Home Preservation: Will This Save me Effing Money?!

Let's break it down and take a look. 

Now of course prices are going to vary in different parts of the country and the world, so if someone finds a price cheaper than the example I use - keep it to yourself.

Since we spoke about Tomato soup we'll just use that as an example.  Here is a price for Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup at Walgreens.  Three 10.75 ounce cans for $4.00.

37 cents/ounce for Condensed Tomato soup.  Seems pretty cheap when you look at it that way.  But if you factor in how many ounces of food your body needs to ingest each day to stay healthy that amount could increase exponentially.

Now let's see what it would cost if you made the soup at home.

We'll assume that this is your first adventure into home canning, so we'll factor in the cost of a new case of Mason Jars.  For the this example we'll also assume you grew all of your own veggies.

1 case of 12 mason jars = $8.00.  12 jars x 16 oz each = 192 ounces total. 

All of your veggies whether grown from seed or if you purchased a plant would not cost more than .50 cents if you're using my Tomato Soup Recipe, but we'll increase that to $3.00 just for shits and giggles.

1 package of Brown Sugar = $2.85 for 32 oz - or $.09/oz.   1 Cup dry measure sugar = approx. 6.8 oz., so your sugar would cost you approx. $.61.

Canning Salt costs about the same so 1/4 Cup dry measure salt = approx.  1.7 oz., so salt would cost $.15.

1 tsp ground cloves and 5 Bay leaves cost less than .25 cents, but we'll go with .25 because it's easier.

So we're looking at $8.00 + $3.00 + $.61 + $.15 + $.25 = $12.01 total. 

$12.01 = 1,201 cents.  1,201 divided by 192 oz = an astounding 6.26 cents/ounce.

ALMOST 31 EFFING CENTS/OUNCE LESS!

Awesome isn't it?  And that was with high-balling most of the figures.  Most times if you start your garden from seed it's going to cost you under 50 cents for the veggies in that recipe.

Also, what about the next time you do it?  You already have the jars and rings, so instead of paying $8.00 you're paying $1.89 for a pack of seals.  Factor that in and it's only 2.45 cents/ounce.  NOT - EVEN - EFFING - CLOSE to what it costs you buying it at the store.  I even got 15 pints out of that recipe so it's going to be cheaper still.  Nice huh?

So obviously home canning saves you cold, hard cash. 

Later.