Oct
1
Baking Bread: Plus other ways to cope with inflation
Filed Under Finances, Food & Water Storage, Gardening
Well, it’s time to make another loaf of bread again. I finally got the Nutrimill electric grinder and boy does it make things easier! I expect to do a full review in the coming weeks. I am generally not a prideful person, but you know, it’s pretty hard not to be sometimes. At least with our bread… It is extremely good I think, especially considering the lack of experience we have, mostly thanks to my brother-in-law’s extensive research. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I proudly proclaim that we haven’t bought a single loaf of “store bread” in several months.
I think the most common time it comes up is during conversations about the continual trend of increasing food prices. I always chime in, “That’s why we make our own bread.” While that’s not entirely true (there’s plenty of reasons why we bake our own bread), it fits with the current topic and generally provokes a question of how much we really save. Based on what our supplies cost at the time of purchase, we’ve estimated our per loaf price is somewhere between $1.50-2.00. It largely depends on how much honey you add to the mixture as honey is getting very expensive. We’ve toned it down a bit (also substituted white vinegar for the lemon juice we initially used) and I think we’re right around $1.50.
That might not seem like a huge savings, but extrapolate it a bit and you get some good numbers. It also depends on what kind of bread you’re currently buying at the store. If it’s the cardboard Wonder stuff, well ok, maybe you’re not saving a whole awful lot. Then again, why are you eating it in the first place? Gross! Comparing similar quality and taste yields more accurate results:
$4.19 per loaf. Expensive!
This is the exact same brand and flavor of bread we had been buying for a long time. It’s quite good really and was the goal behind what we wanted our own bread to taste like. Add tax onto that and you’re at about $4.45 per loaf
Using the figures above, we save almost $12.00 each month baking our own bread. Or $144.00 per year. That easily pays for a Netflix subscription! Plus, it rotates our food storage (especially that pesky dehydrated milk!) and is better for you than even the freshest stuff you’ll get at the local grocery store. Small artisan bread shops might be as good as good homemade bread, but the premium you will pay in no way justifies going to places like that!
“It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,” so I thought I’d include some other ways to save on your grocery bill while helping build your food storage at the same time. With ever-increasing food prices across the board, it’s important to know how to cope and adjust your habits accordingly:
- Buy generics. At least that’s what I call them. In Utah at least, that would primarily be Western Family. Now, I don’t mean to just blindly buy anything with their label (the WF Organic Black Beans are nasty!) but give them a try at least. I need to figure out exact numbers, but we save a lot doing this and I think quite a bit of it actually tastes better/fresher than the “top” brands.
- Use coupons. Admittedly I don’t use this technique as much as I should (except at Costco, we are insane Costco coupon cutters). I remember when I was a kid my mom had a small plastic container group by store and category of food and we’d sit there and cut them out of the mailers every week. If you’re not a big coupon cutter like me, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look at those mailers… That’s why you should also…
- Plan your menu around sales! Even if you don’t want to clip coupons, look at the ads and plan your menu around items on sale, especially meat. On sale protein is a great way to plan some awesome meals for cheap. I’ve found it also forces you to try out new meats and recipe’s. Granted, just because calamari is on sale doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it. I do have limits!
- Notice unit pricing. This one seemed like commonsense to me but I catch so many people not doing this at the store I just have to say something. The bigger package isn’t always the best buy! While this generally is the case, if the smaller version is on sale, it’s quite often less per ounce, pound, etc… than the big brother equivalent. While I don’t think you have to pull out a calculator for each item, you should be able to get pretty close in your head. If you’re rusty on your math skills, most of the shelf tags will list the price per ounce (unit) of the item making for a very quick and easy way to compare what the best deal is.
- Bulk up. And I don’t mean protein shakes. But wait, didn’t I just get done talking about how smaller is better? Well sorta… sometimes… maybe… I know, how about “it depends”. Having said that, most of the time buying bulk is the way to go (as long as you plan on using all that bulk before it goes bad of course). This is where the big box stores (Costco / Sam’s Club) shine. Although you have to be careful here as well and consider the unit pricing rule. Not often, but sometimes it’s actually more expensive to buy the super-mega-size mayo.
- Buy in season. If you have a constant craving for avocado on your burger like me, you definitely know what I’m talking about here. For the rest of you… How can you not like avocado!?! Anyway, it’s bad enough that produce has risen (and keeps going up) so much lately, but when things are out of season the prices soar. Think about it… The whole idea of “out of season” implies that it’s not natural for them to be grown where you’re at. This means one of two things:
- They are brought in from other regions where they ARE in season or;
- They are grown in a test tube in some scientific facility
Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration but the principle remains. Buy in season and save money. You can save even more by…
- Grow our own. While our initial attempt at square foot gardening didn’t fare so well, we’re looking forward to round 2 next year. There’s a lot of resources online on this and hopefully I’ll document our (this time successful) process next spring.
- Shop with a list. The main reason for this is simply to reduce impulse buying. Instead of cruising each isle checking out all the selection, you know exactly where you want to go and what to get. You will be surprised how much you spend when you cut impulse items. This goes hand in hand with…
- Don’t go hungry! We struggled with this one for quite a while. We would head to the store right after work before eating dinner. One time we stopped at the Training Table first for a nice meal (meaning cheese fries!) and noticed even while we were in the store after stuffing ourselves that even the food we planned on buying didn’t look very appetizing, let alone that bag of cookies or 12-pack of soda. We try and go on full stomach’s now and it’s helped a lot on stopping the impulse buys.
- Keep convenience foods to a minimum. It should be obvious by now the relevance of this tip. It’s what started the whole topic! Sure, baking your own bread, cutting your own vegetables, grating your own cheese, etc… takes time. Time that seems to slip away more and more each year.
It’s these baby steps that make a difference. Maybe if you’re able to save on your groceries while simultaneously building a solid pantry of food storage items, you’ll find yourself less stressed financially, less worried about your employment, more confident in your emergency preparedness plans, and just happier in general. The satisfaction I have gained in implementing several of these things in my own life is immense. Go bake some bread already so you can feel it too!