One of the more immediate benefits of the internet being prevalent in our lives is that information is so much easier to come by. More and more people are engaging in DIY (Do it yourself) activities these days because the methodology is readily available online.
Buying ready made things especially foods is very convenient and time saving but the quality isn’t always better. I will attempt to break down below whether it is much more pocket friendly to make your own bread at home instead of buying it.
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Apart from the obvious benefits like eating fresh, delicious bread I will comprehensively answer the question, is it cheaper to make your own bread at home?
Factors To Consider
First, it is important to factor in the various variables that you have to take into account when baking from home that you never think about when buying a loaf of bread at the store.
These variables include; ingredients, energy used, time, nutritional value, bread making machine and energy versus the quantity of bread produced.
Nutritional Value
Yes, nutritional value factors into the question of, is it cheaper to make your own bread at home?
When you make your own bread at home you control each and every ingredient that goes towards making the final product which is a luxury most consumers do not have.
Store bought bread can be sweet and have lots of beneficial nutrients but they’re also meant to survive sitting on shelves all day and in some cases the night too.
They are pumped full of preservatives to keep them fresh and looking perky, they have to sell even if they’re not as fresh as they look.
The store bought loaves of bread are mass produced so the quality can never be assured and some of the advertised nutrients are either in very low concentrations or absent all together.
At home you can add or subtract any harmful or beneficial ingredient, tailored towards a healthy final product.
Nutritional value will save you a lot of money and time in the future, what you eat directly affects your health and thus is more expensive everything considered.
In this aspect, home made bread is much cheaper than store bought easily when the long term is taken into consideration.
Bread Making Machine
At first, a bread making machine will increase costs but ultimately it saves a lot on time and energy used in the bread making process.
A lot of bread making machines can be bought second hand thus saving the cost of a new one.
A good bread making machine consumes very little energy and over time the cost of buying the machine evens out with the power, time and purchase cost saved. So, a good bread making machine definitely helps in reducing costs and making home-made bread worth it.
Ingredients
Ingredients are the most important factor to consider when making home-made bread, it can be the difference between making a saving or increasing your own costs.
From plain, wheat bread to one with added ingredients like raisins it all comes down to the ingredients used.
Most people want elaborate, wholesome and filling home-made bread rather than the cheap, tasteless and airy store-bought bread. Of course you can get the elaborate bread in the store but they cost from 4-6 dollars which is very expensive for a big family.
In comparison, when these ingredients are bought and used sparingly over a period to make bread at home, it is much cheaper and when broken down costs around two dollars for a loaf of bread.
The saving on freshly ground wheat, honey, brown sugar, honey and yeast comes to almost three or four dollars which is huge considering the number of loaves an average sized family consumes in a year.
The saving can be almost 1,500 dollars a year everything considered which is huge and goes as a plus in the, is it cheaper to make your own bread at home argument column.
Energy
Now comes the one factor that most people never really factor into their calculations while it is so important.
Energy used in terms of electricity can be make or break in your quest to cut costs when making your own bread.
Depending on the machine you use, be it an oven or bread making machine, the costs can vary wildly. From 10 cents to 45 cents, so the machine you have can be a huge difference maker.
It is prudent to bake a batch of loaves of bread rather than singular ones to save on energy consumed. That is the aspect where bakeries break even because of the mass production, the energy used is almost negligible to the overall cost.
Still, if this aspect is factored in and added to the amount of money spent on ingredients, the cost is still much less than having to buy good quality bread in a store.
Time
A very important yet easily overlooked factor. It is common knowledge that time is money, that translates to a true adage in the modern world. Every minute spent doing something else, you could be earning money.
While, bread making can be a bit tedious in the beginning, it gets less hectic as you get used to it. The mixing can be done by a mixer and the rest is pretty easy stuff, with time the process becomes second nature and muscle memory takes over.
The reality is that almost 60% of the process is the bread baking in the oven or bread making machine so you don’t have to really be there as machines have taken over.
So the time factor isn’t such a big deal in your quest to cut costs.
Conclusion
After taking all of these factors into consideration and comprehensively breaking them down it is clear that some increase and some decrease the cost of making your own bread at home versus buying them at stores.
It is important to look at the factors that are negligible when certain steps are taken to mitigate them like energy used versus the number of loaves produced and mass buying of ingredients.
So, if you want to make your own, quality bread at home you do save costs instead of buying them in stores. The cheap, generic bread might be more expensive but good quality bread is much cheaper being made at home.
In fact according to figures, one can save up to three dollars and 1,500 dollars a year everything considered on a good quality loaf of bread if you bake it by yourself at home.
So after thorough analysis, I answer the question, is it cheaper to make your own bread with a resounding yes. It is much cheaper to make your own bread at home.