Handling Finances

I married a woman who is unashamedly addicted to frozen stuff.  She loves popsicles and frozen fruit, sherbet and ice cream (though she’s lactose intolerant) and she’ll just suck on ice if she gets half a chance.  She’s also diabetic so while she can certainly eat stuff with sugar, we try to go sugar-free as much as possible.  That means we go through a whole lot of sugar free and no-sugar-added fruit popsicles every week — at 25 cents or more each, it sure adds up (though honey, if you’re reading this it’s well worth the cost!)

In the last few years, however, we’ve come to enjoy another treat that’s almost better and certainly cheaper… we’ve started making our own snow cones!  The start-up costs are pretty reasonable, all you need is an ice shaver (ice crushers could work too, but the ice doesn’t get as finely ground as we prefer) — we’ve been using a Hamilton Beach ice shaver that is working as well as when we got it 2-3 years ago.  It costs about $25, but we’ve used it often enough that I don’t think it costs more than a couple cents per serving by now.

Secondly, you need flavoring.  If you shop around in local stores, you can usually find some sort of flavoring that will work for a really cheap price (especially around the start of summer) but we’ve generally stuck to high quality flavors.  We stick to sugar-free flavorings (otherwise flavorings can contain a shocking amount of high-fructose corn syrup) and I generally buy them at $9 a bottle (including shipping) at netrition.com.  I’ve never seen DaVinci syrups (or any brand of coffee syrups) at a local store, but I suspect you can’t find them for the $7.50 + shipping.  They’re sold all over the internet, but it’s important to look carefully at shipping costs as I’ve seen charges as high as $18 (netrition charges under $5).

Anyway, the syrup costs about 10 cents per pump, and depending on how much shaved ice you eat in a sitting you end up with a treat that costs between 20 and 50 cents, and that’s for a BIG bowl of shaved ice.  This compares very well with popsicles or ice cream and is MUCH less expensive that if you purchase icees or any frozen treat at Dairy Queen where you could pay over $3.00 for the same thing.

Is it the cheapest treat out there?  I doubt it, though you can shave up frozen fruit or frozen fruit juice for a reasonably healthy and cheap dessert (make sure to clean out the otherwise maintenance-free shaver though).  However, it’s been well worth the ongoing cost to us and if you like frozen stuff as much as we do, you might look into owning your own ice shaver!

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