cost of OS. Not always worth it. Maths only here

Zazen999

I work out my veg growing on very simple maths.

3 leeks at Tesco = £1.50

1 packet of 300 leek seeds = £1.50

Ergo, I have to grow only 3 leeks out of that pack to have made it worth my while.

Same goes for other veg; and when you start growing heritage veg, and save the seeds from one year to another [back to the beans]...then you only have to buy once.

calleyw

geordie_joe wrote: »

Hang on, nobody pays me £5 per hour to go down the shop and buy my own veg, so why should I factor in £5 per hour if I grew my own.

If you are using your spare time then it is not costing you anything per hour. Would be different if you took unpaid time off from work to weed the allotment.

Surely it is more productive to be out doing something in the garden working off calories than sat in front of the TV or on the internet all night.

Granted I did not go full tilt at grow my own this year. And all I have got at the moment is kale, runner beans, brussels, purple sprouting and some cabbages. Granted they it cost me to buy the seeds. But try and source from the cheapest places.

I spent about a couple of hours or so a week out in the garden and that includes watering. And you can't beat the feeling of going out in to the garden and picking your own. Which I did yesterday picking some runners and some bright lights chard to go with my roast pork yum.

I don't use chemicals so it means I know what is going on my food.

Seeds don't cost a lot if you buy at the end of season sales. I bought loads in wilkinsons for 75% off. And it means I will have loads of pretty flowers as well as plenty of veggies next year.

OS is not always about saving money. It is each to their own.

Yours

Calley

geordie_joe

valk_scot wrote: »

Well, time is a valuable commodity and you do have to put some sort of nominal value on it, otherwise it's not a fair comparison.

NO!!!! You are using free time, not time when you would have been paid if you weren't on the allotment. Your time and labour is free. You might think it is worth £5 an hour but you didn't pay yourself £5 for every hour you spent on the allotment. So why include it in allotment costs.

Even if you did you would have to put it down as income AND expenditure so it would cancel it's self out.

By your thinking you could say sleeping every night costs you £5 per hour because that is what your time is worth.

But the simple fact is, your time is only worth £5 an hour, and will only earn you £5 per hour, when someone else is paying you.

geordie_joe

calleyw wrote: »

Surely it is more productive to be out doing something in the garden working off calories than sat in front of the TV or on the internet all night.

Thatb is true, but if you choose to work in your allotment for an hour instead of watch the TV for an hour you can't say working in the allotment COST you £5, because that is what you think your time is worth.

Working in the allotment did not cost you £5, you did not lose £5 by not watching the TV either.

It would be different if, say, you normally do an hours over time at work but one day decide not to work the over time and go to the allotment instead. Then you have lost an hours overtime pay by being on the allotment when you could have been earning money.

But to say doing something is costing you money, when if you weren't do that you would not be earning money anyway, is just silly.

[Deleted User]

Bronnie wrote: »

I'm confused, surely 1kg of dried beans soaked, didn't only produce 1kg of cooked beans?

I'd have thought you'd have produced a larger weight of cooked beans than you started off with and therefore the equivalent of far more tins and a much better cost-saving???

Darn it. Yes a typo error. Weight was 500g but was 1 pack at £1.20 so sums still ok

Zazen999

kittie wrote: »

Darn it. Yes a typo error. Weight was 500g but was 1 pack at £1.20 so sums still ok

I've just looked on mysupermarket.com and 500g of dried beans ranges between 48p and 84p.......

buxtonrabbitgreen

It is all about the satisfaction for me. In the last couple of weeks I have spent money for gas cooking chutney for 3 hours, and my time, as I had to supervise it most of the time. Also I have knitted a double sized patchwork blanket on my knitting machine that took me 8 hours.
But I was on holiday and was getting paid anyway. The chutney tasted divine and the blanket will save on heating when we stick it over us on the sofa in winter.

maryb

I find it's worth cooking dried beans so that I can freeze them in SMALL enough quantities. I don't really like beans all that much and a whole tin, even one of the small ones, is wasteful. Whereas if I cook a whole pack of red kidney beans and freeze them in small quantities, it gives me more flexibility because I can either get a bol sauce out of the freezer and have it as it is or make lasagne with it, OR I can add some chilli powder and some of my frozen beans and have chilli.

So for me it is worth comparing the cost of a small tin, some of which would be wasted, with the cost of a meal addition size portion of frozen beans. I find the economics work pretty well

purpleivy

I cook my beans in the pressure cooker, so they only take 5-10 minutes to cook. Lots of nice beans cost a lot more than 39p per can, so I reckon I'm saving money.

Regarding ice cream, I make home made not because it's cheap, but because it's nice. I don't like cheap supermarket icecream.

I started a thread on Pastry Economics somewhere. I have never mastered the search features here, otherwise I would direct you to it with a link.

twiglet98

Am I the only reader who has never cooked haricot, or any other dried beans? I did put pearl barley in a lamb stew once, served it for lunch when extended family came, and they all left it. Too humiliating to repeat. Will explore beans...!