How much cheaper is homemade cereal? A cost analysis (and recipe!) of making cranberry-almond-coconut granola, to mimic Special K Nourish.

The thing I most dislike about buying boxed cold cereal is the cost! You can get around the cost by buying it in large quantities when you can stack coupons on top of a good sale--BUT I also dislike storing a dozen boxes of cereal on the floor of my pantry. Not everybody has that kind of space. There has to be a better way, I said to myself...

Why not finally try making my own? I've been meaning to anyway, for forever.

Granted, I can't reproduce the little crunchy wheat flakes in cereals like Special K, let alone Cheerios' little oat rings and such, but for me the point of having "cold cereal" on hand is the convenience of a quick meal, so I can live without those details. And granted, granola has been a "thing" for forever, so it's not like I thought of something revolutionary. BUT--Is there really a cost savings in making it yourself, instead of buying it already boxed?

My sister recommended Taste of Home's My Favorite Granola as the one she liked best, so I went to Kroger with the purpose of somewhat reproducing Special K's cranberry almond coconut Nourish in granola form as an experiment.

Here is how I adjusted the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
2.5 cups oats
1/2 cup coconut
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/8 cup quinoa
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
(ETA: I also added 1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon due to personal preference, but didn’t count it in the math.)

(Having literally never used quinoa before in my life, I was dubious about that addition...but science demanded it. Here goes.)

DIRECTIONS
Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, combine remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat 2-3 minutes until sugar dissolves. Pour over oat mixture and toss to coat. Spread on a greased 15"x10"x1" pan (though I recommend a larger cookie sheet with high sides) and bake at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring once midway through baking. Remove from oven and place pan on wire rack; cool granola on pan completely. Store in an airtight container.

Yummy! I have cereal! Was it worth it? Now for the cost analysis part.

The way I made this was by utilizing Kroger's bulk bins to get the oatmeal, quinoa, cranberries, and almonds, in the exact amounts I needed (and with the assumption that bulk is cheaper). Then I went around the store getting pictures of the price tags for the other ingredients. I purposely used the NON-SALE prices of "typical" middle-of-the-road brands; not generic, but not top dollar organic either. Using the recommended serving sizes on the packages, I calculated how much, say, the oil cost per tablespoon, and then multiplied that by the number of tablespoons required in the recipe, to figure out exactly how much the amount of every ingredient cost (except the salt. I considered that a freebie.)

I can't believe Steemit has me voluntarily doing this much math...

That came out to a batch (about 4 cups) costing $3.15 to make at home. But wait, my time is worth something, right? I spent ~10 minutes on making this, and at federal minimum wage that adds $1.20. So now the overall cost is $4.35. Hm. Well, that's still literally a cost savings.

So in the interest of yet more science, I went to Walmart.com and looked up all the Great Value ingredients. Going generic straight across the board brings the batch cost down to $2.00, and even with the $1.20 factored in the cost per batch is just $3.20.

Yes, I originally calculated it without the almonds. You can imagine how well I did with word problems in high school algebra.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! (best infomercial voice)

... this batch of granola made 19 ounces. Therefore, the cost per ounce breaks down to:
Special K: 35 cents
Homemade with non-generic ingredients: 23 cents
Homemade with Great Value ingredients: 16 cents

Conclusion:

Yup, homemade is cheaper. Now I know exactly how much cheaper.

Some other considerations:
--As for the cost, barring the quinoa and cranberries, I keep every single one of the other ingredients stocked in my pantry as staples anyway, and I always buy them on sale and/or with coupons. So I would save even more than I calculated today.
--As for the homemade aspect, I really enjoy cooking and baking, so the "my time is worth something" factor goes out the window if making one's own granola serves a hobby/enjoyment purpose rather than seeming like work.
--Oh, and an additional bonus is reclaiming pantry storage space from an army of cereal boxes!

And now, I am off to top yogurt with some of my tasty batch of granola, and enjoy a well-deserved snack. Thank you for reading, and enjoy your evening!