I was grocery shopping this week and noticed that cereal, eggs, and orange juice all cost way more than they did a year ago. A simple family breakfast now easily runs $15–20, which just feels crazy for the most basic meal of the day. What does your breakfast cost now, and have you switched to cheaper alternatives like oatmeal or store brands?
— Ryan C.
Breakfast is one of the easier meals to cut costs on. Plain rolled oats usually work out to well under 50 cents a serving, even with fruit on top, versus a dollar or more for boxed cereal. Store-brand cereal is often made in the same factories as the name brands and costs 20–40% less. Eggs have swung a lot in price over the past couple of years, so watching for weekly sales and buying the big packs when they dip helps.
Same here — $7 for cereal still shocks me every time I walk down that aisle. I've switched to oatmeal most mornings too, and honestly the store-brand cereal isn't that different when it's on sale. Do you find eggs are the hardest one to work around, or have you found a cheaper swap for those as well?
Eggs are the hardest to replace directly, but beans, lentils, peanut butter on toast and plain yogurt cover a lot of the same protein for less per serving. When eggs do go on sale, they keep for several weeks in the fridge, so buying two cartons at the low price usually pays off.
Another cheap option is to cook breakfast in batches: a pan of baked oatmeal or egg muffins on Sunday covers most of the week and costs far less per serving than cereal and milk. Bulk bins for oats, raisins and nuts are usually cheaper than the packaged versions too.
A trick that works for cereal and most breakfast staples: compare the unit price on the shelf tag (price per ounce) rather than the box price, since big-name boxes keep shrinking. Store brands are often made to very similar recipes for noticeably less, and oats bought in a big canister usually come out far cheaper per serving than any boxed cereal.