Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Many are exploring homemade foods to reduce grocery expenses amid rising prices.
- Making bread, granola bars, pasta sauce, and ice cream at home saved 36%.
- Time and convenience are factors, but homemade options can stretch budgets further.
SALT LAKE CITY — Many folks are trying all sorts of methods of cutting back their grocery bills as food prices keep climbing.
In fact, over the past five years, food prices have climbed 28%, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Department of Agriculture is predicting another 2.2% price jump this year.
So producer Sloan Schrage and I tested several common items on grocery shopping lists to see if making them at home can actually save you money.
We went to the store and bought everything we needed. Then, we compared prices to their prepackaged, ready-made counterparts you would normally buy.
We bought a loaf of bread for $2.98. But by combining flour, yeast, and a few other simple ingredients and about 35 minutes of heat, we made our own bread and saved about $1 in the process.
Next up, granola bars. A box of ready-made granola bars added $2.97 to our grocery bill. But making our batch of granola bars using oats, honey, and peanut butter brought our cost down by $1.25.
Our homemade pasta sauce made of canned tomatoes and a few spices set us back $1.60 per batch, about half the cost of the store-bought sauce. Though, there was an unanticipated cost incurred when a piece of onion somehow made direct contact with one of my eyes.
And while a bottle of balsamic vinegar salad dressing ran us $2.67, our homemade counterpart of olive oil, vinegar and seasonings actually wound up costing us almost the same amount.
For dessert? Vanilla ice cream. No need to go out and buy your own ice cream maker. By mixing cream, milk and sugar into a blender and letting the contents freeze overnight, our homemade ice cream saved us exactly half of the $5.97 we paid for a quart-and-a-half carton of the store-bought ice cream.
Did it pay off?
Our total cost for the store-bought versions came to $17.57. The homemade counterparts totaled $11.24 for a total savings of $6.33. That's 36% we saved by making our own food from scratch.
Of course, making food takes time. The bread had to sit overnight and rise and then be baked. The ice cream had to be kept in a freezer overnight. And the kitchen became a mess.
So, there's certainly convenience cost, but if you're looking to trim your grocery bill, this might be one way to do it.
Some recipes can get you additional batches, which will stretch your dollar even further. And then many folks will likely enjoy the side benefit of eating food that doesn't get any fresher.
We made just five items, but there are hundreds if not thousands of grocery store items that you can make on your own and save some wear and tear on your wallet. That is, if you're willing to trade some of your time.
Whether it was worth it or not hinges on what your time is worth and how much you enjoy cooking.
