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Love this article. Can't wait to make some bagels this weekend!

When I first got into making my own pantry stuff it wasn't because of a price-point thing as such -- it was more about trying something fun, but also about having gifts. Don't forget, people actually can give homemade jam or some kind of pantry thing as gifts.

In terms of gift-giving, it's been an absolute boon -- I've been a stage manager, and gift-giving for opening nights got expensive. But when I learned to make jam, I was able to take care of 15 people's opening-night gifts just by buying about 3 pounds of peaches and 16 baby jam jars. Everyone was far, far more impressed with that than they'd have been if I just got everyone a card.

Making my own liqueur is also something I've tried -- that just takes a big jug, a bottle of vodka (doesn't have to be top-of-the-line), and a pound or so of fruit or other flavoring (I make amaretto a lot, and that calls for about a half pound of almonds and a couple dried apricots), and then another couple of pretty bottles to decant them into. The hardest part is waiting two months for everything to steep in the jug, and then filtering things enough when you're done. And people REALLY like homemade liqueur.

I bake all of our bread and other baked goods, including bagels. I only used to buy artisanal bread, and I eat lots of it, so it really adds up since one 1.5 lb loaf is around 5 bucks. Baking my own is not only cheaper, but also a lot tastier. I also make kombucha and kefir (the latter is great to use instead of buttermilk), as well as yogurt. All of those are much cheaper to make, once you have the culture, than to buy. Oh, and vanilla extract, too. Add to that home-canned pickles and tomato sauce. I haven't made jam yet.

I started baking bread because the price of a good quality sandwich loaf shot up to about $4.50. If you consider that 5 pounds of good all purpose flour only costs around $3.00, I'm definitely saving money. Plus it's good exercise!
I really would like to make my own butter and cottage cheese, but when I compared the cost, it's still cheaper to buy organic and local readymade.

I make yogurt (ALL the time), jam, cheese (paneer and ricotta), stocks, kim chi, kombucha, vanilla extract, sprouts and probably a bunch more I am forgetting. I seriously dont go into center aisles unless I bake or need sardines. Haha.

Until I made foccacia and found out how ridiculously easy it is to make, I think I was paying $5 for a fairly small square of it now and then. I love it, and now the only thing stopping me from baking it often is the time factor. It is definitely cheaper to make your own, by miles, but finding that 3 hours I'll be around for it to rise, etc., is not always easy.

I make my own yogurt every week - I figured out that it saves me $0.50 per container on average (based against organic, whole-food yogurts). It also means I eat yogurt that doesn't have added sweeteners, gelatins, corn starch, thickeners, etc. That's something you can't necessarily put a price on.

I make my own bread, which saves me on average $1 a loaf with the same benefits as above.

I make my own vanilla, my own infused oils using good quality olive oil and herbs from my own garden, and other items that might not necessarily save me money but ... again, purity of ingredients as well as the satisfaction of knowing that I've grown and made my own food.

I think this article overlooks what I call the single person factor. Because I don't have a family, many products don't last as long as they need to for me to use them up, especially bread. I stopped buying bread altogether because I was sick of tossing moldy half-loaves of bread.

Then I learned to bake it. The fact is that I can make a half of a loaf of bread, secure with the knowledge that I'll be able to eat it all in time.

Schwartz, totally agree. Solo cooking / baking is a whole different factor in cost effectiveness. Great point. Being able to trim down baking / home cooking makes it much more economical for the single.

The article gets the payoff for homemade granola totally wrong. We make our own and find it's much, much cheaper--but we use honey. We use so much, we asked around for local bulk and were able to get it for $30/gallon.
I, too, make my own yogurt, but by using organic milk, I'm not sure it's cheaper.
And the author leaves out raising your own chickens! I'm not sure the eggs are cheaper, but it sure is fun and probably worth it as a relaxation tool.

yeah skip the maple syrup and just use brown sugar and water ... then it's cheaper - even using organic oats and nuts.

I don't often price out the cost of making things at home because I have little patience for math, but when I'm making most things myself, it certainly shows in my grocery bills.

I always make my own barbecue sauce because I'm super picky about it. I have to buy whiskey to make it, but the recipe makes 2.5 huge jars' worth, plus I know the sauce will be perfect. That, to me, makes it well worth spending $18 on the whiskey.

but this doesn't factor in the cost of your time... sure making bread might save you $1, and that might be nice if you have a lot of free time, but you could also go out and make money during that time (a lot more than $1!). if you enjoy it, then go for it, but if your goal is really to be financially better off, you could work more instead. (but maybe I'm just bitter because I just took a second job and don't have time to make my own yogurt?)

I make homemade yogurt from powdered milk, which makes it extremely cheap.

I tried making my own wine, but it turned out to be more like making my own prison hooch. Very yeasty and slightly vinegary. On the plus side, it makes the best French onion soup I've ever tasted.

I make organic Caspian Sea yogurt, which ends up being about $4 cheaper than buying organic yogurt readymade (but this is BC, where dairy unions mean dairy costs a lot more than it does in the U.S.). It's not the same consistency as regular yogurt, though, but it's as easy to make as blinking, and just about as fast in hands-on time.

Oh, and I cook my own beans. Cans of beans are about 1.50 - 3.00 here (Vancouver's crazy with the food prices, but probably more realistic), so it's ridiculously cheaper to cook my own, and usually tastes better.

Apple juice- even organic, is cheaper than cider. Nothing like a bucket full as a money-saving house party solution.

I rarely buy anything in the canned foods section- the occasional can of Amy's soup when I'm sick, or artichoke hearts, but thats it. Sometimes I make my own jam... but often I get it from local farmers markets as the mess that blueberry jam can cause...

Bread is often cheaper to make yourself, but I buy locally milled 100% rye, so I need to buy a really big bag to save any money off of it. For me, perfecting the rye bread is a fun challenge. If I'm lazy though, the bakery's rye isn't much more cost to me. Plain old white or whole wheat however is MUCH cheaper to make one's self.

I've also made my own soy yogurt, but I don't eat it regularly enough to continue a culture, and now that I eat dairy, Pinehedge farm's kefir is perfect.

No need to make granola usually- homemade granola at work costs about $5 for enough to last me 2 weeks!
One thing that is NOT cheaper to make is nut products. Nut butters are expensive as they are, but nuts are even more so! (Yes, even compared to the $15.00 jars of macadamia butter) Not to mention the pain of blending long enough, and not adding liquid! Nut milks are the same, but the results when you make them yourself are enough to make a few converts. If you eat raw however, its best to suck up the expense and make these yourself...

i found the most delicious maple syrup for $45/gallon. it's sold by a place called shadow hill in ontario, new york.

www.shadowhilllandscape.com/ this is the place. they don't list maple syrup on their website but i assure you, it's sold in their store. awesome.

I have made yogurt before, but not regularly; and lately I've been too busy making bread to add any new DIY staples to the reperatoire. I do make energy bars very regularly, though, for breakfast and snacks. I use Alton Brown's Protein Bars recipe ( http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/protein-bars-recipe/index.html ), and switch up the fruits as I like. I store them individually wrapped in the freezer, and pull them out as needed. They thaw so quickly, it's never a problem.

I don't really buy convenience foods generally speaking, and cook a lot of fresh vegetables and grains, with the occasional purchased bag of edamame stashed in the freezer.

Bread is ridiculously cheap to make. Even an expensive bag of flour is only about $5-6, and can make at least 3 or 4 large loaves, but usually more.

It all really comes down to how much your time is worth, how much you can spend on convenience, and how much you love fresh bread and yogurt!

http://www.abreadaday.com

A gallon of milk to make into kefir costs me less than a quart of kefir, and the stuff I make at home is better, too.