Is homemade bread REALLY cheaper?

thriftlady_2

MicheH wrote: »

I wonder if haricot beans would freeze? It seems that batch baking and the freezer is my new best friend.

Yes they will freeze;) You might find this thread useful Miche

Meal Building Blocks for the Freezer

jackieglasgow

I don't know how this will be for you, but I found when we switched to home made bread, we ate a lot less. Usually one loaf over two days now instead of one every day. I have 2 x DS's and the three of us have packups every day, and we usually have bread with every meal, too. In fact, the loaf in the kitchen is from Wednesday tea time, and should last the rest of the day today.

MicheH

thriftlady wrote: »

Yes they will freeze;) You might find this thread useful Miche

Meal Building Blocks for the Freezer

Thank you so much! I have so much to learn but it' so exciting. I feel like a proper mam and housewife all of a sudden.

anguk

thriftlady wrote: »

I see a lot of comments about how expensive it is to have the oven on. Is it? I've no idea how much it costs to run an oven. I use mine every day -for cooking food and stuff- am I unusual?

I bake four loaves at once and freeze the extras. I bake about twice a week.

Your post made me think about the cost of running an oven, like others I've always just assumed that it was expensive so I decided to have a bit of a search and found this:
http://www.confusedaboutenergy.co.uk/index.php/buying-household-appliances/cookers#

Apparently the estimated annual running costs of a medium sized oven (based on 223 uses per year) are gas - £10.51, electric - £28.68

And for oven and hob, based on the average energy consumption of gas and electricity appliances, the estimated annual running costs are:

Gas hob & oven - £22
Electric hob & oven - £65
Gas hob & electric oven - £41

The prices are based on the price of gas & electric in December 2008 so they are a little out of date and obviously they're just estimates and averages but they're not as high as I thought they would be.

I've got an electric oven and even if the costs are higher now and I use it more than "average" and it costs maybe £40-50 a year I don't think that's too bad at all, less than £1 a week for home-cooked food?

I think I'd rather use my oven and save electricity elsewhere, turning things off instead of leaving them on standby, not using the tumble dryer, energy saving bulbs etc.

MicheH

That's really good to know, thinking £1 per week for cooking of meals and bread is nothing compared to £6.25 a week i'm spending on bread alone. Thank you so much for investigating.

geordie_joe

anguk wrote: »

Your post made me think about the cost of running an oven, like others I've always just assumed that it was expensive so I decided to have a bit of a search and found this:
http://www.confusedaboutenergy.co.uk/index.php/buying-household-appliances/cookers#

Does my calculator need new batteries, or do none of their figures add up?

Cost per use X Number of uses doesn't add up to what they say!

7p X 223 = £15.79 I keep getting £15.61

Not that it matters much really, I just hate it when people claim to be an authority on a subject then post information that is clearly wrong.

thriftlady_2

Geordie Joe's right, the figures don't add up do they? However thanks Anguk for doing the research:T Clearly using an oven is not a wanton extravagance.

geordie_joe

thriftlady wrote: »

Geordie Joe's right, the figures don't add up do they? However thanks Anguk for doing the research:T Clearly using an oven is not a wanton extravagance.

Oops, I didn't mean any offence to Anguk, it was the web site I was getting at.

You and Anguk are right, using an oven is not that expensive. Also, most of the energy is used heating the oven to the required temperature. Once that has been reached it only uses just enough energy to replace the heat lost through the sides and top of the oven. So doing several batches of cooking/baking one after the other will be more economical than baking once per day.

If anyone is still reading, and wants to know, I'll explain why the figures don't add up.

Someone calculated the cost per use, by multiplying the fuel used by the cost per unit. In the example I used it comes to 7.081 pence, multiply that by 223 and you get £15.79. They then rounded down the 7.081 pence to 7 pence, so the calculation then looks like 7 X 223 = 1579 which is wrong.

laurel7172

MicheH wrote: »

I had an idea about cooking my own haricot beans and putting them into my own tomato sauce so my children could have healthy baked beans, when I read on the packet, cook for an hour I recoiled in horror and they're still sitting in the cupboard! I wonder if haricot beans would freeze? It seems that batch baking and the freezer is my new best friend.

They freeze, as thriftlady said, and in their homemade tomato sauce, too!

Once you have a store cupboard built up, you can throw in handfuls of different beans for variety. Or substitute soya beans for the haricot-they're a more complete protein.

Churchmouse

geordie_joe wrote: »

Oops, I didn't mean any offence to Anguk, it was the web site I was getting at.

And you're right to get at that website. Sloppy maths, and a sloppy approach. What does "per use" mean? Are they really trying to say 10 minutes at 180 C is the same as 4 hours at 160 C or two and a half hours at 200 C ? They do the same for hob use, so are we to assume that boiling an egg uses the same amount of energy as having a stew on the hob for 3 hours :rolleyes: If that's the case why oh why are we told in the energy saving adverts how awful we are to boil two cups of water when we only need one I notice they only allow for the oven to be used 60% of the year and the hob just over once a day. So is this one ring or four we can use? Not getting at anybody, or saying how expensive or not an oven is to run, just noting that it is very hard to find reliable up to date figures that actually reflect real life.