Someone posted a 'cost of bread' estimate for an 'italian' loaf of .23
cents, excluding the cost of the breadmaker. Here's my estimate, comparing
the cost of 500 storebought loaves with 500 home made loaves. It assumes
your own labor is worth about $10/hour and that it takes about 1/2 hour to
bake each loaf. It also assumes that your breadmaker costs about $100 and
will bake 1000 loaves over its lifetime without additional repair or parts.
Electricity is assumed to be about 15 cents per loaf. I've also assumed
that a one way trip to the grocery is about 5 miles and your cost of
transportation is 30 cents/mile. Note that bread is a loss leader for many
supermarkets...they sell it below cost to get you to come to the store and
buy other things...:
Homemade bread Store bought
-------------- -------------
Ingredients $0.23 one loaf yucky bread $1.25
Labor $5.00 Transportation R/T $3.00/20 items=$0.15
Breadmaker $0.10 Disposal of plastic bag $0.01
Electricity $0.15 Spoilage $0.05
Labor (1 hr. driving) $10.00/20 items=$0.50
Total $5.48 $1.96
Note that the cost of labor pushes the cost of homemade bread way up, even
though you don't get 'paid', except in enjoyment of better bread. But it's
a real cost and should be considered. Also, if you don't use your
breadmaker often (and 1000 loaves is a LOT of bread) the cost goes up per
loaf. However homemade bread is MUCH, MUCH tastier and maybe even healthier
for you, so that's worth something, as is the enjoyment of baking. I'd say
the true 'cost' difference is in favor of the homemade loaf, unless you
hate baking, in which case, by all means, go with Wonder Bread.