We in the UK would not fight for a loaf of bread

Cleaver

Blacklight wrote: »

Here we go again... window licking dog eaters with tin foil headgear by page 4.

There's quite a gulf between making your own pizza because it's cheaper and nicer than a supermarket one and stockpiling guns and beans in a lockable cellar.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Cleaver wrote: »

If you were trying to cut costs you would just make your own bread rather than getting bread from the reduced bit.

See how much it costs you to make a loaf of bread.

I bet every penny I have it is more expensive to make your own in a standard household oven that buy.

vintagebrighton

Blacklight wrote: »

Here we go again... window licking dog eaters with tin foil headgear by page 4.

Can someone do a pic of this:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Cleaver

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

See how much it costs you to make a loaf of bread.

I bet every penny I have it is more expensive to make your own in a standard household oven that buy.

Look, it's a personal choice and a difficult to thing to compare as I personally think my bread is a lot nicer than the supermarket stuff and I like the fact that it isn't stuffed full of salt, sugar, preservatives and that type of stuff. So I'm not really doing it for the cost. But it is fun to look at, so...

We buy flour in bulk from the asian market near us for 80p/kg. We tend to buy fresh yeast and freeze it and it turns out fine. 500g costs us £3.

I would say that the loaves we make are about 800g, and I'd probably use 10g of yeast in that. So that's 64p for the flour and abut 6p for the yeast. I'd add a very small amount of sugar and salt, plus the water, so shall we add a penny for them? I know you'd normally add oven costs, but I'm sure I'm not alone as a home baker when I say that I'd never just turn on our oven just for bread, I'd always bake when I'm cooking our meals or other stuff to use during the week. So the total cost is about 73p. But let's add 7p for oven costs anyway and call it 80p.

I think most loaves in supermarkets are £1+ and I would say that they aren't as nice as the ones I make.

Cleaver

I think what we can hopefully all agree on is that that a pointless rant about nothing in particular has turned in to quite an interesting discussion about making your own food at home.

Owain_Moneysaver

Cleaver wrote: »

The chances of your supermarket having reduced bread each week is slim, so I think you'd end up maybe buying the full price bread maybe half the time or even more. You'd also maybe end up possibly throwing a lot of the going out of date supermarket stuff away.

I cannot remember the last time I ate non-reduced bread. Fortunately I live near the supermarket so can visit at 'reduction time'. Last night I got 12 ciabatta panini for 60p total so that's the week's lunch rolls taken care of, and a large cherry pie for 30p, so that's two day's puddings. I might not get any reductions today or tomorrow, but that doesn't matter.

It goes in the freezer until needed; the limit is the space in my small freezer.

And unlike the woman who had 20 punnets of raspberries in her trolley I always leave some reductions for other people.

If it wasn't for reductions I'd have to live on Value White Sliced :-(

Owain_Moneysaver

Cleaver wrote: »

We buy flour in bulk from the asian market near us for 80p/kg. We tend to buy fresh yeast and freeze it and it turns out fine. 500g costs us £3.

That's an initial investment of ~£4 already, if you can buy 1 kg of flour at that price, plus the cost of one or two loaf tins if you don't already have them.

That sort of expenditure is quite difficult for many people to start with, even though it might be more money-saving in the long term.

Cleaver

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

That's an initial investment of ~£4 already, if you can buy 1 kg of flour at that price, plus the cost of one or two loaf tins if you don't already have them.

That sort of expenditure is quite difficult for many people to start with, even though it might be more money-saving in the long term.

Is a couple of quid on a bread tin that lasts you ten years really 'quite difficult' for many people?

Generali

Cleaver wrote: »

Is a couple of quid on a bread tin that lasts you ten years really 'quite difficult' for many people?

I'd add to that vis-a-vis the MoneySaving bit (as opposed to saving money) was that the thing that attracted me to this site in the first place was being able to have a better lifestyle for the same money.

Given the choice between supermarket 'fresh' baked bread (actually made from frozen dough which is why it goes stale so quickly) and a good home baked loaf for about the same money I'd always go for the latter.

I just made my summer batch of chicken stock. It's going to be way too hot to make it for the next few months so I just made 7 litres of the stuff. I bought 2 chicken carcasses and used 3 of my own plus veg, herbs (home grown) and peppercorns plus a couple of egg whites for fining. I'm sure for the same money I could have bought a tub of stock powder for the same money but it would have been crap by comparison.

Cleaver

Generali wrote: »

I'd add to that vis-a-vis the MoneySaving bit (as opposed to saving money) was that the thing that attracted me to this site in the first place was being able to have a better lifestyle for the same money.

Given the choice between supermarket 'fresh' baked bread (actually made from frozen dough which is why it goes stale so quickly) and a good home baked loaf for about the same money I'd always go for the latter.

I just made my summer batch of chicken stock. It's going to be way too hot to make it for the next few months so I just made 7 litres of the stuff. I bought 2 chicken carcasses and used 3 of my own plus veg, herbs (home grown) and peppercorns plus a couple of egg whites for fining. I'm sure for the same money I could have bought a tub of stock powder for the same money but it would have been crap by comparison.

Agree with all of this. I also think a factor is how much you enjoy this type of thing. Maybe I'm sad, but the thought of spending a whole day making things like stock, bread, cooking a joint of ham or beef for use through the week, maybe a lasagne to freeze, a tomato sauce to use up basil, muffins for breakfast through the week and loads of stuff like that fills me with joy. Music or Radio 4 on, cup of tea on the go and a real satisfaction of making all the stuff yourself. At the same time I fully understand that cooking and baking isn't everyone's cup of tea and that might be a dreadful day for other people.

Put simply, if you have £50 a week to spend on food then you can eat much nicer and better quality stuff if you make it yourself. The cost may not be much different, but the quality would be.