As I mentioned, a few months ago (well, 12 weeks to be exact) I bought a bread machine and immediately fell in love with it and have not yet begun to take it for granted. I did, however, discover that amaranth flour is disgusting and that full on whole wheat pizza dough actually tastes like cardboard. Additionally, I finally did the math to realize that in addition to the many edible and time saving perks of the bread machine, there is definitely a monetary perk as well.

I watch my grocery budget like a hawk and I always go over, so upon discovering the local flour at the farmer’s market, assumed it wasn’t in my budget as its about twice as expensive as King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill. I mean, I bought the bread machine so I could spend less money on bread, not more.

Plus, I had to take a 40 minute subway ride to get this local flour anyway. Well, until yesterday when the flour stand showed up at the farmer’s market 7 blocks from my apartment. So now that this flour is convenient, I wanted to work out exactly how much I’m paying for bread now to see if an upgrade in flour is conceivable. Turns out, it is as homemade bread is extremely cheap.

Here’s the breakdown:

A loaf of 365 Whole Grain Bread at Whole Foods is $4.99

• 5lbs of King Arthur Bread Flour is $4.69 and assuming 4 cups per pound, 23 cents per cup
• 3lbs of Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour is $3.79, or 32 cents per cup
• A 4oz jar of Fleischmann’s active dry yeast is $7.39 or 21 cents per teaspoon
• 2.5qts of honey was $27 or 17 cents a tablespoon
• 16oz Bob’s Red Mill Oat Bran is $2.39 or 60 cents a cup
• 16oz Bob’s Red Mill Rolled Oats is $2.39 or 60 cents a cup

I did not include olive oil or salt because those are pantry staples I would have otherwise and buy in such bulk their costs would be extremely minimal.

Based on my whole grain recipe using the above ingredients, a loaf of whole grain bread comes to a mere $1.50, or a savings of $3.49. Even if I switch to the more expensive local flour, I’d still only be spending about $2.05 per loaf.

So, to sum up: a bread machine seems like an unnecessary appliance and actually is if you don’t use it, but if you use it exclusively (with the exception of that one week when you accidentally threw away the paddle in your fit of rage due to how disgusting amaranth flour is) for bread and combination of its other capabilites such as pizza dough (which costs 81 cents) its actually a useful investment. You can also consider the fact that homemade bread is almost always healthier to increase its relative worth. Additionally, it will take you less hands on time to make bread in the machine than it would to run to the store and buy some.