Homemade Pancake Syrup

Honestly, pancake syrup makes up such a small percentage of our grocery budget that I’d never taken the time to make my own.  Why bother?  But, each thing I do on my own empowers me to make more changes, so I attempted pancake syrup.  The recipe is in The Complete Tightwad Gazette.

Price per ingredient (I made a half batch which yielded 15 oz.)

~Granulated sugar (1 1/2 cups) $0.33

~Imitation vanilla (1/2 tsp) $0.01

~Butter flavor (1 tsp) $0.18

~Maple flavor (1/2 tsp) $0.10

~Molasses (1.5 Tbsp) $0.15

Total for 15 ozs: $0.77 or $0.05 per ounce

Store brand pancake syrup works out to $0.07 per ounce.  Not a huge difference in price, but it’s all of the little ways that we spend our money that makes a big difference in our total financial picture.

All ingredients are combined in a saucepan and brought to a boil.  Once the sugar is dissolved, turn off the burner, but let on the stove until bubbling stops.  I think it could have been boiled a bit longer, as this syrup isn’t quite as thick as commercial syrup.

I put mine into an old coffee creamer container, which works out really well.  There is no dripping at all.  And as for taste?  This definitely has more of a maple flavor than most pancake syrup and I think it’s a bit sweeter.  We have found ourselves using less of it than we would store bought syrup, which I think actually makes the savings of using this greater than the math would indicate.

Recording Expenses in an Old Fashioned Ledger

I’m always amazed at the meticulous records of expenses that people used to keep.  They wanted to know where their money was going and I think this is still immeasurably valuable today.  Because we now spend money so frequently the plain paper that our forefathers used doesn’t work as well.

This is what I have been using for the last 13 months.  It’s a simple 1 inch binder with a hand-drawn picture in the clear front pocket.  Yes, I’m sure there’s a printable out there somewhere for that, but I like the simplicity of this.

Each month is composed of a two-page spread.  Categories are listed down the left-hand side. Days of the month are across the top (1-16 on the first page and 17-31 on the second).  There is also a place on the right hand side to write how much we budgeted for that category, how much we actually spent, and the year to date amount.  I made this spreadsheet on my old computer, so I can’t share it, but it was simple to make and now I just copy off new ones when needed.

 I forgot to add in allowances for Dan, myself, and the kids, so those get written in on the bottom, along with any other expenses that don’t have a place in the top part.  I also use that blank space to describe some of the expenses in the top portion.  Below is January’s completed record.

Last year, I kept track of how much it cost us to have a baby since we were starting over from scratch with clothing, bed, car seat, etc.  I also write in any bulk purchases like the peaches, pears, green beans, and tomatoes we put up last year.  That way when I’m ready to order again this year, I have a record of how much we did the year before. At first this took a lot of “remembering” and I’d find myself trying to catch up every week or two.  Now, it’s habit to just jot it down every day that I spend money. Do you record what you spend your money on?  How?