Father's Day Cheesecake Coupon Haul

So tomorrow we're having a dinner for all the fathers in our family. Everyone is going to bring their father's favorite dish. My dad's favorite is cheesecake. I found an awesome cheesecake recipe when I purchased my springform pans a few years ago. It's so good.... But it can be a bit expensive to buy all the stuff to make a cheesecake from scratch. I thought it would be a stretch but I set my budget at $15 and set off online to find the cheapest way to make this wonderful cheesecake!

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Here's the ingredients:
Crust:
1 1/4 cup of graham cracker crumbs
2 Tbspn granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter

Filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 tspn vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream (I use whipping cream)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup seedless jam

The only things I had on hand were the butter, vanilla, and eggs (we didn't even have any sugar in the house!)

So I needed quite a bit for only $15.

The most expensive part of this is the cream cheese. I've used store brand before, but it doesn't taste right. So I buy Philadelphia Cream Cheese - which is expensive when you need 4 of them! But Kmart has them on sale for 2/$4 and I found a $1/2 coupon - Yeah me :-) While I was at Kmart I found sour cream for only $1 (since you don't need much the little tubs work just fine). Two down!

Then I headed to Meijer - Meijer sells small bags of Pioneer sugar (and since we don't use much sugar around here - again, I didn't need the big bag). Then the whipping cream was on sale 2/$3. Normally I use Comstock pie filling but I was on a budget and at almost $4 a can I couldn't bring myself to do it, especially when I only use 1/4 of the can. So I bought Smucker's spreadable fruit (strawberry) which is a much smaller jar - so it costs less and I had a $0.35/1 coupon - plus Meijer doubles up to $0.50 here! Then I needed graham crackers and luckily Meijer brand graham crackers were on sale 2/$4. So while I was checking out I realized I hadn't checked my Meijer mPerks account in a while and guess what was in there - a $2 off your order coupon! I quickly "clipped" it before I got to the register.

So here's my breakdown
4 - cream cheese $6
sour cream $1
sugar - $1.99
whipping cream $1.50
spreadable fruit - 1.69
graham crackers - $2.00
mPerks - $2 off
Grand Total: $12.18 :-) Yeah me!

I was so happy that I came in under budget that I let myself buy a wedding magazine! Well between being under budget and the fact that I just won $10 from Meg's Moxie today I decided I could splurge :-)

Even with the magazine I left both stores only spending $17.42! That's the cheapest cheesecake I've made yet! Normally with everything I have to buy I don't get out of the store for less than $20

For those that want to try this awesome cheesecake here's the recipe that I use:

Crust:
Combine ingredient in small bowl. Press evenly onto bottom of buttered 8 1/2" springform pan.

Filling: 
Preheat oven to 450. In large mixing bowl beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs one at a time, scrape down sides of bowl after each addition. Stir in vanilla, heavy cream and sour cream. Pour batter into prepared pan. Drizzle jam over top, swirl lightly with butter knife. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, reduce temperature to 250 (open door until temperature reduces) and bake 1 hour or until edges are firm but center wiggles. Place on wire rack to cool. Refrigerate until cold. (I have found that if I make it before I go to bed at night it's ready to eat when I get up.)

Hope you enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!
-Jennifer