Maybe if you buy the yeast in bulk (Costco has it). My wife sometimes uses a bread maker (from Amazon, although they do turn up at Goodwill) and although fun as a hobby, the loafs made from small units of yeast are not cheaper than the various sale breads we buy at Safeway or Winco and you have to consume the product quickly. Additionally, I am accustomed to the mass market bread and it is hard to make the switch, although I certainly would in an emergency!
I am not a foodmaker myself so can't comment much on the ingredients but saw this on mint.com (seems you could find a cheaper recipe).
I flipped to the American Sandwich Bread recipe in my favorite all-purpose cookbook, The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (third edition, 3-ring binder). The recipe calls for whole milk, water, butter, honey, bread flour, yeast, and salt. Basic bread ingredients.
Using Peapod.com, I calculated how much each ingredient would cost. Note, I did not include the cost of ⅓ cup water because it is negligible.
At $3.69 per gallon of whole milk, the 1 cup of milk called for costs $.23
At $2.99 for four quarters, the 4 tablespoons of butter costs $.37
At $3.89 for 12 ounces of honey, the 3 tablespoons of honey costs $.49
At $5.49 for 5 pounds, the 3 ¾ cups of bread flour costs $1.23
At $.50 per package, the 2 ¼ teaspoons of yeast costs $.50
At $.99 for 26 ounces, the 2 teaspoons of salt costs less than 1 penny
That brings the total cost of handmade bread to $2.83.
Yowza!
You didn’t figure in the cost of the spray or butter or shortening for greasing the pan, the cost of running the oven for an hour, and the cost of the water for washing the pan and mixing bowls, sifter, and mixing spoons.
I agree that it was more expensive for me to make bread than buy it. But then I stopped eating bread for health reasons (sob!) and that’s the cheapest course of all.
Agree with you if you’re just making a loaf of plain white bread. Cheap store brand is 88 cents here and that’s what we buy. However, if we want something a bit different, then homemade is cheaper. I don’t go to the store but once every 3 weeks and it’s a drive into town so that’s more expense added into the trip. On #171, I posted a link to a Schlotsky’s bun which doesn’t take any time and sure beats driving 40 miles round trip to the nearest restaurant and paying $5 for one sandwich. Same if I want a sausage kolache, homemade (although more difficult due to kneading) is much easier on the wallet.