Cold cereal is the bane of my life. Like all kids, my children love the sweet stuff. Even if we buy the cut-price, store brand corn flakes for $2.29 a bag, it’s still an expensive way to start the day. These bags have 30 ounces in them. My boys get about eight breakfasts out of them. The cereal itself then costs only .06 an ounce, but that is still .29 a bowl. Add in a cup of milk and it comes to .42 a bowl. This doesn’t figure in any thing else they have, such as juice.
On the other hand, I can make up a batch of 30 pancakes in just under 20 minutes on my griddle, or 35 minutes if I am using two frying pans instead. I did some quick figuring and found out 30 pancakes costs me .58 for ALL of them, plus an inconsequential amount for energy to heat the griddle. Here’s how it breaks down:
2 cups flour (bulk purchased at Costco)- .14
¼ cup sugar (also from Costco)- .02
1 egg (18 pk from Wal-mart)- .09
1 TB baking powder (Costco)- .02
1 tsp. Salt (half a penny, rounded up)- .01
3 TB canola oil (Safeway brand)- .04
2 cups milk (Safeway)- .26
TOTAL .58
The kids usually eat two pancakes with a squirt of syrup, an egg and a cup of orange juice (from frozen). This comes to $0.23 per breakfast. My entire family of four spends less than a dollar for a reasonably well-balanced breakfast. Considering in many households pancakes are a treat, you could say we eat like kings. When I have canned preserves we often use these instead of syrup, and the cost is comparable though the taste and nutrition is better.
Freezing pancakes is simple. Mix the above ingredients then pour onto your griddle or a hot, non-stick frying pan. Cook until the top begins to dry, then flip and cook until the other side is lightly browned. Place the pancakes on a cookie sheet and let them cool to room temperature. Stick them in the freezer and set a timer for 1 hour. When it beeps, unstick the partially frozen pancakes then put back in the freezer. Once frozen solid, dump them in a freezer bag (we use old tortilla bags). Heat them up in the morning by popping them in the toaster. Just make sure to make them small enough to fit in your toaster!
Another idea for a cheap breakfasts include non-instant oatmeal. This works out to about $0.19 per serving if served with orange juice and a pat of butter. Unlike instant, non-instant takes longer to cook. Conquer this by cooking it in a crockpot overnight. Jenn at Frugal Upstate has an excellent tutorial.
One more favorite in my house is toaster tarts. These are especially good if you have kids that don’t want to give up their sugary breakfast treats. Make up a scratch two-crust pie dough recipe. This costs .29 to make. Divide the dough into two balls and roll each out to a rectangle. Cut them apart in squares roughly the size of a piece of bread. Place squares on a cook sheet and top with preserves, then dampen the edges with water, place another square on top, then crimp the edges of the two squares together with the tines of a fork. Poke a couple holes in the top with the fork to vent. Bake for 10 minutes in a 425 F oven. Let cool then place in the freezer. Place them in the toaster to heat in the morning. These are just as satisfying as Pop Tarts for a fraction of the cost. One of these made with store-bought preserves, a cup of orange and an egg comes to $0.31 a serving—still cheaper than cereal, and healthier too.
The costs of feeding a family of four each of these breakfasts for a month is:
Cereal: $57.76
Pancakes, etc: $27.60
Oatmeal,etc: $22.80
Toaster tarts, etc: $37.20
Spend two hours once a month creating a month’s worth of breakfasts, and you save between $20.56 and 34.96. That means two hours of your time is worth between $10.28 and $17.48—more than minimum wage in most places. If you end up saving $28 a month for a year on breakfast, that is an extra $336 in the bank. If you put that $28 toward your mortgage each month, assuming you borrowed $150K at 7.5%, you would save over $24,000 over the life of the loan and shave over 2.5 years from the loan. Not bad for a measly two hours, eh?
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