Pure Water Flavoring

Grocery trips these days have me feeling like I've run a marathon. Not that I've ever run a marathon, but I did place first in the 400 yard dash in 4th grade...sooo.

I digress. With three growing children, my cart is full to overflowing. I'm the lady the cashiers groan to see coming. I got to thinking about how to lighten the load, both in the cart and on my wallet.

I realized last year that my kids were drinking far too much juice. If I brought home a bottle, that's all they would want to drink. They would consume far more than the daily recommendation, and then we would be completely out of juice until the next shopping trip.

Last year when Crystal Lite came out with their Pure Water Flavoring, I decided to give it a try. Rather than follow the package directions and pour a powder packet into a single serving water bottle, I filled up a two quart pitcher with ice-water and added one packet to that. The result was water with just enough flavor so that my kids would drink it, and it's budget friendly.

I feel better having my family drink more water. The Pure Flavorings are all natural, and low calorie, sweetened using the leaves of the stevia plant. Recently many stores have come out with their own brands of natural water flavoring, making them even more economical.

Now we save juice for special occasions (like weekends) and I've only got to toss a small box or two of water flavoring into my cart each week. If I could just find a smaller alternative to the gallons of milk and bushels of fruit that I buy, and I could switch to a little shopping cart!