I made all of our bread in 2024! Here's a breakdown on what I made, how it went, and how much money it saved us.
I started out the year churning out lots of sourdough loaves just as a natural consequence of having a sourdough bread blog. It wasn't until the end of January that I realized I hadn't bought any bread or bread products.
So while I didn't set out with a New Years resolution of putting a spending freeze on bread, I figured I'd see how far I could make it. And it turns out, it easily became a new routine and everyone in my house preferred the constant supply of homemade bread to loaves from the store.
Here's how the year went.
The parameters
When I say I made all of our bread, I mean I made every sandwich loaf, every artisan loaf, and every specialty bread that we ate.
But there WERE times I bought bread at the store. These included:
- If I was taking someone a meal.
- If we were hosting a large group for a meal.
It was pretty seamless to fit a few homemade loaves into my week, but huge quantities, or last-minute bread, or bread when I had lots of other things to work on, I farmed out to the store.
For calculation purposes, I'm not including any of these scenarios in my average spend per week of buying bread from the store.
How much bread did I make?
As a family of 5, we go through a lot of bread. Between toast for breakfast, sandwiches, and breads with dinner, I'd estimate I made well over 100 loaves this year.
A typical week
In a typical week, we'd go through two sandwich loaves, one artisan loaf, and one specialty bread (rolls, naan, etc.).
I usually tried to get the dough for all the loaves started on the same day. I would make the sandwich loaves all the way through exactly as written in the recipe. Then let them cool overnight, slice, and store in bread bags. It was not terribly different than having sandwich bread from the store (except that everyone liked it more and found it more filling).
I'm unsure if it's the recipe, the storage technique, or the climate we live in, but I did not have any issues with bread molding, and could easily keep this bread in our pantry for over a week.
Whatever style of artisan bread I was making that week, I would usually move to the fridge for up to 48 hours once it was shaped. This helped spread out baking, gave the dough lots of time to develop flavor, and having a loaf of bread ready to bake at a moment's notice is a GREAT spot to be in.
Then, I would fill in the gaps and adjust with whatever else we needed. Things like muffins, pancakes, and fritters I'd just make when the mood struck. If I had lots of French toast or grilled cheese planned, I'd make an extra sandwich loaf on dough day.
Staple Recipes
The loaves I made by far more than any others were:
- This super soft sourdough sandwich bread. I use it for everything! Toast, sandwiches (of course), grilled cheese, French toast, etc. It does it all!
- My basic sourdough loaf. So easy and low maintenance!
Honorable mentions:
- This sourdough discard naan I made all the time! It's one of the most popular recipes on this site, and for good reason - It's ready in under an hour, easy to make, and people go nuts for it.
- If we had good deli sandwiches or French dips in store, I was definitely making these sourdough discard hoagie buns. I had the best sandwiches of my life this year, and I think these buns get all the credit for that!
- Sourdough ciabatta might be my favorite way to eat bread. I love it to dip in herby oil or for making sandwiches. If we had an Italian night planned, I'd make this dough ahead and keep it in the fridge until I was ready to bake it - the long rise time gives it such great flavor!
A cost comparison
A year of buying bread at Aldi
Back in my bread buying days, I would have standard on my weekly grocery list 1-2 loaves of sandwich bread, a specialty loaf like a brioche or baguette, and then an additional bread like bagels or naan.
My low estimate for how much this cost in an average week shopping at Aldi is $12.
$12 x 52 weeks = $624 per year!
I was SHOCKED at that number. Especially considering this was at a budget grocery store!
How much I spent to make my own in 2024
I started out the year buying regular 5-pound bags of flour, then quickly switched to larger quantities at Costco.
I went through 6 (10 pound) bags of bread flour at $7.99 each, and 6 (25 pound) bags of all purpose flour at $8.99 each. This worked out to buying a bag of each about every other month, for a grand total of $101.88 in flour from Costco for the year.
I'm rounding this up to $150 to account for the bags of flour I went through before switching to Costco, specialty flours such as rye and whole wheat, other ingredients such as sugar, oil, and salt, as well as the cost of electricity to actually bake the loaves (which the internet estimates to be right around $0.30 per loaf).
I spent: An estimated grand total of $150 between flour, other ingredients, and the cost of electrical to run my oven.
(Caveat to tell you that this estimate doesn't factor in my time and labor. If you're looking to maximize your time, homemade bread may not be the right choice for you. I'm just looking at the cold, hard cash!)
Total savings
In a year of making bread at home instead of buying it from the store, I saved an estimated $474.
When I set out to do these calculations, I had no idea it would be this high! For something I love to do, and that benefits the blog, I'd say I'm going to do the same thing in 2025.
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