Some good deals...and homemade strawberry jam!

This morning before work I made a quick stop at Smith's. Picked up some boxes of Fruity & Cocoa Pebbles for $.25 each. How? Cereal is currently on sale for $2.50 each. For every 4 you buy, $4 comes off at the register then making them $1.50 each. Then using a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off 2, then makes 'em $1.00 each. And then for every 4 you buy, you receive a $3 off your next shopping order catalina. Factoring in the catalina, it makes it $.25. Not bad aye?

After work another quick stop at Super Target. This time a deal on the Ore-Ida hashbrowns - after sale and coupons, each bag is worth $.67 each. Definitely a bargain.

I also picked up a few more boxes of cereal. I figure for $.25 each - it was a good sale to stock up on. Expiration date is a year out on the cereal. While at Smith's I picked up 4 more 1 lb. cartons of strawberries. Each carton was $.97.

I subscribe to OUR BEST BITES and saw this POST. I have always wanted to make homemade jam, but didn't want to do the whole cooking and all of that. Not yet. But when I read that blog, it sounded easy.

A couple of days ago, I picked up some freezer jam jars along with freezer jam pectin. It's recipe cut the amount of sugar and it didn't require any cooking...even easier.

My helper was Ailini. Here's a few pics from our jam making. Oh yeah, we didn't have a potato masher, so I tried using a blender with a few strawberries. That didn't work, so I thought I would use a wire whisk to mash...that too did not work. Instead I improvised and used a cheese grater. We'll see how the jam turns out when it's set.

Here's our strawberries washed, hulled and dried.

The crushed (or should I say 'grated') strawberries mixed with the pectin and sugar.

The final product!

As for decluttering -- looks like it's just going to be the big linen close tonight. Tomorrow we'll tackle the storage room!