"Mom, can I have a snack?"

How often do you hear that?! What does your snack shelf look like? One thing you won't find in our shopping cart on grocery day is a lot of processed and prepackaged snacks. Nope, there's no chips, no prepackaged or bakery cookies, candies, or fruit snacks (ok usually it's rare when we do buy these things, but I admit we all get a 'treat' once in a while). Around our house, our snacks are pretty simple or homemade. Today we made peanut butter crispy bars. And they were a huge hit!

We had all the ingredients on hand which made it a bit easier to make ( I will admit, this is one of our more spendy snacks if I had to go buy all these items at once but they taste so YUMMY, the kids have fun helping out and they're still cheaper then buying something similar already made at the store!). This is all we needed. And the kids had fun helping out making them too.

Peanut butter Krispy bars:
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup light corn syrup
1 cup PB
6 cups rice crispy type cereal (or special K or cherrios also work)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 Cup butterscotch chips

Melt sugar and corn syrup in kettle on stove, just until dissolved, take off heat and mix in 1 cup peanut butter. Pour over cereal and mix. Press into a greased 9x13 pan. When Cooled, melt both chips in microwave safe container until melted, spread over top of bars like frosting. Once cool- ENJOY!

Want a treat that's just as yummy but a bit cheaper? How about just some plan rice crispy bars?! For about $2 you can make a whole pan of bars yourself, you'd spend almost twice that buying a little box of 6 pre-wrapped one's in the store.

Rice crispy bar treats

6 cups rice crispy type cereal
1 bag of marshmallows (large or small work)
1/2 stick butter

Melt butter and marshmallows in microwave safe bowl for about 1-2 min until butter is melted, Mix together. Pour over cereal and mix completely. Press into greased 9x13 pan and let cool. Enjoy!

These are great in the summer because I don't have to heat up my oven to make them, helping it stay cooler inside!

But it's not every day we bake some kind of yummy treat. Other snacks in our house include pudding and Jello, but not those store bought, pre-made kind that cost about a buck a 4-pack (you're thinking, but it's ONLY a dollar- it still adds up!) For about .50 a I can buy a box of Jello or pudding mix. And last year I invested in some small containers that work out perfect for the right size snack. These are tupperware snack containers, I bought a big lot (20 of them!) off ebay for a great price. Well worth it, my kids use these all the time.

One box of pudding mix makes up 5 little containers like these. Best thing is the pudding is made with milk, so I know my kids are also getting some much needed calcium too!

Here is a list of some of the other things we have on hand for snack time:

• Fruit or veggies
  
• dry cereal- cherrios are a huge hit with Little Miss Bacon and Little boy Bacon
• Animal crackers
  
• homemade cookies-I get about 3-4 dozen from a batch for less than the bakery price of 12!
• Yogurt
• homemade popsicles (from juice, kool-aid, yogurt or pudding)
• homemade trail mix: peanuts, raisins, a handful of chocolate chips or m&m's. Don't have a nut eater or have small kids, make a trail mix out of cereal instead of the nuts
• crackers
• home made chex mix
  

This is just a short list of some of the snacks we have. By making our own at home instead of buying store bought items, we keep to our budget and save money.