{"id":228,"date":"2011-08-14T22:25:32","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T03:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/?p=228"},"modified":"2011-08-14T22:27:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T03:27:33","slug":"the-economics-of-making-your-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/14\/the-economics-of-making-your-own\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economics of Making Your Own"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"229\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/14\/the-economics-of-making-your-own\/img_0907\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907.jpg?fit=800%2C600&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"800,600\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Picasa 3.0&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1313353158&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;400&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.05&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"IMG_0907\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907.jpg?fit=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-229\" title=\"IMG_0907\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0907.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> One of the easiest and most productive things you can do at home is make your own jam. With a few specialized tools and a couple of hours of time, you can save yourself over $100 dollars. \u00a0As an example, here are the actual costs of canning 35 jars of fresh strawberry jam:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>10 pounds of strawberries = $10<\/li>\n<li>12 pounds of sugar = $12<\/li>\n<li>pectin = $8<\/li>\n<li>lids = $4<\/li>\n<li>jars (reused, but originally purchased for about 20 cents each) = $7<\/li>\n<li>total of $41 in materials<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This yielded an\u00a0equivalent\u00a0of 37 half-pint jars of jam. \u00a0If you buy jam like this at the store or farmers market, you will pay $5 to $8 per jar. \u00a0So, if we go with the low side, I have $5 x 37 = $185 worth of jam sitting on my kitchen counter right now. \u00a0I&#8217;ve saved our family $185 &#8211; $41 = $144, and I have the added\u00a0benefit\u00a0of knowing exactly what ingredients went into those jars. \u00a0Another way of looking at it is that it took me 2 hours to make the jam that saved me $144, so that is $72 per hour for my labor! \u00a0Not too bad!<\/p>\n<p>I tried something new with one of the batches this time: \u00a0I left the green stems on the strawberries and blended it all together in my awesome vitamix blender. \u00a0I&#8217;ll do a taste-test later to determine if I can detect a difference in taste.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the\u00a0recipe I used\u00a0for strawberry jam:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>5 cups of strawberries, mashed (or blended)<\/li>\n<li>7 cups of sugar<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup of lemon juice<\/li>\n<li>1.5 boxes of pectin<\/li>\n<li>Heat strawberries and lemon juice to a boil, stir in pectin, add sugar, stir until it boils for one minute, add to jars and process for 10 minutes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the easiest and most productive things you can do at home is make your own jam. With a few specialized tools and a couple of hours of time, you can save yourself over $100 dollars. \u00a0As an example, here are the actual costs of canning 35 jars of fresh strawberry jam: 10 pounds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_glsr_average":0,"_glsr_ranking":0,"_glsr_reviews":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[56,55,58,57],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","tag-canning","tag-jam","tag-saving-money","tag-strawberries"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1jPFc-3G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northtexasvegetablegardeners.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}