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Making it vs Buying it
Vickie Chiu
Updated Jan 06, 2017Save
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Note: This is not what I mean when I say “portfolio diversification.”
The eternal student problem. So much to do, lots of time to do it, but NO MONEY!
When funds are low but the shopping hormones are running wild, there may come a point where you think you can pinch a few pennies on the essentials by putting on your DIY hat and having a go at making things yourself. But exactly what are these things? Are your cost-saving ideas actually wasting you money ( or borderline psychotic)? This blogger investigates…
Student item no. 1: Bread
To bake, to buy or to buy a bread maker?
This very much depends on how much bread you consume and how picky you are with your yeast ball eating habits. On a scale of 0-10, 0 being ‘you never eat bread’ and 10 being ‘I can eat a loaf or more a day’, where do you lie on the spectrum? According to About.com, making your own loaf is around US$1.50. Not bad!
If you think it’s too much of a hassle, try getting a bread maker, they come at around US$70 according to a quick Google search.
If you eat a loaf a day, that’s $1.50 x 365= $547.50 (+$70 for the bread maker)
=$617.50. Now /365 again to get your average loaf cost
=$1.69 a day for a nice loaf of bread
Verdict: MAKE IT (Only if you’re a 7 or above and can’t eat super cheap bread though).
Student item no.2: Beer
Still look as refreshing?
I have known many (usually male) students that have attempted to make their own brew. The ‘ingenious’ idea to do so usually comes at about 5am after a night out drinking delicious professionally-brewed beer. “How hard can it be?” they’d wonder… stumbling around the corridor, “it’s just a bit of malt, yeast, errr water and… that’s about it, right? We could save like…. LOADS !!”
If copious amounts of beer is part of your daily student diet, then I can see why you’d attempt this. But for the average consumer, it just seems more effort than it’s worth. Plus, what are you going to cook with if you’re using up the biggest pot?
Fellow blogger Mansoor says, “I tried making my own beer once. It stunk up the whole house and it tasted like sick. Just don’t.”
VERDICT: With beer costing less than water in some countries, I’d say BUY IT. But if you’d like to give it a go just for giggles, knock yourself out.
Student item no.3: Toilet paper
Psst! The key active ingredient is…koala
Although I’m no toilet paper snob and have actual issues with designer toilet paper, I’m not sure how comfortable I am at the thought of having to make my own. But then again, there’s only one (sensible)place for used toilet paper to go, right? So why not try and cut down the cost of it? After all, there’s nothing more annoying than being the ONLY person in the house-share that ever buys the stuff.
So, I Googled “how to make your own toilet paper” and if this is not a joke, here’s what you need :
a blender
human hair (????!!!)
used newspaper
Elmer’s white glue
bleach
toothpicks
well water
VERDICT: Do I even need to say it? Unless you’re doing this purely to save the environment and to kill alot of time, BUY IT.
Student item no.4: Laundry detergent
Note: When you’re 70 shades darker than your natural color, it’s time to invest in soap.
Students are notorious for being bad at doing laundry. Whilst a lucky few simply bring theirs home for their poor families to deal with over the weekends, international students often don’t have that luxury and have sort it out themselves.
With billions of dollars pumped into the marketing of laundry products a year, I do wonder whether images of beautiful families in impossibly white clothes means that the product they’re advertising is better at removing stains than plain ol’ super market own brand. Surely the active ingredient that removes the dirty stuff is all the same, right?
So here I am again, typing “home made laundry detergent” into Google and to my surprise, quite a lot of people have actually looked into this.
According to this krafty homemaker, "The cost of making the above recipe of laundry soap was .71 cents. That was amazing to me! With this 2 gallon size recipe you will have enough to do 64 loads of laundry. That translates to about .01 cent a load."
VERDICT: Make it!
Student item no. 5: Book shelf
Cats make excellent musical book ends
You’ve just spent a fortune on textbooks for the year and now you need to fork up the money for a book shelf?! Whilst they’re not extremely expensive things (depending on how picky you are), don’t you wish sometimes these things were just free?
This website suggests that milk crates can work just as well. Whereas those Swedish furniture people with the blue and yellow logo (they don’t need any more publicity) are saying you can get one for quite a reasonable price if you’re happy/capable of putting it together yourself.
Verdict: This one’s a tough call. Although milk crates are free, I’m not sure it can hold the weight of all you brainy people’s books… but then that blue-and-yellow-logo'd Swedish shop can charge quite a bit for a large book shelf… I’m going to go for… BUY IT- but remember you can probably get a cheap one second hand on gumtree/craigslist/freecycle etc if you look hard enough.
Testimonials
BONUS ITEM: Bacon (vegetarians and non-pork eaters, avert your eyes now!)
Home-made bacon; might not taste as good as it looks
Yeah, this guy teaches you how to make your own bacon… first thing you’ll need, a pig!
VERDICT: No… or as Mansoor says, "Just don’t."