I have been really intrigued by the experiment Laura over at Heavenlyhomemakers.com has been doing about the cost of food. I have been crunching numbers all weekend. It is fun! And, really helpful in identifying things we eat that are expensive that I thought were cheaper. Maybe it will change some things that I make on a regular basis. We shall see.
Anyway, after sharing with you what pizza costs to make, I did some more number crunching today. Here are the food items I figured and also how much our dinner cost and how much it costs to make bread.
Honey: 46.00/gallon; 0.36/ounce
Coconut oil: 44.00/gallon; 0.34/ounce
Olive oil: 21.00/101 ounces; 0.21/ounce
Yeast: 2.55/pound; 0.06/TBS
Real Salt: 1.91/pound; 0.07/TBS
Sprouted Wheat: 0.75/pound= 3 cups flour; 1 cup= 0.25
Raw Milk: 7.00/gallon; 0.44/cup
My Bread Recipe
6 cups flour-- 1.50
1/3 cup olive oil-- 1.05
1/3 cup honey-- 1.80
1 TBS yeast-- 0.06
2 tsp salt-- 0.04
2 cups water--0.00
Total: $4.45 for two loaves; $2.23 per loaf
Dinner Tonight
Tuna/Sardine Melts, Broccoli with cheese sauce
1 lb. broccoli-- 2.00
1/2 loaf bread-- 1.12
1 can tuna-- 2.79
1 can sardines-- 2.33
3 TBS flour-- 0.09
3 TBS butter-- 0.39
1 1/2 cups milk-- 0.66
6 oz. cheddar-- 3.00
Total: 12.73
Some notes about dinner-- whenever we have tuna, it is really expensive, because I buy wild planet tuna and we also buy wild planet sardines. The cheddar was organic valley raw cheddar.
Dinner Last night
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti-- 1.50
1 jar sauce-- 2.79
Total: 4.29
Last night, Chris and I went out. The kids ate this with the sitter and there was enough left over that we had it for lunch this afternoon with garlic bread and pears. If we had eaten this as a family last night, it would have either been all gone, or there would have been one small little portion left. But, i just wanted to include this meal as well so you can see that our meal costs vary from night to night. While tonight's dinner might seem really expensive to some, I feel last night's dinner was relatively inexpensive. I don't know! What do you think? How much do YOU spend on each meal? Is this even something you think about? I know I didn't really until this past week.
Hope you enjoyed this exercise as much as I did. :-) I will probably be posting more costs of meals in the next few weeks.
Interesting experiment, I might have to try that sometime. I am not very good and keeping track of how much food costs.
ReplyDeleteJanet,
ReplyDeleteHow long does a 50# bag of wheat typically last, and do you store it in buckets or glass jars? Here I can purchase wheat in 25# bags for 1.50/pound. (I don't want to pay that anymore) It would be possible for me to make a trip to Millers, but I would be disappointed if they were out of, say, the 50# bag when I got there. Are they fairly good with keeping things in stock? I don't think there is a way to call them before setting out.
It takes us about 2 months to go through 50# of wheat. I've never had a problem getting wheat at Miller's, and I have gone all different days of the week, at different times, etc.
DeleteSince we go through it relatively quickly, I store the wheat I am using in a square plastic gallon container. The rest of the wheat I just leave in the bag, and replenish my container as I need to.
Hope this helps!