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Things that are cheaper to make than buy?
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frugalsar
Posts: 609 Forumite
Hi guys just after some ideas...
I always buy the cheapest of everything, value stuff, reduced stuff etc and feed my family of four for about £40 a week inc drinks, toiletries, cleaning, dogs etc. But....
I do like cooking but only if it's good value, my fave is making soups in the slow cooker but unless I get super reduced ingreidients I can usually buy a can cheaper! (of course it's healthier to make and probably tastier but I can quite lazy and often think oh sod it) I'm thinking if I know it's cheaper to make I'll be motivated to cook!
I can't even think of one thing that I think I can make cheaper than I can buy!
Any ideas?
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I always buy the cheapest of everything, value stuff, reduced stuff etc and feed my family of four for about £40 a week inc drinks, toiletries, cleaning, dogs etc. But....
I do like cooking but only if it's good value, my fave is making soups in the slow cooker but unless I get super reduced ingreidients I can usually buy a can cheaper! (of course it's healthier to make and probably tastier but I can quite lazy and often think oh sod it) I'm thinking if I know it's cheaper to make I'll be motivated to cook!
I can't even think of one thing that I think I can make cheaper than I can buy!
Any ideas?
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greenfingered - oldstyle - grabbit
greenfingered - oldstyle - grabbit
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your own laundry gloop. plenty of recipes on the internet.
cakes
bread
jam
quiche
soup
pies.0 -
But I don't think I could make cakes cheaper, Tesco do 12 fairy cakes for 60p! I'm sure ingredients would cost more than that! I will do some googling and work it out!Best Threads -
greenfingered - oldstyle - grabbit0 -
If I lived further away from the shops and needed to use the bus more maybe it is cheaper to(and nicer)to make more items food wise at home but if you take into account the cost of energy, the time it takes to make something, I often find it is easier just to buy something off the shelf. I suspect it gets cheaper making your own when there are a few living in the house but when alone probably not."A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!" ~Thomas Jefferson
"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in" ~ Alan Alda0 -
eggs x 4 = 40p
flour 225g = 10p
Butter 225g = 85p
Sugar 225g = 20p
this is a recipie I googled for 12 fairy cakes, am I looking in the wrong place for recipies? It's the same for a lot of the other recipies I've looked up :-(Best Threads -
greenfingered - oldstyle - grabbit0 -
Tesco 12 Fairy Cakes...
Ingredients...
Wheat Flour,Sugar ,Vegetable Oil ,Pasteurised Whole Egg ,Humectant (Vegetable Glycerine) ,Pasteurised Egg White ,Soya Flour ,Raising Agents (Disodium Diphosphate, Potassium Carbonate) ,Wheat Starch ,Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid) ,Emulsifiers (Mono- and Di-Glycerides of Fatty Acids, Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids) ,Preservative (Potassium Sorbate) ,Antioxidant (Calcium Lactate)
Yum, yum. Not.
The reason that they're so cheap is that they're made from lots of chemicals and industrial processes.
Personally, I'll take the homemade ones everytime.:hello:0 -
eggs x 4 = 40p
flour 225g = 10p
Butter 225g = 85p
Sugar 225g = 20p
this is a recipie I googled for 12 fairy cakes, am I looking in the wrong place for recipies? It's the same for a lot of the other recipies I've looked up :-(
No way you need 4 eggs for that lol. You could get away with 1 easily and there are alternatives to eggs. You can use other types of fats as well. TBH I have always baked since I was little, but sometimes we buy from the shops cos of time/offers. But all of s including the kids will tell you the taste isn't even close, homemade is head and shoulders above the taste of anything cheap in the shops.
The big advantage for me is I can have store cupboard items in and easily knock up cakes etc at short notice. I have also found home baked stuff seems to freeze better (don't know why).
I suppose the biggest difference is non of the extra rubbish that gets added to the shop stuff.
For me as we have chickens we always have eggs in so its a no brainer to bake, but its a personal choice. TBH I cold probably go to the chippy each night and feed the kids cheaper than cooking tea each night, but I wouldn't do it. I think you have to look at the value of something rather than just a pure price issue.
EG I prefer to buy small amounts of good quality local meat from a local farm shop than a pile of cheap naff meat from the supermarkets. I spend the same as I would either way and the meat is much, much tastier so you don't need as much for flavour. Plus its miles healthier. BUT its a personal choice we all make when we buy food.
I would say the better taste and health issues are more important to me than pure price-don't get me wrong, budget is tight here but I think less better quality is what I consider to be best value. For someone who doesn't have alot of time or hates cooking/baking it maybe the time and price savings buying stuff in are worth sacrificing taste and content for. Its not like the cakes etc from the supermarket taste horrible, just pretty average.
We all draw a line somewhere as to what we make and what we buy-I rarely if ever make mayonaise lol.
Ali x"Overthinking every little thing
Acknowledge the bell you cant unring"0 -
I'm sure most things I make are cheaper than shop bought and (just like the cake example) I know the quality of what's in them. Also, the size of the portions I serve up is huge compared with the teeny little ready meals I see in shops so we're staying fuller for longer.
from my food just for today I had
porage: cheaper than ready made equivalent like Ready Brek or Oats so Simple
HM soup for lunch
HM bolognese sauce (using passata, meat and loads of diced veg)
and for tomorrow I've defrosted a 1kg gammon joint which cost £4.99 in Lidl. It'll taste so much better than ready made cooked ham and the stock will make fantastic soup. I'll do it in my slow cooker so energy costs will be really low.0 -
hi,
I worked out cakes a while ago as neighbour said she made 3 egg sponge for a pound. When calculating it, when I used 2 for 1 spread and lidl/ direct from the farm free range eggs, it was 99 p. I make my cupcakes on the big side so for me the ingredients about 66p, with 2 eggs.
The other thing I worked out was the chewy soft flour mse tortilla recipe, they worked out at 4 p each, but when I did a double batch my wrists suffered. In lidl today they were six for 80 p.
Bread is my latest cooking find, 3 cups of plain flour, from the dutch oven no knead bread recipe online, with salt and yeast works out about 30 p a loaf for ingredients! And is delish!nov grocery challenge, £.227.69/300, 9/25 nsd: , 7 Cmo, 10 egm.
Me, 10 yo dd, and the dog. all food and drinks, in and out, plus household shopping.0 -
I'm sure most things I make are cheaper than shop bought and (just like the cake example) I know the quality of what's in them. Also, the size of the portions I serve up is huge compared with the teeny little ready meals I see in shops so we're staying fuller for longer.
from my food just for today I had
porage: cheaper than ready made equivalent like Ready Brek or Oats so Simple
HM soup for lunch
HM bolognese sauce (using passata, meat and loads of diced veg)
and for tomorrow I've defrosted a 1kg gammon joint which cost £4.99 in Lidl. It'll taste so much better than ready made cooked ham and the stock will make fantastic soup. I'll do it in my slow cooker so energy costs will be really low.
I buy the same but I cook mine in the pressure cooker. The piece seems to last for ever, well at least the week - start with a hot meal of gammon slices, next few days in sandwiches, then in risotto and the last piece in a white sauce with pasta.
Please can you tell me how you cook it in a slow cooker? Thanks
aims for 2014 - grow more fruit and veg, declutter0 -
eggs x 4 = 40p
flour 225g = 10p
Butter 225g = 85p
Sugar 225g = 20p
this is a recipie I googled for 12 fairy cakes, am I looking in the wrong place for recipies? It's the same for a lot of the other recipies I've looked up :-(
That would make 24 fairy cakes, according to my Be-Ro book. So 6.5p each, as opposed to 5p for the Tesco ones. But guess which ones contain some actual nutritional value rather than being almost totally made up of synthetic crap? And which would taste better?
Lets face it, you can buy ready made "food" that looks as if it's cheaper. But if you rated items such as bread, soup, pasta sauces, stews and cakes for nutrition value of cheapest possible shop bought v basic ingredient home made, I would bet my last 50p the home made versions would be several times more nutritious per penny or pound. If budget is that tight I'd be cutting out the cakes and drinks and snacks before I'd cut down on the home made soups and main meals tbh. There does come a point where you can't cut the budget any more without affecting your family's health, especially when you have kids to feed.Val.0
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