How many times have you come across a neat looking gadget or seemingly useful appliance at the store and
bought it, thinking that it would be useful? Maybe you rationalized your purchase by thinking , I always
wanted to make my own ice cream, or perhaps even something like, the toaster on the TV show I watched last
night looked just like this one and it made perfect toast! Not all kitchen gadgets are as costly, or as cost
effective, as they sound. Pricegrabber.co.uk did a study of the cost-effectiveness of 30 household items, based on
a survey of 1,500 UK shoppers that asked about how often they had used the items in the past year.
The least cost effective item was an ice cream maker, costing £19.48 ($35) per use! Clearly, nothing that is used only once or twice is a very cost effective item. Kitchen gadgets that were cost effective were tea kettles, averaging 5p (10¢) per use, and toasters, which ran about 18p (32¢).
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
Morbid thoughts? Have a cookie
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-01-2006 @ 9:32AM
Myron said...
That's depressing. Even some items I've used plenty of times are still expensive per use. Lets see:
bread maker - $5 per use
ice cream maker - $10 per use
kitchenaid - $5 per use
Cuisinart - $2 per use
salad spinner $1 per use
immersion blender - $2 per use
and so on. Of course, any one of these items could last another ten years. The coffee maker, toaster oven and microwave must be down in the 10 cent range.
This reminds me of the fisherman who's catch costs him $100 per pound after paying for the boat, tackle, gas etc. Sometimes its best not to think about it.
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5-01-2006 @ 10:22AM
Ed said...
Boy, the ice cream maker might be expensive per use (ours is also down to about $5 at this point, but will probably be $2 by the end of the summer), but it's really worth it.
Sure, it's a little scary buying half-gallon cartons of heavy cream from costco, and adding 7 XL egg yolks to 2 quarts of ice cream (well, frozen custard).
But the result is so good. Oh, so very good.
Not counting the cost of the maker, a 2qt batch of super-super-premium chocolate or vanilla costs us $2.50 to make, compared to $12 or so for an equivalent amount of, say, ben and jerry's. And it's tastier to boot.
We replaced our Dean's Moosetracks habit with a homemade ice cream habit 3 months ago, and we still have a quarter of a tub of moosetracks left in the freezer. It just tastes horrible in comparison now.
The only problem is that there's no instant gratification. It takes half an hour to make the base, 8 hours to chill the base, half an hour to freeze into ice cream, and another 2-8 hours for the semi-frozen ice cream to finish in the freezer.
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5-01-2006 @ 10:24AM
Glo said...
Have you bought a good loaf of bread at the market lately? The cost is pretty close to the bread maker cost you have down.
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5-01-2006 @ 11:52AM
Eric said...
I'll also chime in that ice cream makers are great if you have the drive to use them regularly. Mine is the Kitchen Aid attachment, so I saved some space (and cost?) there.
Nothing beats the stuff you make yourself. You tend to eat less as well because it's more satisfying.
The biggest problem with the article is that for people who cook as a hobby, they don't factor in the cost of fun. I could have paid $20 to go to the movies, but I was making ice cream/bread/fondue with friends instead.
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