Here's a question for Frugal minds:
I saw a clip on CTV regarding a family of 7 living on $700/month for groceries. One of the things the father touted was that they made their own bread. I have looked at the cost of ingredients for a single loaf of bread and found that it is not possible to make bread for cheaper than one can find it (at discount) from places like Walmart.
Here are the ingredient prices from a recipe I found online:
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/bread-recipe/
2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees) (474g)
1 Tablespoons active dry yeast* (There is 3/4 of a tablespoon of active dry yeast in 1 packet. 2.25 teaspoons are in a packet and there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon. A standard packet has 7 grams)
1/4 cup honey or sugar (85g honey, 50g sugar)
2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons oil (canola or vegetable)
4 - 5 1/2 cups all-purpose or bread flour* (500g-688g)
I will only focus on the yeast and flour. The other ingredients do have an associated cost, but I'll ignore them for the purposes of this discussion.
Approximately 9g of yeast is required and I checked the price of yeast and a small 113 jar goes for about $5. So, 9g would cost (9/113*$5=) $0.40
NoFrills currently has a sale on flour for $10 for 10kg. Since there is a range of (500g-688g) for flour, let's just say it uses 600g. Therefore, a cost of $0.60 for a loaf of bread.
The costs (without the other ingredients) are already $0.60 + $0.40 = $1
How the heck can anyone beat the day-before discount prices of Walmart ($0.80) and RCSS? You can buy a pound of bread for less than the cost of basic ingredients (not even counting electricity, time, and effort).
Anyone make their own bread? Am I missing something? I have done the calculation over the years and always come to the same conclusion. It is more expensive to buy ingredients to make one's own bread than buying it at discount.