The cost of homemade

My first trip to the grocery store was also when I tracked prices, which means that this portion of the exercise felt a lot like the first part - tedious, stressful, and confusing all words coming to mind.

For the most part, my list was very vegetable heavy, and as a result, there wasn't much in the way of cheaper options. Comparing fresh vegetables to canned vegetables was very interesting though, in the way that we would usually think that canned veggies would be cheaper, but per oz., the fresh ones (at least the ones I purchased) were both cheaper and more useful for my recipes. If I were a family relying on a food pantry, however, that might shift, as the availability of canned vegetables goes up, and my recipes may have to differ.

The few areas where I could cut prices brought up some interesting ideas about the cost of having to penny pinch. For tortillas, pasta, mayonnaise, and curry sauce, the homemade version came out to be cheaper per unit than the store-bought, as well as being healthier (in the sense of non-food additives, at least) and taste a bit better as well. To complicate things though, making these things homemade has a higher initial cost, which might prove to be problematic, as it may just not be within the budget of a low-income family to do this. In addition, some ingredients (for the curry sauce) weren't available at Giant Eagle, meaning I would have to make multiple trips each week to save money (or lose money, depending on distance and gas costs). And the cost of the equipment to make some of these food (blenders, mostly) would also have to be factored in, if my family didn't own one. Add to this the time cost of hand-making tortillas, mayo, pasta, etc. and the cost in savings vs. the drawbacks is actually pretty close for homemade (healthier food).

The only other substitution that saved money was using single slices of "American" cheese (Kraft singles) to make quesadillas, which while I was immediately repulsed, might be a decision that a family tight on money would have to make. While I don't really know how that might feel in reality, thinking about it made me lose all joy that I may have had from making/eating the quesadillas, and would really have an impact on how I felt about life in general.

Overall, though, my cost was relatively low and unsurprising, as it's pretty much what I buy for myself anyways. Still, much was gained from calculating the costs/alternatives.