My grocery budget has been drastically reduced lately due to my husband's hours being cut. Normally, I would buy the powdered flavored water drink sticks for my family to put in bottled water. However, that is now a luxury item that we cannot afford. I had the idea to try the same approach, except in a much more frugal way.
I purchased a 10-count box of the flavored water sticks, but I didn't purchase the case of bottled water like I normally would have in the past. Instead, I cleaned out a gallon milk jug and filled it with tap water. Then, to be even more frugal, I only opened two of the flavored water sticks and emptied them in to the gallon jug. This resulted in a weaker version of flavored water, but really one whole stick to a bottle of water always seemed too sweet anyway.
I just shook the jug up until all powder was dissolved and put jug in fridge. This will last my family several days for a fraction of the cost of one flavor stick inside one bottle of water!
By Stephanie from Fort Smith, AR
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I've never used the flavor sticks, but I have to ask if there is any real nutritional value to them first, and secondly, if there isn't, why not just use the unsweetened packets of Kool-Aid.
I really don't know how much the flavor sticks cost, but I'm betting it's a lot more than Kool-Aid. If you really want to be more economical, how about making iced tea? I'm sure that would be a lot cheaper than anything else you could use, and if it's just being used to flavor water, iced-tea would work as well as anything. If you don't want the caffeine, use the Decaf one.
Thankfully, our children grew up drinking iced-tea with only 1/2--2/3 cup sugar per gallon and now, they can drink it without sugar at all. We are very lucky to have water that isn't too bad even though the city adds Fluoride and Chlorine to it. I hope we're not doing more harm than good using those chemicals in our water. As much money as they say it cost to add those
Pookarina
I use just Kool aid for my water it goes on sale in the summer, you can then add your own sweetner. There are lot of flavors too. I also use flavored teas for a base. If we all cut down, including the Goverment, wouldn't it be great!
Why don't you just learn to drink and enjoy tap water? It's free, doesn't have plastic from the reused bottle leaching into it, and is monitored for cleanliness by the city water department.
We all cut back in our own ways, as Stephanie did, when needed. I agree this tip doesn't sound all that "frugal" considering all the other options, suggested and not. It's pretty much a given that using products "as recommended" isn't the only way to go to still enjoy the product itself.
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