Is homemade bread REALLY cheaper?

Lookingtothefuture

:beer:Thanks Everyone for your help!

Yes we pay £1 for one loaf and usually need two loaves a week. Although £2 isn't the end of the world, if I can get it cheaper then all the better hey!

What with baking bread and making lots of crumble, pies, cakes and jam with all the lovely blackberries I have been picking, tomorrow I am going to be a busy little bee

zippychick

Hi LTTF

I've merged this with a previous thread discussing cost of home made bread.

Freyasmum - I think I love you for all those links!:iloveyou::rotfl:

Zip

rachbc

http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/energyrunningcosts

This is an interesting comparison - according to that a bm is actually more expensive than having the oven on for half and hour in whcih time you potentially bake 4/5 loaves

Doom_and_Gloom

rachbc wrote: »

http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/energyrunningcosts

This is an interesting comparison - according to that a bm is actually more expensive than having the oven on for half and hour in whcih time you potentially bake 4/5 loaves

Would use the oven if I could but the reason we got the breadmaker was so I can make bread when my partner isn't home or doesn't want to make it as I'm disabled. Obviously it's cheaper for my partner to make it by hand and then oven cook them but he has a lot to do so it's not always fair and lets face it it's still cheaper to make proper bread in the breadmaker than buy from the shop. It depends why the person is using the breadmaker. I can't safely use the oven - burn myself every time when I do try - so don't however I can safely use my breadmaker on the floor with all the needed things also on the floor .

Herbyme

I have an OWL and when my oven is on it tends to add about 40p per hour to my electricity cost. Hope that's helpful. Seems a lot to me so i try to batch bake. btw maplin have plug in elec monitors that measure the elec that a plug in item uses at £5 at the mo, reduced, which would measure your bread maker's usage.

PJ1

Hi Everyone,
I am an OS person at heart and do my best to live this way. I work full time as does hubby (but we have a lot of debt so not much disposable income) we grow all our own vegetables and soft fruit and keep some hens for eggs and a bit of meat. I'm always looking to improve my food budget by cooking more OS. However, most of the plans/books/websites I read on the subject recommend baking your own bread but I've researched the cost of Value w/m bread against ingredients and homemade works out way more expensive. Even the flour alone is more expensive than a 2lb loaf, then you have yeast, oil and oven running costs to take into account. Does anyone else know how to make it yourself cheaper or is everyone else paying more too...am I just stupid?
Thanks for any replies.
PJ x

Penelope_Penguin

PJ1 wrote: »

I've researched the cost of Value w/m bread against ingredients and homemade works out way more expensive. Even the flour alone is more expensive than a 2lb loaf, then you have yeast, oil and oven running costs to take into account. Does anyone else know how to make it yourself cheaper or is everyone else paying more too...am I just stupid?
Thanks for any replies.
PJ x

Are you sure you;re comparing like with like? Value bread in no way compares in quality to a HM loaf

I've not done the costings recently, but HM compared favourably last time I looked. Care to share your working out with us

PJ1

OK, I'm probably going to look really silly now but as long as it's wholemeal bread I'm relatively happy, especially as my main objective is to keep the cost down and I don't have much spare time at my disposal. I would just like to ask though, would h/m bread be likely to fill us up more than bought? And how do you cut it as thin as medium cut bought bread-to make one loaf last as long as a bought one?
My workings go as follows, Value wholemeal bread 800g loaf 47p
Cheapest wholemeal flour 70p kg
plus 5p for oil plus 10p for yeast = 42.5p per loaf plus electric for oven and time, so is it really worth it? (for me?)
I do hope I haven't offended anyone, I'm only trying to work out if it will be a worthwhile saving for us and I realise I'm probably asking a lot of silly questions-sorry.
Thank you.
PJ x

JayJay14

Hi PJ1,

Pen Pen is right that to compere a value loaf with a HM one is not really a good indication of price.

However I have been making bead recently with W/M chappati flour, which makes a lovely hovisy type of bread. I have just bought a 10k bag (in costco but any asian supermaket will have a selection) for £3.79. I use about 500g (19p) for a 2lb loaf tin, with 1/2 sachet of yeast (7p) and 2 tblspns oil (5p) and a bit of sugar/salt, so about 32p. Even compared to a value loaf this isn't too bad. I make the dough in the BM then rise again and bake in the oven.

I think it all depends which flour you use (even value white plain will make nice loaf - you don't have to use 'bread' flour)

Edit - you posted while I was typing so I hope I helped.

adelight

It's the taste! I personally don't slice my h/m bread or use it like a shop bought loaf; I do thick slices for open sandwiches, dip the crust in soups and it tastes much better than shop bought.
Time wise, if you do no knead bread it's a few minutes to whip it up and cover, and a few minutes to stick in the oven. Even normal bread only takes 10-15 mins prep and I would say to cook it at the same time as something else to make the most of the oven being on.

If you buy flour or bread mix in bulk it does work out cheaper, there was a thread recently called "best own brand bread flour" or osmething similar, search for that as it had some great links. Hovis wholemeal bread flour is also on a great offer on approved foods at the minute too.