This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.
When I was a child, we lived on a farm that had a grape arbor loaded with Concord grapes. Each September, my mom would can jars upon jars of grape juice, and I have fond memories of evenings around the kitchen table as our family ate popcorn and drank that delicious stuff (which doesn't taste like anything I've ever purchased from a store).
Well, apparently, nostalgia set in this year, and I ordered 1.5 bushels of Concord grapes. (And if you're wondering how much that is, it felt like a whole vineyard.) The grapes came earlier than I expected, so I texted my husband that morning: “The grapes are here and they're RIPE. We need to can the juice tonight.”
He texted back: “Sounds grape.” Yes, he really did.
So that's how we found ourselves — on our anniversary, no less! — late at night, plucking grape after grape after grape off stems, stuffing jars, wiping up grape juice, and feeling very, very tired.
My thoughts went something like this: This is a stupid way to save money. And then to an even scarier thought, Am I even saving money?
Does preserving your own food save you money?
Besides the grape juice, our family canned and froze lots of other produce, too. Back then, it was a way to save some serious money. But my mother also used to sew a lot of our clothes for the same reason: It was cheaper. However, it is not cheaper to sew my own clothes today, so I wondered if food preservation should fit more into the “hobby” category in my budget. And what a labor-intensive hobby it would be!
Here are my grape numbers:
- 1.5 bushels of grapes – $37
- 56 quart jars – free
- 56 rings/lids – rings were free, lids $10
- Sugar – around $4
- Electricity – I have no idea, although according to this article, it costs between 2.3 and 3.4 cents per quart (or $1.90 for 56 quarts, using 3.4 cents per quart)
- Canner – free
- Jar lifter and canning funnel – free
Using the above numbers, my costs were 94 cents per quart.
First, drinking water would be way cheaper than this. And, the crazy thing is, we usually do drink water, milk, or the occasional iced tea. This grape juice will be used judiciously. But let's say we did buy grape juice regularly. At my grocery store, a quart of grape juice is close to $1, just about the same amount.
Finding canning components
As you can see in my equipment list, my favorite word is mentioned a few times: free! I have had no problem finding free canning supplies. In fact, I have turned down offers for canning jars.
Anyway, look in the usual places (Freecycle, Craigslist, etc.), but also ask empty nesters or people who are downsizing. When my mom downsized earlier this year, she had boxes of jars and rings to give away. She also gave me the jar lifter, but didn't have a spare canning funnel. However, I asked my best garage-saling pal if she could keep her eyes open for one — and surprise! — she had two extras. And then there was my (free) pressure canner and (free) water bath canner that were given to me by someone who was getting older and didn't want to mess with canning anymore. So it has been really simple for me to amass the equipment needed for canning.
I bought my jar lids in bulk, but they were not reusable. However, there are reusable jar lids that I found for $8.50 a dozen. Based on these costs, I would have to use them over four times to equal the disposable lids. I haven't used them, but maybe they are cheaper somewhere else. I always like the idea of reusing something.
Freezing, the cold alternative
With canning, the energy use is on the front end. With freezing food, there may not be any consumption on the front end, but storing frozen food isn't free. Obviously.
I have more experience with freezing produce. This year, I bought 80 pounds of blueberries for $2.29 per pound (not cheap, but so delicious). Most of them made it into our freezer. Getting them ready for the freezer required little more than a quick rinse. Easy. And then there was our bumper apple crop that netted us 100 pints of applesauce for the freezer. That was a little more time-consuming: cook the apples, puree them into sauce, and freeze.
I also got some free plastic freezer containers from someone who prefers to use plastic freezer bags. I actually prefer the freezer bags, too, but I occasionally still use the plastic containers.
There are other pieces of equipment you may need. For instance, my applesauce was pureed with a part that pops onto my big mixer. These extra pieces could be borrowed, or I am sure you could find them by using the strategies above.
Finding inexpensive produce
1. Grow your own. If you grow your own produce, freezing and canning make sense, especially if you're trying to prevent wasting a surplus. But there are other avenues to find good produce — for less than you think.
2. Fruit trees and gardens are a lot of work. Perhaps you can barter your pruning skills in exchange for some peaches. I have been given free pears and apples by people who had picked all they needed, but didn't want more to go to waste. My Grandmother's neighbor couldn't pick her grapes, so she was relieved when my Grandmother picked them and used them. The grape jelly didn't hurt, either.
3. U-pick farms and produce stands aren't necessarily inexpensive, but sometimes they have “seconds,” produce that doesn't look as good, even though the taste is just fine. This produce is less expensive than the pretty stuff.
While I didn't experience the joy of canning while I was in the middle of it (it's a lot of work!), I do admire my colorful jars lined up on the shelves in my food cellar. Each sip of grape juice takes me back to my childhood, and that tastes pretty sweet.
Is food preservation worth it to you? Has anyone used the reusable canning lids?
I think it’s worth it to preserve if you don’t have to pay for the raw ingredients.
In most cases you can find canned vegetables from costco that are cheaper than what you could put up from fresh even at the cheapest peak of season.
Ugh, hate the new format. I read GRS on a tablet, and the copy shows up scrunched on the left side. Not very reader-friendly.
Hi Kat,
Can you tell me what type of tablet you use to read GRS? I’d like to mention that to the developers and hopefully get that fixed.
If anyone is having difficulty reading the site, please mention it in the comments. Very much appreciated!
Thank you!
Linda Vergon
Editor of GetRichSlowly
I’ll expand on other comments, but first I’ll add (if someone else missed it) that almost everything we DIY have other values, so I would not just rate this on how much money you saved-you have good memories, you don’t have to go to the store to get juice, depending on how it was canned, it can be part of a homemade gift..you get my drift. I sew in the winter because I wear “spring colors” instead of red, purple, black and gray and while I actually do save money, that is not my only consideration…ANYWAY…
I tend to agree that in true cost saving fashion, much money will be saved if you can get cheap or almost cheap produce.
Most of my canning is of the incidental, take advantage kind-apple picking or strawberry picking, the crab apple tree in my yard, the moderate amount of concord grapes in my gazebo. In all of these cases I am saving money both because the fruit is free, I collect jars throughout the year and I use these things as much for gifts as anything else-the crappples were spiced and put in jars with Christmas lids, the grapes actually became grape syrup in our case, and the strawberries became a preserve/ice cream topping kind of thing.
Now, if I just did not have to can on an ever lovin smooth top stove my life would be perfect. Sigh.
I very much dislike this new format. Personally, I just don’t find it that appealing to the eye.
Hi Kat,
I just got word back that the developers will be looking into how the site renders on mobile as well, FYI…
Best,
Linda
Thanks Linda. I use a Surface RT
I use an iPad 5 and the comments rarely work properly. Given that more people are reading on mobile devices, this could be one of the reasons fewer people are commenting.
A responsive theme might be a good solution for GRS.
Hi, I only browse this site on computer. I’m astonished that you revamped the whole site, but didn’t solve the problem of needing a double-reload when submitting a comment.
I hit “submit” and page refreshes so that my comment is submitted; a popup appears telling me that the comment will post when approved. THEN when I hit “close,” the page refreshes again.
Pretty annoying, especially when connection speeds are slow.
I also read on a tablet, and the Ipad has an e-reader format button that is in the website field which turns the page into a ereader view, bigger format, no ads, etc., which is decent, but honestly the format isn’t that significantly different in the normal website mode than before.
Don’t know nothing about canning, I just try to by produce that is in season and thus on sale regularly while in season.
As Mr. Frugalwoods notes, it helps if you don’t have to pay for the produce. I used to pick a lot of blackberries in Seattle, both for freezing and for jam-making. At one point a few years ago I estimated the costs at 27 to 29 cents per half-pint jar.
Cheaper than store-bought jam? Probably not. Delicious? Oh, yes. No preservatives, either.
When you’re growing the stuff yourself it’s important to keep total costs in mind. Are you buying seeds, fertilizer, soil and other items?
I don’t factor in my time either for berry-picking or gardening, because those things are fun for me. (If I lived in a super-hot, humid climate I might tweak my definition of “good times,” however.)
We live in Alaska and don’t yet have a big greenhouse (next year, with luck). Producing more of our own food is a topic of interest for my partner and me, both due to the cost (and flavor!) and the fact that a major disruption in the food supply system could be interesting.
We also can chicken and turkey when it goes on sale, and fish that people give us. It makes me happy to have shelf-stable protein to go with all the other stuff we have stored (either home-canned or purchased in bulk at Costco).
My dad subscribes to Backwoods Home magazine and one of its writers swears by the Tattler reusable can lids. I’m interested in trying them myself, once I use up my stockpile of jar centers.
seems to me that you wanted to make the grape juice because you had good memories from childhood. those are priceless. there is also the social aspect of canning if you have friends/family that share the work and bounty. shared times and memories there too
Another source of free (for your labour) fruit is urban fruit picking programs like Not Far From the Tree. You sign up for a pick in someone’s backyard, show up and help, then take home a share of the yield (which may be a little or a lot).
Paying for produce can be financially worthwhile or not depend on prices of what you’re buying. I figure canning tomato sauce costs about the same as buying it, but is in glass instead of aluminium cans. (Tomato sauce sold in glass tends to be expensive.) Those same tomatoes, dried and stored in the freezer, are much cheaper than any sundried tomatoes I could buy. Ferments like sauerkraut tend to use cheap ingredients to produce a product which is expensive to buy. They also don’t have as much invested energy (fridge rather than freezer; some types of ferments don’t even need that).
I’ve used the Tattler reuseable lids. They’re definitely more expensive, but probably pay off in the long run as long as you don’t give jars away. Though it’s not officially recommended, the regular lids can be reused if they’re in excellent condition. (Try this at your own risk.)
A couple of months ago I was buying this big case of peaches. A lady at the register says are you going to can those? I say no I’m going to eat them fresh as fast as I can, even if it’s all I eat for a few days. She says if you can them in the middle of winter you can enjoy peaches. I say yes, but then they’d be canned and not fresh like right now, so I’m gonna eat them.
I buy a lot of frozen fruit though (e.g. blueberries) because due to no spoilage it’s a lot cheaper than fresh. But if I can find good fresh fruit I’m eating it fresh. Oh, except for bananas which now I freeze for ice cream.
Not sure about canning grapes, as I don’t eat them much, but what about fermenting them….? Now that is a preservation method I find highly appealing. And the increase in value has to be significant.
I make a killer grape jelly with the Concord grapes we grow. I had a jar of Smuckers in my cupboard that I promptly threw away after tasting the homemade. So much better!
A building two doors down from me in Seattle had purple grapes growing on the back fence. I contacted the building’s owner and got permission to pick.
Probably wouldn’t do it again, even if I had access to grapes — picking, stemming and turning the fruit into juice and THEN making jelly seemed way too labor-intensive for me — the product *was* pretty tasty.
These days I’m limited to the raspberries and rhubarb we grow plus any wild berries I want to go find and pick. I really, really miss those blackberries. :-( In addition to making cobblers and shortcakes from the frozen berries, I’d sometimes dump a pint in a blender, add a little bit of milk and a touch of sugar and pulse until something like sorbet resulted. Too thick to drink with a straw, and so delicious spooned out of the blender on a warm summer evening.
A friend of mine makes jelly from wine grapes…. oh, so delicious!
El Nerdo,it pretty much sounds to me like the logical next step for you is wine making. :D
@ Tonya – I’m not a big jelly eater, but it sounds tasty! (Maybe I’d eat lots of jelly if it was homemade & not store-bought)
@ Anne – Ha ha ha yes…! I’m interested in fermentation. Not just for alcohol though! Yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc… all good.
@El nerdo — you comment made me laugh! If I can’t eat fresh fruit fast enough, I make a fruit crisp or I slice it up and freeze it. (Frozen peach slices are my favourite!)
Nothing beats fresh though!
I am a big canner and freezer and have run the numbers. Canning is definitely not cheaper, unless you can get the produce for free. Canning is great particularly if you garden.
I agree with Donna–it’s the taste that makes such a huge difference between home-canned products and what you buy at the store. You can control the sugar in canned fruit.
There’s the personal satisfaction factor that can’t be bought. And I also know exactly where my food has come from, and that’s one of the biggest reasons I can.
Canning organic fresh produce straight after harvest is not the same as buying the cheapest possible stuff at Costco. Besides the energy and environmental costs, you also have to factor in quality. Not sure I’d have chosen juice–preserves or even wine might have been a more “valuable” result, but the principal is the same.
Really, it’s the same with sewing–yes, you can definitely put clothes on your body from WalMart or Forever 21 that are far cheaper than anything you can sew, especially if you count your time. But aside from not supporting slave labor in other countries, if you can sew halfway decently the product you can produce is far higher quality, and gives you power over the choices that go into the making.
I sew because I can choose exactly what I want, because I can make it far higher quality than what I will pay in a store, and because I can make it fit perfectly. I can and freeze and cook from scratch because I have a better chance of knowing what is in what I eat, I can recognize the ingredients, and the taste is far superior. It’s high quality, organic, and small batch and we all know that costs a lot more.
This weekend I spent 4 hours going from store to store trying to find a pair of grey jeans that fit and came home exhausted from the traffic, and the strollers, the parking lots and the traffic. I could have made them in the same amount of time and would have felt powerful, proud, and creative.
Instead of working longer to pay for cheap crap, making your own gives you control, and empowering skills.
That’s largely why I make my own clothes as well. Even if I can find something that fits in a store (and as a five foot tall guy that’s not all that common), it’s such a hassle and uses up so much time that I’m better off just making it myself.
It also *is* cheaper once you take into account that the item is made specifically for your body. Custom made clothing is expensive. Even tailoring can more than double the price of an inexpensive item.
Similarly, a jar of regular apple sauce from my local grocery store costs about 7 cents an ounce, but even the mass produced organic version is more than twice that. Home made sauce from a local farm can easily head toward 25 cents an ounce or more (in part because they’re rarely sold in bulk quantities).
That’s why I’m always a bit wary of things that compare mass produced items to home made. You’re not going to get the level of quality and customisation with a mass produced item that you can if you make it yourself (or trade skills with a talented friend). It’d be more accurate to compare with items made on smaller scales like farm stand preserves or bespoke suits. At that point, yes, making your own is generally cheaper. I may not be up to the standards of a Savile Row tailor, but I can easily make myself a Brooks Brothers quality suit on a Macy’s budget (JC Penny if I find a good sale on fabric).
But sewing takes skill and lots of (costly) practice – its an art IMO. I’ve been sewing on and off for 24 years (since I was 12) but I never though of sewing as a viable way to save money or create clothing that’s better then retail, though I don’t shop at low end retailers. When I had the space to sew I did create clothing items here and there but I find it hard to imagine being able to make a variety of clothing in different styles and enough of it.
I think if I had the space and was able to dedicate enough time to practice, practice, practice, I guess eventually would be able to whip out clothing that’s better than what I can find at my local thrift stores, clothing swaps or mid-range retailer clearance rack. Price-wise though, I don’t know.
I am a difficult size in the mass produced garment world on the other hand. I lift heavy weights (and it shows), have large breasts, hips, round butt with a small waist – almost an hourglass. Clothing manufactures don’t cater to me so I do tailor a lot of my own clothes.
Do you mind me asking where you find good quality fabrics? My mom saved a lot of money sewing our clothes when we were kids, and she made a lot for herself too. These days we find it really hard to find decent fabric, and almost none of it is made in North America.
Suggestions would be most welcome :)
I live within walking distance of Vogue Fabrics, although even their quality has deteriorated over the years. I’ve had great fabrics from Emma One Sock, Marcy Tilton, NY Fashion Center Fabrics, and Mood Fabrics–like everything else, it’s all online nowadays. None of these are really budget sources–but my aim in sewing is High quality clothing at less than designer prices–I wear stuff forever and 75% of my wardrobe is black, so money and time invested in making a few really excellent skirts, pants (with linings!), and stylish jackets is well spent for me.
I always thought that this would be cheaper, because that’s just what frugal people do. When I looked into it I figured it would only be cheaper for us if the food was free. So I’ve yet to ever can something.
You forgot to factor in the cost of sterilizing the jars and washing the fruit. In my canning experience, that takes up quite a bit of water. The cost of pectin is also high. Some tongs and a magnetic lid catcher and a funnel are also handy unless you like to slop sauce or juice everywhere and grab onto lids and rings with clumsy oven-mitt hands.
I’d suggest keeping an eye out at thrift stores and yard sales. I got two canning-jar lifters for 99 cents each at the St. Vincent de Paul, and two canning funnels (gave one to my sister) at another thrift store for 49 cents each. I found boxes of paraffin in the “free” boxes at several yard sales; one of these days I’ll actually remember to use it on the jam I make for us. (Wouldn’t give it as gifts because, well, it’s ugly.)
The National Center for Home Food Preservation offers recipes for pectin-free jams. I never use the stuff any more:
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html
That’s a great all-around resource for the canning, freezing, drying, smoking and jerkying of food. I recommend it to those who are interested in learning.
I didn’t make any jam this year, due to travel, being busy and the fact that I still have a lot left over from the past couple of years. It felt weird not to be stirring and boiling and pouring. But if mandarin oranges go on sale at a decent price, could be I’ll make some marmalade.
Frugal tip: Buy large containers of plain yogurt (or make your own) and add homemade jams to individual dishes vs. buying those expensive 5-ounce containers. If you think homemade jam tastes good on an English muffin, wait until you try it in a bowl of homemade Greek-style yogurt. Seriously: I prefer it to ice cream.
It depends on what you are going to can. There is a great book out there called,” Make the bread, buy the butter” which goes into a lot of costs of making it yourself versus buying it.
Grape juice is labor intensive and requires a lot of grapes. I move two years ago and discovered grapes in my yard, and did the same. It is much much cheaper to buy it, but yum.
On the other hand, my family goes through a lot of strawberry jam, tomato sauce,blackberries, blueberries, plums, raspberries and cherries, every year. This year, I built raised beds into our 1 acre, full sun hill side. The garden is 16×16 I bought the berry plants and tomato seeds. I was given a montmorcey cherry tree and a plum tree for my birthday (value~60.00). I had compost. I spent $200 on everything, including other seeds of lettuce, herbs , peas, peppers, cucumbers.
The canes of raspberries and blackberries need a year, and first year strawberry plants do not really produce. Nor do trees for a while. I did, however, harvest and can >200 lbs of tomatoes, and after we ate to our content, made 45 pints of pasta sauce, 25 4-ounce jars of paste and pizza sauce, and 10 8-ounce jars of Brandywine-basil tomato jam. We will use it all. I just transplanted the strawberry runners and have another 80 plants. I have 8 canes of raspberries and 6 canes of blackberries for next year. The blueberries will take at least another year. The trees still more, and I will have to manage for pests, too. However, I think with all of the jam and tomato sauce I broke even in actual capital spent. And, it really is something to make an item you can’t get in a store, to control it sodium and sugar content; and to remember the fruit ripening in the sun when you take a bite. You can grow items that are far more flavorful than what you find in the grocery aisle, simply because you are not commercial and do not need to worry about shelf life and transit time in your production.
Next year I may have to irrigate; this year I did not. Even on dry days the compost seemed to hold enough to keep the plants happy. I was lucky. So no money wasted there really.
You can save a lot of money doing it yourself, garden to table,though labor of course is a factor. I definitely spent time walking the garden every morning. It is not something to do because you have to save money. It is something frugal only if you know how to do it, grow only what you enjoy and eat, and only if you actually enjoy being out in the field.
The items you can are beautiful for many reasons. There is the pride that you made it, and the lack of dependence on your freezer and your supermarket in the long cold winter of storm power outages and hazardous travel.
+1 for the book “Make the bread, buy the butter”! I’m reading it now and it’s amusing but also really informative when it comes to figuring out the time/effort/cost involved with making something from scratch over buying it ready-made at the supermarket.
Apartment living with no additional space, I never thought about canning. I tend to eat more greens, salads, sprouts, etc – foods that are best fresh anyway. I eat very little fruit. I definitely wouldn’t can it since I don’t/can’t eat sugar.
Its not canning but I know I could save money if I was able to store 1/4 grass fed cow or wild fish purchased by the pack. Again, apartment living doesn’t lend itself to that since we would need additional freezer space.
I’m curious about disposable jar lids — I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, and my family used to do a lot of canning. We’ve always used the kind you can reuse a few times. The top part might need replacing every one in a while, but the rings last a really long time. We just run ours through the dishwasher. When they don’t seal perfectly, they can be used for freezer jam or for storing dried goods.
I don’t can due to limited apartment space, but I do make my own freezer jam. Pricewise, it’s probably comparable to a cheap jar from in the grocery store but the quality is better and I enjoy doing it. It’s part hobby, part summer rite of passage.
I LOVE to can! Since I’m a terrible gardner, it saves me no money. But I love knowing exactly what’s in those jars, and keeping the sugar and sodium levels low. And it tastes so darn good! But we also prefer fresh fruits and veggies, so I definitely don’t have as much canned as a lot of people.
About reusable lids: I have been using Tattler’s for about 18 months. They do take a bit more attention than the disposable lids, but I feel they are worth it. I hate throwing things away. There are also some really cool all glass bottles out there (container and lid) that I have my eye on, but I’m not willing to spend the $$$. Don’t put the lid and gasket through the dishwasher, but they do work well: I have only had one failed seal, and that was due to a secondary urgent situation that caused me to have to leave things to cool without the second tightening.
I have done small batches of fresh home grown stuff, but I mostly can broths. We save veggie trimmings, and make broth (mushrooms are saved separately for their own broth). We also use backyard chickens, beef joints, and deer knees to make meat based stocks.
For the veg broth, we freeze what we cut off making dinner, then roast slightly, adding onions, garlic, celery, and carrots. Once done, strain the solids out, cool, and add to the compost. Pressure can the broth (NOT boiling water) and all the stuff you thought was waste from dinner is now reused – for flavor when you boil something (rice, poached chicken, whatever), and for feeding next year’s garden.
Hey, me too!
http://donnafreedman.com/2014/10/10/boiling-bag/
As someone else said, canning/preserving food is about more than the cost. We eat almost 100% organic produce and avoid preservatives, so canning with those things in mind is definitely cheaper than buying at the store. When you preserve your own food, it reduces your trips to the grocery store; I don’t like to shop, so it’s hard to put a value on this. Also, I love to garden and have many friends who do as well. My tomato harvest has been so-so, but I’ve happily accepted tomatoes from a number of friends. Combined, I’ve had enough to make several small batches of sauce. Just yesterday I received a huge quantity of pears and apples from a friend. My cost? Picking up the fallen fruit that was bad and putting it in the compost. The apples will become applesauce–my kids go through jars and jars of it, so it’s absolutely cheaper to make my own. I make unsweetened, so all it needs is a bit of lemon juice and some processing in a water bath canner. Pears will probably become jam of some sort to be used as holiday gifts. (BTW there are lots of recipes for making jam that don’t require pectin. Usually you use some apple since it contains natural pectin.) In fact, I’m going with all edible gifts this year, which aligns with my personal efforts to consume/buy less stuff and purge more. I don’t know anyone who needs more stuff, but everyone needs to eat.
For Lisa Aberle, if you want to can grape juice again, I highly recommend you invest in a steam juicer (or find someone who has one you can borrow). It makes grape juice a breeze. You wash the grapes and then put them–still on the stems–in the colander part of the juicer. The steam extracts the juice, leaving the stems, skins, and seeds in the colander. Sometimes I pull the grapes from the stems, but it’s still super fast. As the grapes steam, the juice drips down through the colander to a holding pan which has a spigot-like tube. You just open it up and fill your jars. The hot juice & sterile jars create the seal. No sugar needed.
This is a great insight. You can save a lot of money if you cook food in the house and not to prepare canned and instant foods. Aside from saving money, you can also save your health as well.
This is a great article indeed. Keep on writing about personal finance. Two thumbs up.
For at least 12 years we grew a huge garden and I canned/froze up to 300 quarts of produce every year. I saved tons of money by saving seeds and reusing jars. Even with the cost of seeds/plants that we did buy and the fuel for the tiller (bought used and still going strong), I figured my cost to be about 40 cents a quart. Can’t beat that. We also ate “fresh” all summer and my husband and I find gardening/canning fun and rewarding. Now we live in the city, so the glory days of gardening are over, but we do have a few herbs on our balcony. I miss picking my own veggies right off the vine, still warm from the sun. Nothing better. And there is still nothing as rewarding to me as seeing my basement shelves all lined with food for the winter. By far my most fun/rewarding hobby ever.
Since you aren’t doing it on an industrial scale, reaping the savings of bulk purchasing equipment and raw ingredients, it is almost certain that you are not actually saving money (especially since there was no mention of the value of your free time). On the other hand, maybe the point of life isn’t always saving the most money possible; if you’re comfortable with your financial situation in other areas of your life, then canning still makes for a very cheap and enjoyable hobby. It’s made even cheaper since you got so much of the necessary equipment for free, so I would say that if you’re free of debt then go for it.
It is clearly something you enjoy, and if you can get as much enjoyment as you seem to get out of it with so little financial investment, I think it’s worthwhile.
I canned pluot jam and grape jelly this summer. In both cases the fruit was free, had the canner, tongs, funnel, lid lifter and some jars. Purchased pectin, sugar, more jars & lids. Took a 3 day weekend for the pluot, but my kids & I love it and it’s a flavor you can’t just buy. I also like knowing that there aren’t any artificial colors or flavors in it. Another cost factor is extra AC – pretty hot using 3 range burners all day. Saving money – not likely.
Maybe canning isn’t the best way to save money but homemade jam certainly has better taste! ;)
The thing about canning or even cooking from scratch is that you know for sure what is in the product. If I were up to it I would can produce just because I knew where it came from. You never know what is REALLY in commercially produced items. Cost is no object when it comes to my health.
I love making jams and do it about once every 2 years (yes in a single season I get enough fruit (blackberry, apple, huckleberry, strawberry, Oregon grape, Salal, blueberry, etc.) for jams to last our family for about 2 years). But I will say that it does take a lot of coordination and time to do that with multiple pots in different stages of readiness.
I have also Tattler brand of reusables and they do pretty well as long as your rims are clean and you don’t overfill the jar, but I also have reused the one time lids for multiple cannings and they usually will last 3 to 6 uses before they won’t seal. The one thing I don’t like about Tattler is the difficulty in telling if they successfully sealed. The one time lids pop down, but the Tattler just gets a deeper depression which isn’t noticeable sometimes.
It all about investing in your health.
We had a micro-farmette on our sub-development lot. Three apple trees, four cherry trees, grape vines, plum tree, pear tree, blueberry bushes, a huge vegetable garden, and rabbits. We made 80 to 90% of our food (including hunting and fishing). We canned and frozen everything.
We thought we were saving so much money but a financial planner sat down with us and ran us through our cost of labor – gardening is not free and hunting requires several hours. It’s more cost effective to get a part-time job on top of your career than to have a huge garden and go hunting. It may not be as much fun, but the cost analysis has to include your labor rate, all hours, and all expenses.
Yes, the cans are pennies but what about the rototiller and gas for it? What about the bug sprays to keep your apples and cherries from getting wormy? What about the cost of feed for the rabbits? The tree stand for deer hunting? The fishing lures? What about the seedling starter kits, heat lamps, and fertilizer? What about the water from the hose? It all adds up and sadly, it is not cheaper. It’s a feel-good lifestyle but it is not going to give you retirement money or pay off your college loans. Employment for someone else and buying the $1.99 bag of carrots at the store will do that.