Managing snacks is important because family members are likely to eat planned ingredients for other meals if you don’t have easy snacks available. Let family members know what snacks are available and encourage them to choose the healthy, inexpensive options. Here are some tips on how to provide your family nutritious and frugal snacks.

1. Examples of inexpensive snacks include store brand pretzels, popcorn (air pop is the cheapest and lowest in calories), store brand graham crackers, carrot sticks, small apples, bananas, frozen banana smoothies with skim milk, diet hot cocoa packets, diet gelatin or pudding, saltines, yogurts bought on sale with coupons, and homemade cookies and brownies for family members (in moderation) who are not watching their weight!
2. Do not pay the premium for pre-packaged 100 calorie snacks. A 6 ct. package of 100-calorie snack bags of crackers costs about $3.00 or more. A $1 bag of store brand pretzels or $1 box of store brand graham crackers makes at least fifteen 100 calorie portions—take a couple of minutes to divide the large bag of pretzels, graham crackers or saltines into smaller bags if that is easier to control and you’ll save big. The pre-packaged option can cost 9 times as much!