Do breadmakers save money?

[CallMeKelly]

Or are they just nice for convienience and freshness?

[camprunner]

I think it depends on how you plan to make the bread. It is very expensive if you use the fancy packets from the store and/or the tiny glass jars of dry active yeast. However if you buy your dry active yeast in bulk, your flour in bulk (you can use all purpose flour instead bread flour to make it cheaper or just use wheat even better ofcourse), and other ingredients in bulk it is cheaper. Sometimes it also depends on the recipe. The bread is also healthier. I think you could make a loaf for 30 cents.

[MaddieMay]

I think it depends. You have to factor in the cost of ingredients plus the electricity used. For us, a breadmaker would be nice but definitely wouldn't save us any money. We just simply do not eat a lot of bread around here. If I make bread, I have a recipe that calls for kneading by hand and I just bake it in the oven.

[Daisie125]

If you use good wholesome bread that is like $3 a loaf like we did, then yes it will save you a ton of money. If you buy the $0.69 loaves of white bread then no, it's probably going to cost you money.

[tallanvor]

That's pretty much it -- do you want good, healthy bread or just bread? If you just want bread, then not necessarily. I bake our bread because I think it's ridiculous to pay $3-4 a loaf when I can make healthier bread at home for less. Mine tastes better anyway. lol

Would like to point out though that we don't have an actual bread maker. I do it all by hand. I don't understand the reasoning behind breadmakers anyway. Unless you just don't have the strength to knead bread due to health reasons.

Crystal

[Mom2Joseph]

I was desperate when my bread maker broke during the July (?) no spend challenge. To my surprise, it was so easy to make the bread by hand. And Cheap too. We use the low yeast method from Hillbilly Housewife and make 4 loves at a time. I get yeast and flour in bulk. So cheap and so easy. And, I don't have another appliance taking up space in our small kitchen and pantry.

My kids have severe food allergies so making it at home is definitely cheaper and healthier for us.

[KariM]

It's cheaper for us due to DD's dairy allergies. But more important is the peace of mind that comes with knowing what is in the bread!

When I was shopping for dairy-free bread early after we discovered her dairy sensititivity (she was 2 months old and EBF) I discovered it was close to $4/loaf! That's when I decided to buy a breadmaker and bake our own.

We will eat 4-5 loaves a week during cool months and about a loaf a week during summer.

I'd love to be able to bake bread without a machine, but haven't been able to get the loaves to double in our old drafty kitchen.

[kellyh]

Love my bread machine!!!

BUT, it was also a gift from my parents! I probably would never have bought one myself!! It saves us a bunch because we do eat a lot of bread. It's so much healthier and tasty.
Also, it's a no-brainer! Dump all the ingredients in and forget about it till it beeps! You don't have to be stuck in the kitchen for hours watching dough rise!
My son also gets a kick out of telling his little friends that "my mom makes the best home-made bread!" That's priceless!

[starry_mama]

We totally save money! To get a really good loaf of bread with no HFCS around here, its usually over $3 a loaf. And we eat about 4 loaves a week. Plus, I like homemade bread way better than store bread.

[phatchristy]

I kick some major $$$ butt with my breadmachine. I buy my instant yeast about 2 POUNDS for $4.00. Which honestly will last me several years.
I did buy my flour in bulk (20 pounds) as well. Though, I'm not eating a lot of bread right now. Other stuff though from the bread machine!

I use it to make doughs as well....for cinnamon rolls, pizza, rolls...all sorts of things. I can make butter, quick breads, cakes in my machine as well. Which honestly is a HUGE savings when you figure out how much it costs to heat up a WHOLE oven. And, it's great too as I usually don't want to heat up the whole oven when its 95 degrees outside.

[lucyem]

Time is money IMO and my bread machine saves me time. Drop in the ingredients and press start and fresh bread in time for dinner. With DS's allergies and our preference to eat organic it saves us money as well. As I write this it seems my bread machine has died It lasted 10 years. Not sure what to do with the ingredients sitting in there.....

[loitering]

I have a store near me where I can get 10 loaves of whole wheat bread (can't remember what kind), for $11. I also occassionally have a coupon for $5 off, so it makes it REALLY cheap. That makes it worth it for me, especially because I just don't have the room for a bread maker or patience for making bread without one.

[tessie]

It saves a little bit on good quality bread, not so much if you eat sliced white pap.

There is nothing better than waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread, so in that sense it is priceless.

[Benji'sMom]

flour = $1.13
yeast = 59c
sugar = 44c
2 tablespoons oil - I have no idea, it hardly costs anything.

$2.16 That's the cost of my whole wheat bread I make in the bread machine. Comparable to the price of plain store bought whole wheat bread but way healthier (no preservatives or additives).

I also make whole wheat pizza crusts, dinner rolls, etc.

I honestly do it more for the health aspect because I have never gotten a homemade bread to rise when I do it myself, but it always rises in my machine, that's why I use the machine. But the cost of using one isn't bad either.

[pinksprklybarefoot]

Every thrift store I go to always has a minimum of three bread machines sitting there for <$10. So you wouldn't even have a huge initial investment.

Are they difficult to clean?

[anarchamama]

As others said we like Organic/whole wheat so the bread maker saves us tons of $$! If w were buying cheap bread probably not.

[homefrontgirl]

I just have to jump in here to add that while it's not a necessity with homemade bread, you might want to invest in an electric knife. It makes the slicing go so much smoother and you smush the bread down.

[snanna]

Originally Posted by pinksprklybarefoot

Are they difficult to clean?

No, not difficult to clean-- I don't even wash ours, just wipe the crumbs out with my hand.

We got ours as a hand-me-down from friends, and bake three or four loaves a week. I estimate that each loaf (usually oatmeal/whole wheat) costs about $0.90, with bulk-buying. Not counting electricity. But the heating element is tiny, compared to the oven-- and I do have to raise bread in the oven, when I make it by hand, because most days the house is not warm enough to help it rise. So I figure the electricity costs must be lower, as well.

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by KariM

It's cheaper for us due to DD's dairy allergies. But more important is the peace of mind that comes with knowing what is in the bread!

That's us. In our area, there aren't a lot of healthfood alternatives, so rye and potato breads were all we found w/o dairy.

I use the breadmaker over making it ourselves because it saves time!