Cost vs. Convenience



Ok, so I kinda talked a little about this on facebook, kinda. But, only a little... Through the Pinterest grapevine that is, I found this cool looking recipe for Personal Sized Baked Oatmeal Cups by Sugar-Free Mom. I thought this might be a better alternative to the Fiber One bars that Brandon had been taking to work with him, meaning cheaper and healthier (and healthier they are). Brandon thought the Fiber One bars would be cheaper, and I happened to disagree. So this became a "who is right" type thing. But, the fact that these are better for you and freezable made this worth it! And I have to say, yummy smelling and yummy tasting! :)

I went out and bought the ingredients I needed to make these. I bought Cinnamon (thought we were out and turns out we weren't), bananas, applesauce, honey (needed more), oatmeal, and the flax seed meal. Everything else I had in my pantry. I spent $23.53. Now, I did not use all of that. I had enough applesauce and oatmeal to make another half of a batch. I wanted to make as much as I could to really be able to compare price. Brandon thinks that after electricity from running the oven, and the ingredients I already had, I spent about $20 (I still think that is awful high, but whatever).

So I started following the recipe, but saw I could at least double it with the applesauce, it uses a lot of applesauce! And a lot of oatmeal (well, they are oatmeal cups, are they not?). The only thing I did different was add a tablespoon of dark brown sugar. That was a perfect amount too. I also topped some with craisens, peanut butter chips, and chocolate chips (not together thought).  Now when making them, I thought that I was going to get about 36, I don't know how big the cups were for the wonderful lady over at Sugar-Free Mom, but mine did not seem super big. After two dozen, it looked like I hardly made a dent.

Peanut butter topped oatmeal cups

But that was ok. It was proving me right! At first, $20 for 36 would not have been very cost effective. If I spend $20 on those bars, we would get 40 (approx. $5 for 10). But I ended up with 5.5 dozen! That was 66 cups! I think that was totally worth it, and all I have to do is buy another thing of applesauce and oatmeal and I could make another 66 cups. that would be what, $25 for 132 cups? Not bad, not bad. I don't know what else I would use the flax seed meal for, but I think I could find something.

Brandon likes the flavor, says the texture is a little weird, but hey, he likes it! Nikolai likes the chocolate ones (of course). I think I have won this one, for now. :)