of supplies, energy and the produce to put in the jars?
> Without the boiling water bath, your jars may
> seal, but they won’t be sterile and could
> develop mold
My mother made loads of jam all through my childhood, and I’ve made a few batches over the years. My mother always just poured the hot jam into jars that had been heated in the oven to stop them cracking, topped the jam in each jar with a waxed paper disk if she had any, and then finished with a cellophane disk held on with a rubber band. She didn’t even have canning apparatus, boiling water baths, etc.
The jam we stored for up to a year (or more if they got lost at the back of the top shelf, where they were stored), and if any mould formed we just scraped it off, and the top layer of jam, and tucked in to what was underneath. Same thing with cheese – we just cut any mouldy bits off before eating.
Is today’s obsession with sterility really necessary, do you think?
My mom (with me or my sisters’ help) usually cans strawberry jam and raspberry jam (we pick our own from pick your own farms). She’ll usually make maybe 24 pints of strawberry jam and 12 of raspberry. Sometimes more. We LOOOOOVEEE jam at our house. We also make some gooseberry jam. All that would be more at the end of june/july.
Then at the end of August, we take a week for ‘tomato’ products: salsa, chili, tomato sauce, and just good ol’ canned tomatos. We probably had like 50 pint-sized jars of a mix of the above! And the pantry was completely empty of all of that as of last weekend. For all of those, we grow tomatos, bell peppers and onion so we only need to buy a few things like jalapeno or beans for the chili, spices.
As for getting started with jars, rings, a big canning pot for water baths, I suggest checking on craigslist or garage sale. People are always getting rid of them. I bought 2 cases of pint size jars, my big pot, and a few other things for $20. She had tried canning and got sick of it I guess. The stuff was brand new. And I always see jars on craigslist for like $0.50 each and you can haggle a bit on those, like $5 per dozen.
I think it’s worth it to preserve if you don’t have to pay for the raw ingredients.
In most cases you can find canned vegetables from costco that are cheaper than what you could put up from fresh even at the cheapest peak of season.
Ugh, hate the new format. I read GRS on a tablet, and the copy shows up scrunched on the left side. Not very reader-friendly.
Hi Kat,
Can you tell me what type of tablet you use to read GRS? I’d like to mention that to the developers and hopefully get that fixed.
If anyone is having difficulty reading the site, please mention it in the comments. Very much appreciated!
Thank you!
Linda Vergon
Editor of GetRichSlowly
I’ll expand on other comments, but first I’ll add (if someone else missed it) that almost everything we DIY have other values, so I would not just rate this on how much money you saved-you have good memories, you don’t have to go to the store to get juice, depending on how it was canned, it can be part of a homemade gift..you get my drift. I sew in the winter because I wear “spring colors” instead of red, purple, black and gray and while I actually do save money, that is not my only consideration…ANYWAY…
I tend to agree that in true cost saving fashion, much money will be saved if you can get cheap or almost cheap produce.
Most of my canning is of the incidental, take advantage kind-apple picking or strawberry picking, the crab apple tree in my yard, the moderate amount of concord grapes in my gazebo. In all of these cases I am saving money both because the fruit is free, I collect jars throughout the year and I use these things as much for gifts as anything else-the crappples were spiced and put in jars with Christmas lids, the grapes actually became grape syrup in our case, and the strawberries became a preserve/ice cream topping kind of thing.
Now, if I just did not have to can on an ever lovin smooth top stove my life would be perfect. Sigh.
I very much dislike this new format. Personally, I just don’t find it that appealing to the eye.
Hi Kat,
I just got word back that the developers will be looking into how the site renders on mobile as well, FYI…
Best,
Linda
Thanks Linda. I use a Surface RT
I use an iPad 5 and the comments rarely work properly. Given that more people are reading on mobile devices, this could be one of the reasons fewer people are commenting.
A responsive theme might be a good solution for GRS.
Hi, I only browse this site on computer. I’m astonished that you revamped the whole site, but didn’t solve the problem of needing a double-reload when submitting a comment.
I hit “submit” and page refreshes so that my comment is submitted; a popup appears telling me that the comment will post when approved. THEN when I hit “close,” the page refreshes again.
Pretty annoying, especially when connection speeds are slow.
I also read on a tablet, and the Ipad has an e-reader format button that is in the website field which turns the page into a ereader view, bigger format, no ads, etc., which is decent, but honestly the format isn’t that significantly different in the normal website mode than before.
Don’t know nothing about canning, I just try to by produce that is in season and thus on sale regularly while in season.
As Mr. Frugalwoods notes, it helps if you don’t have to pay for the produce. I used to pick a lot of blackberries in Seattle, both for freezing and for jam-making. At one point a few years ago I estimated the costs at 27 to 29 cents per half-pint jar.
Cheaper than store-bought jam? Probably not. Delicious? Oh, yes. No preservatives, either.
When you’re growing the stuff yourself it’s important to keep total costs in mind. Are you buying seeds, fertilizer, soil and other items?
I don’t factor in my time either for berry-picking or gardening, because those things are fun for me. (If I lived in a super-hot, humid climate I might tweak my definition of “good times,” however.)
We live in Alaska and don’t yet have a big greenhouse (next year, with luck). Producing more of our own food is a topic of interest for my partner and me, both due to the cost (and flavor!) and the fact that a major disruption in the food supply system could be interesting.
We also can chicken and turkey when it goes on sale, and fish that people give us. It makes me happy to have shelf-stable protein to go with all the other stuff we have stored (either home-canned or purchased in bulk at Costco).
My dad subscribes to Backwoods Home magazine and one of its writers swears by the Tattler reusable can lids. I’m interested in trying them myself, once I use up my stockpile of jar centers.
seems to me that you wanted to make the grape juice because you had good memories from childhood. those are priceless. there is also the social aspect of canning if you have friends/family that share the work and bounty. shared times and memories there too
Another source of free (for your labour) fruit is urban fruit picking programs like Not Far From the Tree. You sign up for a pick in someone’s backyard, show up and help, then take home a share of the yield (which may be a little or a lot).
Paying for produce can be financially worthwhile or not depend on prices of what you’re buying. I figure canning tomato sauce costs about the same as buying it, but is in glass instead of aluminium cans. (Tomato sauce sold in glass tends to be expensive.) Those same tomatoes, dried and stored in the freezer, are much cheaper than any sundried tomatoes I could buy. Ferments like sauerkraut tend to use cheap ingredients to produce a product which is expensive to buy. They also don’t have as much invested energy (fridge rather than freezer; some types of ferments don’t even need that).
I’ve used the Tattler reuseable lids. They’re definitely more expensive, but probably pay off in the long run as long as you don’t give jars away. Though it’s not officially recommended, the regular lids can be reused if they’re in excellent condition. (Try this at your own risk.)
A couple of months ago I was buying this big case of peaches. A lady at the register says are you going to can those? I say no I’m going to eat them fresh as fast as I can, even if it’s all I eat for a few days. She says if you can them in the middle of winter you can enjoy peaches. I say yes, but then they’d be canned and not fresh like right now, so I’m gonna eat them.
I buy a lot of frozen fruit though (e.g. blueberries) because due to no spoilage it’s a lot cheaper than fresh. But if I can find good fresh fruit I’m eating it fresh. Oh, except for bananas which now I freeze for ice cream.
Not sure about canning grapes, as I don’t eat them much, but what about fermenting them….? Now that is a preservation method I find highly appealing. And the increase in value has to be significant.
I make a killer grape jelly with the Concord grapes we grow. I had a jar of Smuckers in my cupboard that I promptly threw away after tasting the homemade. So much better!
A building two doors down from me in Seattle had purple grapes growing on the back fence. I contacted the building’s owner and got permission to pick.
Probably wouldn’t do it again, even if I had access to grapes — picking, stemming and turning the fruit into juice and THEN making jelly seemed way too labor-intensive for me — the product *was* pretty tasty.
These days I’m limited to the raspberries and rhubarb we grow plus any wild berries I want to go find and pick. I really, really miss those blackberries. :-( In addition to making cobblers and shortcakes from the frozen berries, I’d sometimes dump a pint in a blender, add a little bit of milk and a touch of sugar and pulse until something like sorbet resulted. Too thick to drink with a straw, and so delicious spooned out of the blender on a warm summer evening.
A friend of mine makes jelly from wine grapes…. oh, so delicious!
El Nerdo,it pretty much sounds to me like the logical next step for you is wine making. :D
@ Tonya – I’m not a big jelly eater, but it sounds tasty! (Maybe I’d eat lots of jelly if it was homemade & not store-bought)
@ Anne – Ha ha ha yes…! I’m interested in fermentation. Not just for alcohol though! Yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc… all good.
@El nerdo — you comment made me laugh! If I can’t eat fresh fruit fast enough, I make a fruit crisp or I slice it up and freeze it. (Frozen peach slices are my favourite!)
Nothing beats fresh though!
I am a big canner and freezer and have run the numbers. Canning is definitely not cheaper, unless you can get the produce for free. Canning is great particularly if you garden.
I agree with Donna–it’s the taste that makes such a huge difference between home-canned products and what you buy at the store. You can control the sugar in canned fruit.
There’s the personal satisfaction factor that can’t be bought. And I also know exactly where my food has come from, and that’s one of the biggest reasons I can.
Canning organic fresh produce straight after harvest is not the same as buying the cheapest possible stuff at Costco. Besides the energy and environmental costs, you also have to factor in quality. Not sure I’d have chosen juice–preserves or even wine might have been a more “valuable” result, but the principal is the same.
Really, it’s the same with sewing–yes, you can definitely put clothes on your body from WalMart or Forever 21 that are far cheaper than anything you can sew, especially if you count your time. But aside from not supporting slave labor in other countries, if you can sew halfway decently the product you can produce is far higher quality, and gives you power over the choices that go into the making.
I sew because I can choose exactly what I want, because I can make it far higher quality than what I will pay in a store, and because I can make it fit perfectly. I can and freeze and cook from scratch because I have a better chance of knowing what is in what I eat, I can recognize the ingredients, and the taste is far superior. It’s high quality, organic, and small batch and we all know that costs a lot more.
This weekend I spent 4 hours going from store to store trying to find a pair of grey jeans that fit and came home exhausted from the traffic, and the strollers, the parking lots and the traffic. I could have made them in the same amount of time and would have felt powerful, proud, and creative.
Instead of working longer to pay for cheap crap, making your own gives you control, and empowering skills.
That’s largely why I make my own clothes as well. Even if I can find something that fits in a store (and as a five foot tall guy that’s not all that common), it’s such a hassle and uses up so much time that I’m better off just making it myself.
It also *is* cheaper once you take into account that the item is made specifically for your body. Custom made clothing is expensive. Even tailoring can more than double the price of an inexpensive item.
Similarly, a jar of regular apple sauce from my local grocery store costs about 7 cents an ounce, but even the mass produced organic version is more than twice that. Home made sauce from a local farm can easily head toward 25 cents an ounce or more (in part because they’re rarely sold in bulk quantities).
That’s why I’m always a bit wary of things that compare mass produced items to home made. You’re not going to get the level of quality and customisation with a mass produced item that you can if you make it yourself (or trade skills with a talented friend). It’d be more accurate to compare with items made on smaller scales like farm stand preserves or bespoke suits. At that point, yes, making your own is generally cheaper. I may not be up to the standards of a Savile Row tailor, but I can easily make myself a Brooks Brothers quality suit on a Macy’s budget (JC Penny if I find a good sale on fabric).
But sewing takes skill and lots of (costly) practice – its an art IMO. I’ve been sewing on and off for 24 years (since I was 12) but I never though of sewing as a viable way to save money or create clothing that’s better then retail, though I don’t shop at low end retailers. When I had the space to sew I did create clothing items here and there but I find it hard to imagine being able to make a variety of clothing in different styles and enough of it.
I think if I had the space and was able to dedicate enough time to practice, practice, practice, I guess eventually would be able to whip out clothing that’s better than what I can find at my local thrift stores, clothing swaps or mid-range retailer clearance rack. Price-wise though, I don’t know.
I am a difficult size in the mass produced garment world on the other hand. I lift heavy weights (and it shows), have large breasts, hips, round butt with a small waist – almost an hourglass. Clothing manufactures don’t cater to me so I do tailor a lot of my own clothes.
Do you mind me asking where you find good quality fabrics? My mom saved a lot of money sewing our clothes when we were kids, and she made a lot for herself too. These days we find it really hard to find decent fabric, and almost none of it is made in North America.
Suggestions would be most welcome :)
I live within walking distance of Vogue Fabrics, although even their quality has deteriorated over the years. I’ve had great fabrics from Emma One Sock, Marcy Tilton, NY Fashion Center Fabrics, and Mood Fabrics–like everything else, it’s all online nowadays. None of these are really budget sources–but my aim in sewing is High quality clothing at less than designer prices–I wear stuff forever and 75% of my wardrobe is black, so money and time invested in making a few really excellent skirts, pants (with linings!), and stylish jackets is well spent for me.
I always thought that this would be cheaper, because that’s just what frugal people do. When I looked into it I figured it would only be cheaper for us if the food was free. So I’ve yet to ever can something.
You forgot to factor in the cost of sterilizing the jars and washing the fruit. In my canning experience, that takes up quite a bit of water. The cost of pectin is also high. Some tongs and a magnetic lid catcher and a funnel are also handy unless you like to slop sauce or juice everywhere and grab onto lids and rings with clumsy oven-mitt hands.
I’d suggest keeping an eye out at thrift stores and yard sales. I got two canning-jar lifters for 99 cents each at the St. Vincent de Paul, and two canning funnels (gave one to my sister) at another thrift store for 49 cents each. I found boxes of paraffin in the “free” boxes at several yard sales; one of these days I’ll actually remember to use it on the jam I make for us. (Wouldn’t give it as gifts because, well, it’s ugly.)
The National Center for Home Food Preservation offers recipes for pectin-free jams. I never use the stuff any more:
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html
That’s a great all-around resource for the canning, freezing, drying, smoking and jerkying of food. I recommend it to those who are interested in learning.
I didn’t make any jam this year, due to travel, being busy and the fact that I still have a lot left over from the past couple of years. It felt weird not to be stirring and boiling and pouring. But if mandarin oranges go on sale at a decent price, could be I’ll make some marmalade.
Frugal tip: Buy large containers of plain yogurt (or make your own) and add homemade jams to individual dishes vs. buying those expensive 5-ounce containers. If you think homemade jam tastes good on an English muffin, wait until you try it in a bowl of homemade Greek-style yogurt. Seriously: I prefer it to ice cream.
It depends on what you are going to can. There is a great book out there called,” Make the bread, buy the butter” which goes into a lot of costs of making it yourself versus buying it.
Grape juice is labor intensive and requires a lot of grapes. I move two years ago and discovered grapes in my yard, and did the same. It is much much cheaper to buy it, but yum.
On the other hand, my family goes through a lot of strawberry jam, tomato sauce,blackberries, blueberries, plums, raspberries and cherries, every year. This year, I built raised beds into our 1 acre, full sun hill side. The garden is 16×16 I bought the berry plants and tomato seeds. I was given a montmorcey cherry tree and a plum tree for my birthday (value~60.00). I had compost. I spent $200 on everything, including other seeds of lettuce, herbs , peas, peppers, cucumbers.
The canes of raspberries and blackberries need a year, and first year strawberry plants do not really produce. Nor do trees for a while. I did, however, harvest and can >200 lbs of tomatoes, and after we ate to our content, made 45 pints of pasta sauce, 25 4-ounce jars of paste and pizza sauce, and 10 8-ounce jars of Brandywine-basil tomato jam. We will use it all. I just transplanted the strawberry runners and have another 80 plants. I have 8 canes of raspberries and 6 canes of blackberries for next year. The blueberries will take at least another year. The trees still more, and I will have to manage for pests, too. However, I think with all of the jam and tomato sauce I broke even in actual capital spent. And, it really is something to make an item you can’t get in a store, to control it sodium and sugar content; and to remember the fruit ripening in the sun when you take a bite. You can grow items that are far more flavorful than what you find in the grocery aisle, simply because you are not commercial and do not need to worry about shelf life and transit time in your production.
Next year I may have to irrigate; this year I did not. Even on dry days the compost seemed to hold enough to keep the plants happy. I was lucky. So no money wasted there really.
You can save a lot of money doing it yourself, garden to table,though labor of course is a factor. I definitely spent time walking the garden every morning. It is not something to do because you have to save money. It is something frugal only if you know how to do it, grow only what you enjoy and eat, and only if you actually enjoy being out in the field.
The items you can are beautiful for many reasons. There is the pride that you made it, and the lack of dependence on your freezer and your supermarket in the long cold winter of storm power outages and hazardous travel.
+1 for the book “Make the bread, buy the butter”! I’m reading it now and it’s amusing but also really informative when it comes to figuring out the time/effort/cost involved with making something from scratch over buying it ready-made at the supermarket.
Apartment living with no additional space, I never thought about canning. I tend to eat more greens, salads, sprouts, etc – foods that are best fresh anyway. I eat very little fruit. I definitely wouldn’t can it since I don’t/can’t eat sugar.
Its not canning but I know I could save money if I was able to store 1/4 grass fed cow or wild fish purchased by the pack. Again, apartment living doesn’t lend itself to that since we would need additional freezer space.
I’m curious about disposable jar lids — I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, and my family used to do a lot of canning. We’ve always used the kind you can reuse a few times. The top part might need replacing every one in a while, but the rings last a really long time. We just run ours through the dishwasher. When they don’t seal perfectly, they can be used for freezer jam or for storing dried goods.
I don’t can due to limited apartment space, but I do make my own freezer jam. Pricewise, it’s probably comparable to a cheap jar from in the grocery store but the quality is better and I enjoy doing it. It’s part hobby, part summer rite of passage.
I LOVE to can! Since I’m a terrible gardner, it saves me no money. But I love knowing exactly what’s in those jars, and keeping the sugar and sodium levels low. And it tastes so darn good! But we also prefer fresh fruits and veggies, so I definitely don’t have as much canned as a lot of people.
About reusable lids: I have been using Tattler’s for about 18 months. They do take a bit more attention than the disposable lids, but I feel they are worth it. I hate throwing things away. There are also some really cool all glass bottles out there (container and lid) that I have my eye on, but I’m not willing to spend the $$$. Don’t put the lid and gasket through the dishwasher, but they do work well: I have only had one failed seal, and that was due to a secondary urgent situation that caused me to have to leave things to cool without the second tightening.
I have done small batches of fresh home grown stuff, but I mostly can broths. We save veggie trimmings, and make broth (mushrooms are saved separately for their own broth). We also use backyard chickens, beef joints, and deer knees to make meat based stocks.
For the veg broth, we freeze what we cut off making dinner, then roast slightly, adding onions, garlic, celery, and carrots. Once done, strain the solids out, cool, and add to the compost. Pressure can the broth (NOT boiling water) and all the stuff you thought was waste from dinner is now reused – for flavor when you boil something (rice, poached chicken, whatever), and for feeding next year’s garden.
Hey, me too!
http://donnafreedman.com/2014/10/10/boiling-bag/
As someone else said, canning/preserving food is about more than the cost. We eat almost 100% organic produce and avoid preservatives, so canning with those things in mind is definitely cheaper than buying at the store. When you preserve your own food, it reduces your trips to the grocery store; I don’t like to shop, so it’s hard to put a value on this. Also, I love to garden and have many friends who do as well. My tomato harvest has been so-so, but I’ve happily accepted tomatoes from a number of friends. Combined, I’ve had enough to make several small batches of sauce. Just yesterday I received a huge quantity of pears and apples from a friend. My cost? Picking up the fallen fruit that was bad and putting it in the compost. The apples will become applesauce–my kids go through jars and jars of it, so it’s absolutely cheaper to make my own. I make unsweetened, so all it needs is a bit of lemon juice and some processing in a water bath canner. Pears will probably become jam of some sort to be used as holiday gifts. (BTW there are lots of recipes for making jam that don’t require pectin. Usually you use some apple since it contains natural pectin.) In fact, I’m going with all edible gifts this year, which aligns with my personal efforts to consume/buy less stuff and purge more. I don’t know anyone who needs more stuff, but everyone needs to eat.
For Lisa Aberle, if you want to can grape juice again, I highly recommend you invest in a steam juicer (or find someone who has one you can borrow). It makes grape juice a breeze. You wash the grapes and then put them–still on the stems–in the colander part of the juicer. The steam extracts the juice, leaving the stems, skins, and seeds in the colander. Sometimes I pull the grapes from the stems, but it’s still super fast. As the grapes steam, the juice drips down through the colander to a holding pan which has a spigot-like tube. You just open it up and fill your jars. The hot juice & sterile jars create the seal. No sugar needed.
This is a great insight. You can save a lot of money if you cook food in the house and not to prepare canned and instant foods. Aside from saving money, you can also save your health as well.
This is a great article indeed. Keep on writing about personal finance. Two thumbs up.
For at least 12 years we grew a huge garden and I canned/froze up to 300 quarts of produce every year. I saved tons of money by saving seeds and reusing jars. Even with the cost of seeds/plants that we did buy and the fuel for the tiller (bought used and still going strong), I figured my cost to be about 40 cents a quart. Can’t beat that. We also ate “fresh” all summer and my husband and I find gardening/canning fun and rewarding. Now we live in the city, so the glory days of gardening are over, but we do have a few herbs on our balcony. I miss picking my own veggies right off the vine, still warm from the sun. Nothing better. And there is still nothing as rewarding to me as seeing my basement shelves all lined with food for the winter. By far my most fun/rewarding hobby ever.
Since you aren’t doing it on an industrial scale, reaping the savings of bulk purchasing equipment and raw ingredients, it is almost certain that you are not actually saving money (especially since there was no mention of the value of your free time). On the other hand, maybe the point of life isn’t always saving the most money possible; if you’re comfortable with your financial situation in other areas of your life, then canning still makes for a very cheap and enjoyable hobby. It’s made even cheaper since you got so much of the necessary equipment for free, so I would say that if you’re free of debt then go for it.
It is clearly something you enjoy, and if you can get as much enjoyment as you seem to get out of it with so little financial investment, I think it’s worthwhile.
I canned pluot jam and grape jelly this summer. In both cases the fruit was free, had the canner, tongs, funnel, lid lifter and some jars. Purchased pectin, sugar, more jars & lids. Took a 3 day weekend for the pluot, but my kids & I love it and it’s a flavor you can’t just buy. I also like knowing that there aren’t any artificial colors or flavors in it. Another cost factor is extra AC – pretty hot using 3 range burners all day. Saving money – not likely.
Maybe canning isn’t the best way to save money but homemade jam certainly has better taste! ;)
The thing about canning or even cooking from scratch is that you know for sure what is in the product. If I were up to it I would can produce just because I knew where it came from. You never know what is REALLY in commercially produced items. Cost is no object when it comes to my health.
I love making jams and do it about once every 2 years (yes in a single season I get enough fruit (blackberry, apple, huckleberry, strawberry, Oregon grape, Salal, blueberry, etc.) for jams to last our family for about 2 years). But I will say that it does take a lot of coordination and time to do that with multiple pots in different stages of readiness.
I have also Tattler brand of reusables and they do pretty well as long as your rims are clean and you don’t overfill the jar, but I also have reused the one time lids for multiple cannings and they usually will last 3 to 6 uses before they won’t seal. The one thing I don’t like about Tattler is the difficulty in telling if they successfully sealed. The one time lids pop down, but the Tattler just gets a deeper depression which isn’t noticeable sometimes.
You can only can meat or low acid foods with a pressure canner.
It all about investing in your health.
We had a micro-farmette on our sub-development lot. Three apple trees, four cherry trees, grape vines, plum tree, pear tree, blueberry bushes, a huge vegetable garden, and rabbits. We made 80 to 90% of our food (including hunting and fishing). We canned and frozen everything.
We thought we were saving so much money but a financial planner sat down with us and ran us through our cost of labor – gardening is not free and hunting requires several hours. It’s more cost effective to get a part-time job on top of your career than to have a huge garden and go hunting. It may not be as much fun, but the cost analysis has to include your labor rate, all hours, and all expenses.
Yes, the cans are pennies but what about the rototiller and gas for it? What about the bug sprays to keep your apples and cherries from getting wormy? What about the cost of feed for the rabbits? The tree stand for deer hunting? The fishing lures? What about the seedling starter kits, heat lamps, and fertilizer? What about the water from the hose? It all adds up and sadly, it is not cheaper. It’s a feel-good lifestyle but it is not going to give you retirement money or pay off your college loans. Employment for someone else and buying the $1.99 bag of carrots at the store will do that.