Price List: Ooh, Ahh, Pizza!

The past couple of Fridays, I’ve been making pizza at home instead of doing what I really want to do: Call our favorite pizza place and order a gooey, thick, yummy pizza that is made just for me us! But as we are a one income family, I try to limit eating take out. I wondered though, after buying all the ingredients I needed to make pizza, would we really be saving money? Here’s a breakdown of the grocery bill. To make this easy, I’m using the full cost of the items, not the sale price, and no tax.

1. Two boxes of Jiffy pizza dough mix; for a 12″ x 17″ pan: 2 x .69 = $1.38
2. Child labor: Free! (Okay, I really did most of the work.)
3. 8 oz. can of Pastorelli Pizza sauce: .89
4. One white onion: 1 @ $1.00 per lb. = $2.08 (We don’t use the whole onion, so I can use it for salads or other recipes, too)
5. 1/4 pound pre-sliced pepperoni from the deli counter: $2.26

6. 8 oz. block of Kraft mozzarella cheese: $4.25

7. Total cost: $10.86

8. Additional costs: Hairdresser bill, including tip, $53.00 (needed to camouflage bald spots from hair pulling induced by cooking with children.)

Our usual order from our favorite pizza place costs $16.45 plus tax. We carry out, so there are no delivery charges. We have leftovers from both pizzas for lunch the next day. The pizza place pizza does taste better, but our homemade pizza tastes better than a frozen pizza. So is it worth it to make pizza at home? I think so, but since the price difference was only $5.59, I won’t feel as guilty about ordering out next time!