Is homemade really cheaper?

[daisydee43]

Hi

I normally spend around £50-60 a week on a big shop and then maybe a further £10-20 a week on top up. I have dh and dd1 at home and tend to buy as much morrisons savers as possible which are good products. I don't really cook from scratch as I fear the price will just mount but everyone says its cheaper? How is this?

Typical menu in our house:
Breakfast: cereal or toast
Lunch: sandwich, crisps, biscuits
Dinner: something from the freezer with veg

I don't think it's cheaper personally, but I do prefer knowing what's in it in terms of salt/sugar etc.

I do enjoy a chicken Kiev occasionally though

I think it probably more expensive to cook from scratch but you get better quality and quantity for the same item - ie you can buy a fish pie frozen for say 3 quid or so and to make one would cost me maybe double - but it would have no crap in it and probably loads more fish and expensive ingredients in it.

I am always amazed how much it costs to make say a sponge cake with butter good eggs etc when I see you can buy a cake in shops for a quid - but just reading ingredients makes me see they are not the same thing at all - one is box of chemicals the other a lush treat of natural ingredients

It's cheaper because you probably can get more servings or extra to freeze if you cook from scratch for the same price as ready meals or shop cakes .

More expensive, but much better taste, much healthier ingredients too - no contest in this house - home made every time.

It's cheaper if you're comparing like with like. E.g. you can't make a Lasagne for £1, but if you bought a homemade quality lasagne from Cook or similar it would be more expensive than making your own.

Actually you maybe can make a veg lasagne for £1 and personally I'd rather have that than a cheap shop bought one.

I was talking to a friend recently about making my own sauces,i never buy Dolmio or the like,

'Ooooooh,aren't you good' butted in someone else who was listening.

But i don't,it's not difficult and much cheaper to make your own and it sounds like mine are very similar to TSC's.

I didn't tell MrsNoseyCah to butt out but was sorely tempted.

I do occasionally buy Korma/Indian sauces cos i cba to make it all from scratch.,but tomato based ones are easy as is the roux/cheese sauce.

If you use good ingredients it's more expensive to cook from scratch. But I always cook from scratch if possible as I know exactly what's going into our bodies. My cake has 4-6 ingredients. The £1 cake from the shop will have at least 15 ingredients, many of them chemical.

the question doesn't take account of the quantities you use - which could go either way:

either when you cook from scratch you eat less and get more value from it because real food is satisfying and you don't graze between meals, and you can be disciplined with your servings making sure you can have it again another day;

or, you eat more, because it has not been stringently measured as pre-prepared food is, and it tastes good, so there is that tendency to have one more spoonful, and then there is not enough left to do a whole other family meal and so it gets dug into even further in a "sod it" way

My weekly shop is never over £80, cleaning/laundry stuff included. That is for me, DH, DS (13) & DD (12).

I shop in Sainsbury's, never buy value stuff, and make everything from scratch.

I meal plan, so no top-up shops needed.

Guess it depends what you use and make.

I've jut made dough for pizza bases (half bag of flour about 75p)
Pizza sauce (two tins of toms, an onion, bit of garlic and a few mushrooms probably £1.30 in total - an will freeze for a few more pizzas anther time)
Couple of mozzarella balls 45p each I think and then some ham made for toppings.

That's far cheaper than buying pizza for 2 adults and one child.

Homemade cakes are much more expensive than shop bought, but much nicer. For other stuff, it depends.

Depends what it is, cakes, biscuits etc work out more expensive but are much nicer and usually larger. Soups, stews, curries etc are much cheaper than ready meals.

As someone said, like for like it is cheaper. the fish pie analogy is flawed, because in the frizen fish pie is the unsellable potatoes, the scrag ends of fish, mishshapen veg. You're talking about buying much better quality ingredients. If you wanted the scraggy fish your monger would give it to you cheap at the end of the day.
Companies that make and produce ready and pre packaged meals have more costs than those selling product as is. They Will get that money back or there'd be no point would there? They get it back by buying the base ingredients cheap as possible and charging customers more than it cost them to make. A tin of tomatoes at consumer rates is 33p an onion, 12p,, garlic a clove what 4p, dried mixed herbs 10p, salt, pepper and preserves, maybe 25p - dolmio lasagne sauce £1.50.
The business rates are probably lower than the consumer given for tomatoes etc, so the cost v profit is going to be brilliant for the company. You could make it yourself for about 60p

There are certain foods which if you make yourself will ensure you never buy them in again Once you have tried homemade quiche/cake/lasagna/ bread/biscuits it's really difficult to go back to synthetic brands.

It started slowly for me but now there's very little I prefer that's shop bought. Home made food is usually always tastier.