Making Your Own Beans vs. Buying Canned Beans: Which is the Most Frugal Method?

I recently began making my own beans at home.  This is something that I always remember my mom doing, but I would just buy the can for two reasons.  First, it was a lot easier and secondly, I really didn't have a clue as to how I would make them from the bag.  Coincidentally, that is also one of the reasons why we don't eat much meat around here.  I don't know what you do with all of those hunks of tissue to make them edible, let alone tasty. 

All of that aside, I decided to 'dig deep' and learn how to make beans without a can opener.  In truth, it is very easy.  All you really have to do is pick up a bag and read the back.  The directions are completely clear and even a self-professed horrible cook can handle it.  (That's me.)

If you are an at home bean maker virgin, I would be glad to email you a tutorial.  I will not expound on that here.  I will say this, don't cook your beans when you are expecting company.  When my sister came to pick up her kids today, she walked in the door and asked if it had been a bad diaper day.  (We have six under six when they are all together.)  I had cooked a batch earlier in the day.  :)

On to the thesis of the story.  Which is more frugal, making your own or buying the can?  Well, when you look at just the monetary benefits, there is not a huge difference.  According to wisebread.com, if you buy about three cans of beans a week, and switched to making your own, you would save about $25 a year.  Not a whole lot of money, but you can argue every little bit makes a difference. 

However, there are also other benefits that don't really have a price:

• Canned beans have a lot of extra sodium and sugars added for preservation, when you make your own, you control what goes into them.
• Depending on the canning process, there can be leaching of BPA (that dreaded cancer-causing substance that is found in lots of plastics) from the liner of the can into the beans
• There are some theories that the making of beans in the slow cooking process at home makes them less, ahem, gas-inducing by breaking down some of the complex sugars....  I guess that is one you'll have to figure out for yourself. 

There are cons, though:

• Even though it doesn't take much of your attention to make these, it still takes a lot of time to soak, cook and cool the beans.  They are not ready in 30 seconds like the can.
• It isn't very frugal to have to run to to store because you forgot to make the beans. 

There you have it, you can decide what works best for you.  As for our household, I am going to continue to make my beans, but I think that I am going to keep a couple of cans at the back of the pantry for emergencies.