Is It Cheaper To Make Your Own Bread – Detailed Comparison

Want to save some money and enjoy delicious homemade bread or shortly – kill two birds with one stone?

What do you think, is it cheaper to make your own bread than buy it? Is it worth making your own bread?

The answer isn’t so simple, so we conducted the analysis and included all factors affecting the bread price. Let’s check it!

Comparing Homemade Bread To Store-bought Bread Costs

Here we’ll compare the prices of store-bought white bread with the price of homemade bread. It’s a very interesting calculation.

Store-bought Bread Price

The cost of a loaf of bread depends on the type of bread and brand you buy.

Here we’ll check various store-bought bread types and their prices:

• A loaf of store-bought white bread costs $0.99.
• An average whole wheat loaf costs about $2 – $2.5.
• The sourdough can go for around $3 – $5.
• The gluten-free variety costs anywhere from $3 to $7.

The Price Breakdown of Homemade White Bread

Here we’ll look at the prices of the ingredients and other things that affect homemade white bread price. There are ingredients for baking two loaves.

6 Cups Of All-purpose Flour

You can find the flour for $0.99 per bag, but let’s assume that you are paying $2.50 for that bag. That means each cup of flour costs $0.125 (6 cups of flour costs $0.75).

2 1/4 Teaspoons Of Active Dry Yeast

If you are buying the yeast in bulk, that will save your money. Two pounds of yeast will cost you about $3.50. This means that each 2 1/4 teaspoon portion of yeast costs almost $0.03.

2 1/4 Cups of Milk
That costs about $0.5. If you are buying bread, you should know it doesn’t contain milk, but water.

2 Tablespoons Sugar
In a 5-pound bag, there are 180 tablespoons of sugar. You can find a bag for $2.50, so each tablespoon costs $0.026.  Two needed tablespoons of sugar are $0.052.

1 Tablespoon Butter (or vegetable oil)
Generic vegetable oil is usually about $3 for 48 oz, so each tablespoon costs $0.03.

2 Teaspoon Salt
Generic salt is $0.50, so two teaspoons of salt cost $0.008.

Electricity
But there are more than just ingredients, what about the electricity cost for baking?

The half-hour of baking this bread would cost $0.12.

Your Time
If you are making your own bread, that will take a few hours from start to finish. Your time is valuable, so let’s check how much of it you’ll need to spend.

There is maybe 25 minutes of hands-on time investment, but you need to leave the dough to rise for about an hour and a half (first and second rising) and then the baking time lasts for 25-30 minutes.

So, let’s see the numbers:

Homemade White Bread

• Ingredients Cost – For a single loaf of homemade white bread, the cost of ingredients is $0.69 (two loaves cost $1.37)
• Electricity Cost –  $0.12
• Time Investment – About 25 minutes
• Total – about $0.8

Loaf Of Store-bought White Bread

• Total – The most common store-bought white bread costs $0.99

Conclusion

With our homemade white bread recipe, the total cost for a single loaf is up to $0.8. On the other hand, store-bought white bread costs $0.99 which means homemade bread is a little cheaper.

When it comes to other bread types, like gluten-free, sourdough and whole wheat loaves of bread, it seems that making your own bread at home is always cheaper than buying one.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

• Total – $0.73
• Store-bought – $2

Homemade Gluten-free Bread

• Total – $7
• Store-bought – $3-7

Homemade Sourdough Bread

• Total – $1
• Store-bought – $3-5

How To Lower The Cost Of Making Your Own Bread?

If you make more than one loaf at a time, you’ll drastically reduce the cost of making homemade bread. You should be able to place two loaves in the oven at one time. Or you could make larger loaves of bread.

Another way to save money is to buy in bulk. Buy the right proportion of ingredients that will last for a few months, so you don’t have to buy them weekly.

Is It Cheaper To Make Your Own Bread With a Bread Maker?

Once you buy a bread machine, you’ll have it for years.

You can find this machine at a wide array of prices (from $50 to $300), depending on its functions. It will take you a few months of making homemade bread in the bread machine every week for the investment in the bread machine to have paid off. If you plan to make bread every week or even often, then the bread machine is worth it.

You just need to add ingredients to the breadmaker, select the cycle and press start. You can make the dough, bake a cake and make delicious mouth-watering loaves of fresh-baked bread.

With a bread machine, you can make healthy whole grain or gluten-free loaves, it’s great for prepping dough for pizza, dinner rolls, cinnamon buns, and other yummy food.

Benefits Of Homemade Bread

There is more to making your homemade bread than saving money. Beyond the fact that many people love to bake, baking your own bread has many other advantages.

• Nutritional Value – When you make your own bread, you completely control the ingredients you’re going to put into it. It is easy to replace ingredients you don’t like. Also, it’s great for gluten-sensitive and vegan people. Basically, the homemade bread consists of water/milk, flour, yeast, oil and salt whilst commercial bread requires a lot of preservatives to maintain freshness.
• Taste – There is no comparison to the taste of freshly baked bread. That smell, bubbly texture and crispy crust are priceless. Store-bought bread won’t taste like a fresh one, it is designed for shelf stability.
• Release Stress – It’s not a joke. Kneading the dough can be a great way to release stress.

Advantages Of Buying Store-bought Bread

Well, of course, there are some advantages of simply buying bread. The biggest reason why people buy bread from the store is convenience. You just need to walk into the store and buy bread – it’s ready to eat.

Many people don’t have time to bake bread – the whole process lasts about 2 hours. Also, store-bought bread lasts longer than homemade bread.