Pizza: Homemade -vs- Take-Out

I always thought it would be cheaper to make our own pizzas at home instead of ordering take-out. However, I didn't know exactly how much cheaper it would be, so I decided to take time and figure out the cost of my recipe against store-bought . I am making my comparison against "Fuller Country Store", the nearest place to us (and the one we order from the most often).

Some of the costs per item in the following recipe are guesstimates since I'm taking the ingredients from bulk, but I'm thinking I came pretty close.

Pizza Crust

3/4 c. warm water (free)

1 T vegetable oil .03

1 T sugar .01

1/2 teas salt .01

1 T dry milk .03

2-1/4 c bread flour .25

1 teas dry yeast .02

So far, for the ingredients to make 2 thin crust pizzas, the cost is only 35 cents...pretty good! John and I both really like a thin, crispy crust, and this recipe makes just enough dough to perfectly fit (2) 15" X 10" cookie sheets. If you like a thicker crust, I would say double the recipe.

The ingredients all layered in the bread machine....

90 minutes after hitting the "dough" cycle button....

Toppings:

pizza sauce .99

6 c mozzarella cheese $5.97

2 c cheddar cheese $1.59

1/2 lb pepperoni $2.11

can mushrooms .48

1 T butter (to grease pans) .05

The toppings come to $11.19. I'm sure I could have gotten a better price for the cheese, the biggest expense, if I had gotten it in bulk at Sam's Club, but instead I had to figure the total cost with the individual store brand cheese.

All made up and ready to go into the oven...

425 degrees and 15 minutes later....

2 medium homemade pizzas (2 toppings) cost: $11.54

2 medium take-out pizzas (2 toppings) cost: $15.98

By making them at home I save $4.44. OK, which doesn't appear to be a great deal of money, but considering we eat pizza 2X per month, that means a yearly savings of $106.56

AND, I just know I could cut the cost down even further by buying the mozzarella cheese in bulk (save $1.00), buying store brand pizza sauce (save .10) and cutting the amount of pepperoni in half since we really don't need that much anyway (save $1.05). That would make the total cost for 2 pizzas $9.39 instead of $11.54. It would also increase the yearly savings from $106.56 to $158.16. Pretty good deal!

It honestly doesn't take very long at all to make them: after the dough is finished it takes 10 minutes to assemble, plus 15 minutes for the bake time. My version doesn't look as pretty as take-out, but it eats the same! 2 medium pizzas give us 1 dinner and then 2 or 3 days of lunches with the leftovers.

I also wanted to mention that I purposely didn't include the cost of baking since we live in the parsonage and the church pays all of our utilities, so that wasn't a factor for me. Conversely, I also didn't include the cost of gasoline for the 5 mile round trip to pick up the pizza from the store, so hopefully, those two amounts might have cancelled each other out anyway.

I'm glad I took the time to figure out the difference in cost, because the next time I am feeling lazy and would rather make a phone call instead of doing a little work in the kitchen, I know that the yearly savings of $158.16 just might pay for an unexpected car repair...or even a week-end trip away!