Some people might call me cheap or frugal. I prefer cost-conscious. I want to know where my money is going. I want to know that I’m getting value. This is why I cost all my recipes and share those costs on Recipe Things.
BUT (and it’s a big one), your costs will be different. We live in different places, shop at different stores, and value different things.
How Grocery Costs Vary
Location: I live in Canada. IMO groceries aren’t cheap here. Where are you? The prices are probably different.
Store Selection: Even if you’re in Canada, too, we might be shopping at different stores. Smaller towns often have way less selection which tends to lead to higher prices. I live in a city that has all the major grocery stores, all the discount grocery stores, and a variety of small/independent/specialty stores. My options are high and it helps keep my grocery bills down.
Values: But the biggest effect on my grocery bill comes from what I value. I value quality ingredients over the cheapest ones. I’m regularly willing to pay more for a better quality. I also like local goods whenever possible. These things drive my grocery budget up.
Recipe Things Costing Methods
I price every single item in a recipe for the amount used. There’s no “freebie” because it’s in my pantry already. I don’t include a full package worth if I only use half. I cost things as I use them.
What about items that I don’t pay for?
In my personal records, I don’t write a cost. For the recipes on RecipeThings, I use the price of the item I would choose in the grocery store.
For example, I rarely pay for garlic. I have friends and family that grow huge amounts of it and are glad to share. (Love you guys!) My grocery store sells 3 different bulbs of garlic (price per head / clove):
- The cheap bulb ($0.60 / $0.08)
- The local bulb ($0.79 / $0.10)
- The organic bulb ($1.33 / $0.17)
When I have to buy garlic, I buy the local one at $0.10 per clove. This is the price I use in all my recipes on this site.
How to Cost a Recipe
Let’s do a walkthrough of how to find the cost of a recipe. I’m going to use my tomato soup recipe as an example because it uses a variety of products.
Ingredients:
- Butter, unsalted (4 tbsp)
- Onion, small (1)
- Garlic (3 cloves)
- Canned tomatoes (28oz / ~800mL)
- Chicken stock (1 cup)
- Salt (2 tsp)
- Italian Seasoning (2 tsp)
- Basil (2 tsp)
1. Butter, unsalted (4 tbsp)
Butter is so expensive but really delicious. You could substitute olive oil here (which is much cheaper) but butter is so much better. Worth the cost IMO.
I can buy butter on sale for $3.99 (occasionally it comes on sale for $2.99 but that’s rare so I use the $3.99 price for consistency). This is for 1 pound (or 454 grams) of butter.
There are 32 tablespoons in a pound (approximately). So the cost of butter is $0.12468 per tablespoon. I’m going to round up to 13 cents because I’m more likely to add a bit more butter than less.
$0.13 per tablespoon x 4 tablespoons for this recipe =
$0.52 for butter
2. Onion, small (1)
A bag of onions here costs $2.49 and will typically have 8 to 10 onions in it. I use an average of 9 onions.
$2.49 per bag / 9 onions = $0.276667 (round up to 28 cents)
$0.28 for an onion
3. Garlic (3 cloves)
My preferred brand of garlic (not the cheapest) costs $0.79 per head. I figure an average of 8 cloves per bulb (because those rinky dinky cloves don’t count for anything).
$0.79 per head / 8 cloves per head = $0.09875 (round up to 10 cents)
$0.10 per clove x 3 cloves per recipe =
$0.30 for garlic
4. Canned Tomatoes (~800mL)
When I make tomato soup, I like to use 2 cans of Alymer Fire Roasted Tomatoes. They sell for $1.25 per can.
$1.25 per can x 2 cans per recipe =
$2.50 for tomatoes
5. Chicken Stock (1 cup)
If I’m not using homemade chicken stock, I like to use “KNORR Concentrated Bouillon,” it’s a liquid bouillon that you mix with water as needed.
You mix one tsp with one cup of water.
A bottle of Bouillon is $4.99 and has 250 mL. There are 5 mL per tsp. Therefore a cup of stock costs $0.0998 (round up to 10 cents).
$0.10 for chicken stock.
6. Salt (2 tsp)
I like to use an Iodized Fine Sea Salt. It costs $3.99 for 500g. There are about 5g in a tsp of salt. So, the cost of 1tsp of sea salt is $0.0399 (round up to 4 cents).
$0.04 per tsp x 2 tsp per recipe =
$0.08 for salt
7. Italian Seasoning (2 tsp)
Herbs and spices I price at $0.06 per tsp. Some of them are more expensive than that (chipotle chili powder is probably closer to $0.18 per tsp) but some of them are a lot less (basil tends to be about $0.02 per tsp).
I can’t be bothered to keep track of them all, so I list all herbs and spices as $0.06 per tsp.
$0.06 x 2 tsp =
$0.12 for italian seasoning
8. Basil (2 tsp)
$0.06 per tsp x 2 tsp =
$0.12 for basil
Total Cost of Tomato Soup
$4.02 for the whole recipe. This recipe will give you 2 or 3 servings which is a cost of $1.34 to $2.01 per serving.
- Butter $0.52
- Onion $0.28
- Garlic $0.30
- Tomatoes $2.50
- Chicken stock $0.10
- Salt $0.08
- Italian Seasoning $0.12
- Basil $0.12
Know Your Costs
Knowing your costs will help you keep your food budget under control. It’ll also help you decide which items are worth more and which you can be cheap about.