Money Saving Reusable Snack Pouches

My son LOVES those little (expensive!) fruit and veggie pouches. So much that he has eaten about 4 of them in one sitting if we let him. These pouches cost anywhere from about $0.77-$1.69 and many companies make them now. My favorites are the Up & Up Target brand and the HappyTot, they make veggie blends while some of the other brands only make fruit ones. I personally would not be seen sucking down spinach, peas and pear pouches but my son attacks these like they are the last pouch on earth.

About a year ago I searched for reusable pouches I could just fill with my own blends since I was at that point a master at making my own baby food. I couldn't find anything and was tempted to try and create something of my own but was worried about bacteria growing because how can you clean out these squeezy things?

I had almost lost hope and since my son was turning 2 I figured he would be over the whole pureed food stage. Of course he then decided to stop eating and we began pumping him full of these again to get some vitamins and minerals in that tiny body! During a trip to Babies R Us one day a few months ago I found this.

Now I paid $20 at BRU but I just saw online you can get it for $14.99 at Diapers.com, this is even cheaper than Amazon right now. If you think about it, mine paid for itself in about 25 pouches since I have been buying the $0.77 ones at Target. SO, here's how I saved money today!

1 lb bag of carrots $0.99 (I only used about 3/4 of the bag)
Half a bag of frozen french cut green beans $0.50 ($1 each at Fred Meyer this week)
1 pear $0.88/lb
Water
= approx. $0.25/pouch, this pouch holds way more than the one time pouches you buy in the store. Theirs are anywhere from 3-4.2 oz, I would guess this one can hold at least 6 oz.

Here are the tools you will need. I ended up switching out the plastic containers for Ziploc snack size bags, more on that later.



I started with the green beans and pear. After they were pureed I mixed them together and spooned them into the pouch.



Then I thought, wait, why would I use these containers? I should freeze it flat in snack size bags and then I can pop them into the fridge to thaw, cut a hole in the corner and "pipe" it into the pouch.



This saves a TON of space in the freezer and I don't have to worry about thawing a brick of food and scooping it out.



All in all I think this was a great project for a snowy day, I didn't get to finish the carrot/apple ones since the blender was keeping my napper from falling asleep. There are a few other brands of reusable pouches out there but this one has fun colors and I could SEE it in the store before I bought it. The pieces all come apart and can go in the dishwasher, we toss ours in our bottle basket with all the sippy cup pieces.