Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Cost of Preserving: Strawberries

In line with my goal to track the cost of my preserving this summer:

Product: Strawberries

Obtained: U-pick

Amount: 14 lbs

Cost: $22.00

Preserves:

5 half pint jars strawberry jam
5 half pint jars strawberry vanilla jam
2 quarts frozen sliced berries
1/4 cup dried berries
2 sheets fruit leather
1 strawberry cream bread


If you count each item as 1 thing of equal value, the breakdown cost for each is $1.37 (only counting for the price of berries). You can see what I do not include here.

Lets go ahead and count lids though since I used almost a full pack and those are not reusable. I'll also count a portion of the sugar used - jam was 3 cups and bread was 1 cup. So we'll call it half a bag. I'll even count in a few dollars for the bread ingredients.

Strawberries: $22.00
lids: $2.50
Sugar: 1.50
Flour, cream etc . . . $2.00 (I warned you I was not going to be exact!)

Estimated cost: 28.00

Estimated cost per item: $1.75



I would absolutely consider that a significant savings over store bought!


Thoughts? Anything I should be adding that I'm not? How do prices vary in your area?





1 comment:

City Sister said...

I always get those comments too...the price of gas to light the stove etc...I guess if I take that into account I should add in the water for the water bath...the cleaner to clean the kitchen before canning...the water needed to hydrate the preserver... perhaps the cost of having a kitchen to start with? It gets a bit ridiculous what people want you to include in your price calculations.