I left the crouton hint before, but recently I had some leftover Pillsbury breadsticks.  We seasoned them before baking with garlic powder and Italian seasonings, just to serve with dinner so they were a little bit seasoned.  I cut them into rounds and toasted them.  They made fantastic croutons!  They were so tasty, I may even use them to make a batch of croutons.  But if you happened to have only a few left over you could slice, toast it up and keep it in an airtight container for later use. 

Here's a great video on how to cut up a whole chicken into its various components to save a bunch of money.  (For instance, at our local market, we can by a whole free-range fryer chicken for about $9.00, yet chicken breasts alone cost $7.00 and drumbsticks/thighs another $6.00.)

   I  have  several  cookbooks  sold  by  school  PTA's.  They  have  great  recipes  from  other  parents  that  are  both  easy  and  cheap.   

Well, as some of you know already, in December I purchased a bread machine.  Since then, I have not bought store made bread of any kind, other than one package of bagels.  Funny thing is, I now have dough rising to make my own bagels too.  Keep your fingers crossed.
With the ridiculous cost of a loaf of bread these days (along with everything else), and while I haven't calculated the cost of the machine, plus the cost of ingredients, I already know the machine has paid for itself, and I'm not wasting money on bread that goes into the trash (which is what happens when you live alone).  The ingredients for the bread don't cost that much either if you break it down into recipe  portions.


Anne

[edited March-8-2008]