Have you even sat back and figured out how much you spend weekly or monthly on the convenience of frozen waffles? I did and I have to say it surprised me. I found on a grocery saving website tip #3 – If you have kids you may also know that frozen waffles are a basic food staple! As much as I agree with this statement I disagree with notion that buying frozen waffles is my only alternative. According to The Supermarket Sleuth frozen waffles general cost between $2.79 and $2.99 for just 6 waffles, this seems a bit high to me as I generally only buy things when they go on sale so for the sake of easy math let’s say they cost about $2.50 for 10 waffles. Hey I’m a mother of two, I like things quick and easy. On the weekend when I’m already making breakfast for my family I simply double the batch when making own waffles.
I prefer to use Bisquick since I can add my own ingredients to the mix like pecans for extra fiber & protein – the recipe (listed below) states that you can get 12 (4-inch) waffles but again for easy math let’s go with 10. The box I have cost me $4.39 which works out to about $0.63 per batch of waffles. The breakdown of my calculations is below if you interested but in essence making my own waffles costs me about $1.19 for 10 waffles. A cost savings of about $1.31!!
- Mix – $0.63
- Eggs – $0.30
- Milk – $0.19
- Oil – $0.02
- Electricity – $0.05 (yes I actually figured this out based on 1000 watt waffle iron for about 30 using approximately 0.5 Kilowatt hours at our current rate of approximately $0.09 – I can usually get them done quicker but again I like easy math.)
As an added bonus I found this really cool Heart-shaped waffle iron at JCPenney.com – it makes 5 little heart shaped waffles my kids really love that I make their waffles into hearts rather then the squares they used to get (out of the box.) I set my waffle iron to 3.5 (they are on the light side but turn golden when we toast them in the toaster.) Once out of the waffle maker, the waffles cool on my cooling rack for about an hour then place them in a Ziploc bag (squeezing out the excess air) before putting them in the freezer. I now have homemade waffles on hand that are just as convenient as the frozen variety for about ½ the cost. We also make our own frozen pancakes again at about ½ the cost as those in your freezer section of the grocery store.
- 2 cups Bisquick
- 1 egg
- 2 Tbs Oil
- 1 1/3 cup Milk
- chopped pecans (optional)
I hope you enjoy your homemade waffles as much as we do and would love to hear if you have a great waffle recipe – I’m always on the lookout for great recipes.
