Do you think baking bread or other food items saves you money?

Yes, I think the ingredients cost more than a loaf of bread. I buy whole wheat bread.

People seem to be split on this one. I would like to eat healthier bread and making it at home, although my husband does already buy pretty healthy bread.

I'm not too worried about the time, I just was wondering whether people actually save money. Although it does seem like a nice comforting food to eat. (And I have a feeling it will take me a lot of time - I'm not always so good at new things).

That is true - we do buy flour in 10 kilogram bags. (LOL - I don't even try to lift them).

Okay, so now it seems that people are saving money by baking their own bread...

That's what I thought too. The bread my husband likes to get is about $2 per loaf. It's going to be hard to beat that.

The only way you could keep the cost of making homemade bread down is 1. Buy an electric bread slicer to slice your bread into tiny slices. 2. Keep to the basic flour, water, yeast and salt ingredients 3. Make your bread by hand or purchase a breadmaker which makes extra long loaves. 4. Buy your ingredients in bulk. I have noticed that when making bread by hand you can actually double your loaf's using the same quantity of ingredients that you'd use if using a bread maker (ie one for the breadmaker = two loafs for the oven). So this is the most viable method for saving money. But of course you need to know how to make a proper loaf of bread or spend hours and days practicing this which will result in loss of $'s due to failures unless of course your lucky. I also found that breadmakers use more ingredient weight than purchased loaves of bread, comparing a 850g bought loaf to a 1kg homemade loaf. Then there comes the slicing part of bread. Id be interested in knowing if anyone can match slice for slice on a purchased loaf to a homemade loaf. I havent even come close to a purchased loaf yet, even when using a slicing machine, my slices are no where near the size of purchased bread. Purchased bread can sit on the shelf safely for one week, homemade bread is pretty useless after 1 days and is only good for bread and butter pudding. Homemade bread doesnt freeze as well either. And you have to admit, Im yet to come across one person who wont admit they had to go make another loaf of bread as they stuffed themselves with the first loaf cause it smelled and tasted so yummy, that they ate it within half an hour of it being cooked.

okay, this sounds good. I wonder if I can bake bread for this cost?

Oh, I just plain always stay out of the store. I send my husband with a list. Sometimes he goes over the list, but if we're tight I'll tell him not to get anything that's not on the list, and he won't.

My husband is the worst shopper ever. If I ever had to send him intothe store I know my food budget would be blown for the month. Everyone has their own tallents and shopping is not one of his.

That's kind of what I thought too. But maybe I'll try baking 6 loaves at a time. We have frozen dough that we bought for something else I was making, and we bought extra, so I've been baking it. It's actually pretty nice.

When I bake my bread I freeze some of it. I roll it into rolls or a loaf and let it rise about half way then I pop it in the freezer on a baking sheet until it is hard enough to put in a freezer bag. It does not raise as well but it still works good enough. Plan for extra rize time since it is cold.

Especially when it comes out of the oven and you have peanut butter on it! Love it!

Yes, that's very important - that the food I serve be healthy. I don't worry as much about bread because we get it from the bakery. It costs $2 a loaf.

Thanks for the tip on saving by baking things in sequence and together. I often forget to do that.

One of my uncles has a bread machine, and he makes fantastic bread. He makes it for family dinners and it's always well appreciated.

well, it does seem like everyone prefers to eat homemade bread. :)

Yeah, although I can't imagine baking 50 loaves of bread. It's too bad you don't have an oven. I am lucky to have an oven, even though it is a really small one.

I suppose it depends on where you live then, here baking our own bread is less expensive than purchasing a similar bread at the store. plus it tastes better and gives satisfaction. yes there is the energy used to bake it, but at the same time that oven is helping to heat our home in the winter. we could also bake it in a wood cooking stove or in a fire place on hot embers. perhaps a brick out door oven would be something to look into building if the energy costs are too great in your area or if you do not have an oven.

Hmmm... We eat about 2 loaves a week. The math is tricky, because we do buy the ingredients for other things, and we have an electric oven.