Does homemade food cost less?

This post comes from Sarah Greesonbach at partner site Get Rich Slowly.

At Get Rich Slowly, we briefly covered different daily tasks that are cheaper to do yourself, but sometimes the frugal-minded want some dollars and cents to tie to these decisions.

Today, I'm going to take a look inside the heart of the frugal home -- the kitchen -- and at a few delicious staples for the average foodie. I'm going to compare prices for making food yourself with buying it in the store. Unless otherwise noted, these average prices were retrieved from the website of Vons, a West Coast grocery chain, so prices may vary in your part of the world.

Homemade vs. store-bought bread
For those of us raised on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with sliced white  bread, discovering the world of thick, crusty baguettes and pungent ryes might have been something of a life-changing experience.

Since there are literally hundreds of different types of bread, both to buy and to make, our recipe is for your average simple yeasted white bread. It also does not take into account extra purchases, like bread-making machines, that might lessen the time burden but increase the base cost.

Store-bought loaf 

• Safeway Butter Top Wheat Bread (22 ounces) -- $1.99.
• Nature's Own 12 Whole Grain Bread (24 ounces) -- $4.99.
• Open Nature 100% Whole Wheat Bread (24 ounces) -- $1.99.

Homemade bread

• Milk (2 ounces) -- 16 cents.
• Butter (2ounces) -- 48 cents.
• Sugar (1 ounces) -- 7 cents. 
• Flour (24 ounces) -- $1.44.
• Salt (½ ounce) -- 2 cents. 
• Dry yeast -- $2.19.
• Total cost -- $4.36.

Winner: Store-bought, though, as you can see, the price ranges wildly. Your bakery might have better specials, so price it for yourself and gauge the final cost according to how much free time you like spending in the kitchen. If you have a few hours and some yeast on hand, make yourself some delicious cheap bread. I guarantee it will improve your sandwiches.

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Homemade vs. store-bought yogurt
Yogurt is an incredibly versatile food that is palate-pleasing for breakfast, a snack, and -- in a pinch -- a creamy sour cream replacement that can do wonders on tacos and in mashed potatoes in its unsweetened plain form.

So imagine how exciting it would be to be able to make gallons of it at a time that, in its cultured state, will last for weeks in the fridge. Yum!

Store-bought yogurt

• Dannon Light N Fit Vanilla Yogurt (32 ounces) -- $4.99.
• Chobani Greek Yogurt Plain 2% Fat (32 ounces) -- $5.99.
• Mountain High Plain Yogurt (32 ounces) -- $4.19.

Homemade yogurt

• Milk (32 ounces) -- $2.49.
• Starter yogurt (6 ounces) -- 80 cents. 
• Total cost (32 ounces) -- $3.29.

Winner: Homemade yogurt, especially if you consider the ease with which you can double or quadruple your recipe without an extensive cost increase. If yogurt is a snack or breakfast staple, you can greatly reduce your costs by preparing it at home by the gallon. Find a recipe that works for you and get cooking.

Scratch cake vs. store-bought cake
Queen of birthday parties and weddings, the traditional cake might not be a daily or weekly treat, but for the sake of your emotional happiness you might want to incorporate one into your diet at least quarterly.

For the purpose of keeping it simple, our homemade scratch cake is a simple white cake with white icing.

Store-bought bakery cake

• 8-inch, two-layer white cake -- $15.99.
• 8-inch, two-layer carrot cake -- $9.99.

Homemade cake

The cake:

• Sugar (8 ounces) -- 56 cents.
• Butter (4 ounces) -- 96 cents. 
• Eggs (two) -- 55 cents.
• Vanilla extract (½ ounce) -- $1.43.
• Flour (12 ounces) -- 72 cents. 
• Baking powder (¼ ounce) -- 6 cents. 
• Milk (4 ounces) -- 32 cents.

The icing:

• Butter (8 ounces) -- $1.92.
• Powdered sugar (32 ounces) -- $2.79.

Total cost -- $9.31.

Winner: Scratch cake. But even without doing the math, I think we all know the cheapest method of all: boxed cake mix. That said, if you like control of the ingredients and want to get a lot of compliments, making a cake from scratch might be the way to go.

Homemade vs. store-bought granola

The basics of granola are simple, but the magic that happens when combined in a bowl with milk or yogurt is far from ordinary. So, you'd think that lightly sweetened baked oats plus a combination of fruit or nuts would be the cheapest thing around, right? 

Store-bought granola

• Bear Naked Fruit And Nut All Natural Granola (12 ounces) -- $3.99.
• Open Nature Granola Cranberry Nut Goodness (12 ounces) -- $3.
• Cascadian Farm Organic Granola Fruit And Nut (13.5 ounces) -- $3.99.

Homemade granola

• Honey (2 ounces) -- 41 cents.
• Coconut oil (1 ounces) -- 74 cents.
• Vanilla extract (¼ ounce) -- 72 cents.
• Dried apricots (2 ounces) -- $1.26.
• Butter (1 ounces) -- 24 cents.
• Quaker Oatmeal (10 ounces) -- $1.30.
• Total cost (13 ounces) -- $4.67.

This one is a coin toss. As you can see, a batch of homemade granola falls right within the range of purchasing it in the store. But much as with yogurt, it is easy to exponentially increase the prepared granola, especially if you have a simple homemade granola recipe to follow.

Final thoughts
Homemade food items have the benefit of being fresher, (usually) more delicious, and full of ingredients you know and love. Plus, you can tweak any recipe to be cheaper or more expensive depending on where you source your ingredients.

But, if cooking is not a fun recreational activity for you, you might also factor in how much money your time is worth.

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Overall, it would appear that store-bought food is right on trend with the cost of homemade. But if you take into account production costs, packaging and advertising, it becomes clear that the price of food in the package covers much more than the ingredients.

The choice is yours in the kitchen: homemade or pre-made. Especially if you use items that are on sale, both appear to be frugal options.

More from Get Rich Slowly and MSN Money

• Remember to value your time
• The Benihana Effect: Lifestyle inflation in action
• Yes, you can learn to cook
• Easy ways to cut your food bill
• 5 tips to fight rising food prices
• Heat wave could swell grocery bills