What I did to be frugal this week: cooking dried beans

I really prefer canned beans.  I mean really, really prefer them.  I have problems getting dried beans cooked all the way, and I really like having canned, already perfectly cooked beans ready when I need them.

However, I haven’t seen a good sale on canned beans in awhile.  Like a few years.  Seems like two years ago, Albertsons ran several wintertime sales where canned beans were about 33¢ each.  I haven’t seen anything near that price since them.

With barbecue season here, we’ll be eating a lot of baked beans, and the thought of paying a few dollars just for beans for a side dish was not very appealing.  So, this week I’ve been cooking dried beans.  I’ll be freezing most of them so that I can pull out already cooked beans from the freezer whenever I need them.  Almost as convenient as canned (though they still need to thaw).

The cost savings?  A pretty significant percentage. I went to Walmart to buy a few varieties of dried beans, and while I was there, wrote down the shelf prices of the same varieties of canned Great Value beans.

I then checked Cook’s Illustrated, which told me that “for every pound of dried beans called for, you’ll need 58 ounces of canned beans”. So, I figure that means that a pound of dried beans yields about 58 oz cooked.

Here’s how the price breaks down between canned beans and dried beans, cooked.:

*I forgot to check the prices of these beans and didn’t purchase them myself. Pinto beans are cheaper at Sam’s or Rancho Liborio.  I do remember noticing that the 2 lb bag of dried pintos was more expensive than the 1 lb bag!

I make Amy’s Baked Beans With A Kick (minus the picante sauce), and I figure that buy using dried beans instead of canned, I’m saving about $1.21 each time I make that dish.  (I still buy the canned pork and beans, and I switch up which types of other beans I use, so that’s an approximation of the savings.)

$1.21 doesn’t sound like much if we’re talking about reducing our electric bill or house payment.  But, if you could shave $1.21 off every meal you eat in a month, that would be a savings of $108 per month!

Some people, myself included many times, scoff that taking a little extra time to do something like cooking dried beans from scratch isn’t worth it.  But, I’ve found when you’re trying to reduce your grocery budget, there’s no one thing that you can do to automatically reduce it by $100 per month.  It’s usually a bunch of little things, like cooking dried beans, all added together that help you save.

Have you done anything lately to be frugal?  A lifestyle change, a project, a simple thing like cooking your own beans?

PS – if beans went on sale for 33¢ a can again, I would be all over it. ;)