Indulging in ice cream leads to some thoughts about value

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In this week’s blog, an ice cream purchase leads to some thoughts about value. Read more at https://hledgerfan.com/i-indulge-in-ice-cream/.

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Did it occur to you to make the ice cream at home?

That would likely be the least expensive option for most gain.

I make a “carnivore ice cream” and this is what my journal would look like:

expenses:food:dairy:hwc       $6.49 ; heavy whipping cream

expenses:food:eggs                $0.38 ; two eggs from a pack of 2 dozen

expenses:food:ingredients     $0.02 ; splash of vanilla extract

expenses:food:ingredients    $0.05 ; dash of Cinnamon

$6.94 and that would make two cups of ice cream. I don’t know how that equates in terms of scoops you get from your local parlor.

You can also find less expensive heavy whipping creams to shave off a dollar or two and it would make roughly the same amount.

Of course absent from my recipe are toppings and sugar, but if you have the base ice cream, you can add those on top of the ledger above to factor in how much more it would cost you to make it at home.

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Something else that occurred to me…

In my example, or yours, you could factor in mileage and utility costs as well. Freezing a two cups of HWC takes ~1 1/2 to 2 hours in my experience, so you could factor that in. Driving to your parlor maybe a 6 mile round trip, so you can factor in fuel/electric usage as well.

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Most of the “I can do this cheaper” forget to actually factor in time…

If I stay in the kitchen for an hour to make icecream, I could have used that hour for a walk with my kids to the icecream shop (or do some paid work for 60+ EUR), and there everyone gets what they actually want. Pistaccio, coffee, banana, “bubble gum”, or whatnot.

If I decide to do ice at home, everyone has to agree on the flavor, not yet even talking about the time to take care of the crying kid whos flavour was not the flavor done today…

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Well either way, you’re using up time and you won’t get more of. You could be making ice cream with the kids, and teaching them about the process. Then they can make the next batch.

For single serving kind (like in my example), it takes ~15 minutes to prepare (provided you have ingredients on hand), and about 2 hours to freeze it. During that two hours, you could go on walks and talk to your kids about PTA. :grinning_face:

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My parents tried, the kids are not interested. They do help me with the cooking though, and my son already does invent his own meals.

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