Spreadsheet Cooking: Jarring Numbers

Have you ever made your own jam? I’ve made strawberry jam a few times, and it’s delicious, but lots of trouble to make. It’s much easier to grab a jar from the grocery store.

On the AnnArbor.com website today, Corinna Borden uses a spreadsheet to compare the costs of homemade blueberry and blackberry jams to organic store bought jams. She had enlisted her family’s help in picking the berries, and “I was hoping to show I am saving my family money by doing it myself.”

There’s no sample spreadsheet to download, but you can view the cost comparison online. Corinna even adds cost a per ounce carbon footprint to the jams, to see how that affects the totals.

Unfortunately, it’s not more cost effective to make your own jam at home, according to Corinna’s calculations. However, she’ll keep doing it, because you can’t beat the value of the “priceless intangible benefit”.

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