Comparing the cost of peanut butter to eggs, for lunch-making

So, peanut butter is on sale this week for $4.99 for a 64-oz jar, or $1.24 a pound. That's a fabulous price for peanut butter. But is it the best price for a protein source for lunch sandwiches?

My first thought is to stock up like crazy on peanut butter, and be done with the question of what kind of sandwiches to have available for summer. But I do want to know, could there be less expensive lunch-time offerings?

Other sandwich possibilities include cheese (at about $2 per pound), luncheon meat (best price for me -- on markdown for about $1.76 per pound), bean spreads at about 50-75 cents per pound (can be the most frugal) and eggs (right now about 64 - 72 cents per pound).

There was a time when peanut butter was always the most frugal lunch choice. That's just not the case, any longer. So, I have to weigh this out for myself, and find some alternatives that are easy and welcomed by my family.

I will certainly be making some bean-based spreads for summer lunches. But also want some quick and easy options (bean spread requires soaking and cooking the beans first). The luncheon meat, I think, is best reserved for too-busy evenings, when making sandwiches is about all I have time for. And cheese is kinda pricey for use more than once per week for sandwich fillings, but I do use frequently in preparing dinners.

That leaves me with eggs. Eggs are priced per dozen. That does make it difficult to compare the price of eggs by weight, to other foods. However, I use a nice little calculation shortcut, when comparing eggs to other ingredients. Mostly, I buy large eggs. Large eggs are the size that are typically on sale at Walgreen's, Target and other grocery stores, so most often the best buy for me.

A dozen large eggs weigh about 24 ounces, each egg weighing 2 ounces. So, 8 large eggs weigh 1 pound. My price per egg is about 8-9 cents, these days. (I carry that tidbit of info in my head, as I comparison shop or figure the cost of making any recipe.) So, at 8-9 cents per egg, multiplied by 8 eggs to make a pound -- my price per pound, on large eggs, is currently between 64 and 72 cents for one pound.

The price of using eggs in lunches is not quite half that of using peanut butter. So, while I'll buy some peanut butter this week (maybe 3 or 4 large jars, to last through October), for summer lunches, I will also be planning ahead to make more egg salad. My plan with the peanut butter is to ration it out for the summer, and encourage family members to use the alternatives that I provide.

In case you wish to compare the prices of eggs per pound to other food items, here's my list of how many eggs it takes to equal 1 pound.

Eggs are "sized" by how much a dozen eggs weigh. So, the eggs that you buy in the store "must" meet a minimum net weight to qualify to be labeled a specific size. Knowing this makes calculating our price per pound on eggs, reliable, without having to get out the scale at home and weigh each carton.

To figure your price per pound on eggs:

Figure your price per egg, based on your current egg prices. Multiply that price per egg by how many eggs are in a pound (using the info below), for whichever size of eggs you've purchased. It's that simple. I like that it's the large eggs that go on sale most often AND are the only size of eggs that have a nice, even, round number to make my calculations with.

• jumbo eggs --- 6.4 eggs per pound
• extra-large eggs --- 7.11 eggs per pound
• large eggs --- 8 eggs per pound
• medium eggs --- 9.14 eggs per pound
• small eggs --- 10.66 eggs per pound
• peewee eggs --- 12.8 eggs per pound

What will be going into summer brown bag lunches at your place?

I saw this . . .

and this . . .

. . . but I made this.

A couple of months ago, I saw this nice display in a store that really attracted me. It was some faux lavender in pots. I really wanted one of these, and even dropped what apparently was too subtle of a hint, for a Mother's Day gift. Oh well. I need to be more assertive with my hints in the future.

Anyway, at home I had a lovely pot that was a gift from my husband for my birthday, about 10 years ago. Clearly, he must have intended for me to fill this pot with something, as part of my birthday gift, right?  ;-) Yes, I thought so, too. Filling the pot with a nice something-something was implied in his gift.

So, the two thoughts came together, fill this lovely pot with something and obtain a charming faux lavender, potted "plant" for the bedroom.

I used a stack of Jo Ann Fabric and Craft coupons to buy the faux lavender stems and a block of styrofoam (I didn't say this was a free project, just fun and creative). I had the moss for the base of the plant at home. And it all came together in about 20 minutes.

It looks nice, and makes me smile. And I finally completed that birthday gift of years ago.

A new way for me to look at the cost of commercial rice or soy milk compared to making my own rice milk

In trying to get the most bang for my buck with my own drinking milk, here's a new way that I've been looking at it.

(Just to clarify, I'm not supposed to have dairy milk, as I'm lactose-intolerant. Drinking cows' milk or pouring some over oatmeal, or eating a bowl of cream soup will leave me very miserable for about 2 or 3 days. Bummer, right? I can take pills if I really want ice cream. And I seem to be somewhat okay with small amounts of cheese. But, for my personal "milk" consumption, or when I cook something containing milk, for the whole family, I have to use an alternative "milk".)

Here was my question to myself:

Can I approximate some of the nutritional value of purchased soy or rice milk with a combination of homemade rice milk plus supplements?

These alternative milks are expensive in the stores. Even the bargain-basement soy milk that I buy from Dollar Tree is $4 per gallon.

The nutrition that I am most interested in with soy or rice milk is the calcium and Vit. D. (The protein is not significant in the super-duper cheap soy milk that I buy (4 grams in 1 cup). And I believe I get enough protein from other sources in my diet.)

Commercial soy and rice milk do not naturally contain high amounts of calcium, but are fortified. My body doesn't really know the difference between the minerals it receives from a fortified product and me taking a supplement. If you can understand where I'm going here. It's kind of like how eating a bowl of fortified, cold cereal is not much different to my body than eating a bowl of oatmeal and taking a multi-vitamin.

This week, I bought a bottle of calcium citrate plus Vit. D supplements. Each caplet contains roughly the same amount of elemental calcium as 1 glass of dairy milk or 1 glass of commercial, fortified soy or rice milk. and each caplet cost about 3 cents. For calcium/Vit D alone, I get the same amount of these nutrients in 4 caplets (at 12 cents for the 4), as 1 quart of purchased soy milk (at $1 from Dollar Tree).

To make homemade rice milk, my cost is about 30 cents per quart. If I add the 12 cents for 4 calcium/Vit. D caplets, I'm up to 42 cents per 4 servings/1 quart equivalent of my homemade rice milk, supplement combo.

Let's say, for argument sake, I did need that 4 grams of protein that 1 cup of Dollar Tree's soy milk provides per cup. I could also add half of an egg for that amount of protein. My recent price on eggs works out to between 8 and 9 cents per egg, or 4  1/2 cents per 4 grams of protein. If I wanted to add in the cost of 2 eggs for an equivalent amount of protein that 1 quart of soy milk contains, that would add 9 cents to my 42 cents per 4 servings/quart of equivalent homemade rice milk, supplement, and now egg combo, for a total of 51 cents, as compared to $1 at Dollar Tree for 1 quart of purchased soy milk.

What's the hands-on time investment in making rice milk at home? I've now got my formula memorized, and have streamlined the preparation process. It takes me about 15 minutes of hands-on time, to make 1 quart of rice milk. That's only about a $2 savings per hour of work. Not the most lucrative way to save money. But I can do this while I'm already in the kitchen preparing dinner.

Yep, I'll be continuing to make my own rice milk, for the time being. I'll still buy an occasional quart of soy milk, for convenience when I don't have my rice all soaked for rice milk. But will primarily use the homemade rice milk.



In case you didn't guess, I do enjoy these little calculations, for the mental exercise they provide. But also, if the exercises help me save a bit more money towards our financial goals, then they are well-worth the time. I can use this tidbit of information to continue saving money for years to come, only occasionally filling in different numbers as prices of the different components rise and fall.

One last calculation. I will probably save about $1.50 per month by continuing to make rice milk at home. Multiplied out by 12 months in a year, and I'll save $18 in the next year. Over 10 years' time, I could save $180. Not too shabby, I think.

I just love math!