Can You Save Money with a Smoothie Maker?

If you have a smoothie maker, it will save you a lot more money than it costs you, saving you the purchase price many times over and it will also save you time because you can pre-prepare fruits and use them straight from the freezer. You will no longer be buying smoothies from the grocery store, you will be making your own fresh smoothies which you will know have not got any preservatives, colourings or other ‘nasties’ that sometimes find their way into pre-prepared smoothies.

When you make smoothies at home, your family are not only getting something delicious to drink, they are also getting something nutritious. It will not be long before everyone starts to notice the health benefits that come from taking in all that whole fruit goodness, packed with vitamins minerals and fibre for the health of our digestive systems. Here are some top tips.

1. Shop at local stores or markets where fruit is likely to be cheaper than in the giant superstores. In addition, local stores or markets are far more likely to buy locally themselves and take advantage of seasonal produce which is often at bargain prices. Buying locally also cuts down on food miles which is also good for our environment.

2. By taking advanatage of the seasonal glut of some fruits and vegetables, you can buy a large quantity, very cheaply and then prepare it and freeze it ready for your smoothie. This saves you time as well because your smoothie maker is powerful enough to cope with blending frozen fruits. A bonus of using frozen fruit is that you get an even more creamy smoothie.

1. If you have a quantity of the smoothie blend left over, you can not only avoid wasting the mixture but you can also save money by making your own ice lollies. This will not only be far cheaper than the ices available in stores, but will also be far healthier and you will know that there are no colourings or flavourings in there!  Get this recipe for traffic light smoothie ice lollies here.

2. If you have even just a little of your smoothie recipe blend left over, freeze it into ice cube trays and get coloured and flavoured ice cubes which children will love added to a different smoothie or even milk shake. For example a chocolate milk shake would be delicious with banana smoothie ice cubes. Or how about a banana smoothie with blueberry smoothie ice cubes?

You sometimes run into problems trying to persuade children to ‘eat their greens’ – definitely not the most popular thing on the plate, in my house at least! But did you know you can make green smoothies and add vegetables such as spinach into fruit smoothies? I thought it sounded disgusting but my first spinach smoothie was surprisingly delicious.

By getting children to eat vegetables this way, you will be getting them to eat more healthily and avoid any mealtime stress when they refuse to eat their vegetables.  You will also avoid wasting your money by having to put the cooked vegetables into the garbage because they will not eat them.

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It is always a good idea to check out exactly what features are the ones to look for when buying any new kitchen appliance - and a smoothie maker is no different. Best Buy Smoothie Maker.com will help you to decide which features are important to you so that you can get exactly the right model for your requirements. There is also useful information about basic smoothie recipes. Visit this smoothie maker site here.

Why not try out some of these ideas in your own kitchen, even if you do not have a smoothie maker, you could use an ordinary blender for fresh fruit smoothies (I say this as a blender is not usually powerful enough to deal with frozen fruit). Once you and your family have tried freshly made smoothies, you will not want to go back to buying them and you will also save yourself some money.

Smoothie Maker Recipe Hubs

Free Recipe Database - Fat-Free, Sugar-Free, Low-Fat  has a whole selection of smoothie recipe links - some great recipes here!

How to make a Spinach Smoothie and Trust that it will be Delicious this is the great spinach smoothie recipe I mentioned earlier - enjoy!

Getting Started with Green Smoothies has lots of useful tips.

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