The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

The humble loaf of bread is one of the few privileged items to attain 'essential' status in our shopping list. Despite our fondness of this ancient staple food, it would appear most of us are quite happy with the poor quality modern rendition that we find gracing our shelves. Stuffed full of preservatives, mass produced and severely lacking in flavour - no one would argue it is anything but a poor imitation of true artisan bread.

The real stuff is expensive though, or is it? What if I told you you could bake real, delicious bread at home and save a penny or two in the process? You will need to spend some money up front, but not as much as you might think.

A decent small bread maker can be bought for as little as £60. That is a manageable upfront cost for a lot of people, and the ingredients themselves work out to pennies a loaf.

You will find you can make a tasty full sized loaf for as little as fifty pence. Now, I know you can buy a loaf in the supermarket for not a whole lot more than that, but the two products aren't even really comparable. The point is, you could be eating vastly superior bread for a fraction of the price. Granted, you will have to put a little effort into making it, but it really couldn't be simpler.

They are easy to clean, require little to no input (just measure out the ingredients and chuck them all in at once!). Let it do its thing and voila, perfect bread every time. If you really aren't fussed by quality bread then by all means continue buying cheap loaves in the supermarket. If you are partial to a freshly baked loaf then I guarantee you will fall in love with baking your own bread.

It will take you a little while to start saving after your initial investment, and I don't pretend that this is the money saving tip of the century, but this isn't just about the money. It's about flavour, health and delicious bread - the money saved is a welcome bonus!