A loaf of bread depending on what brand and variety you buy can run anywhere from two dollars to five dollars.

If you were to make your own bread you would only need to buy the simple ingredients that go into making a basic bread.

Those simple ingredients would include bread, flour and yeast. The other ingredients are regular every day household items that you more than likely have in your house on an every day basis. Such as water or milk, eggs, butter or margarine salt and sugar.

And by the way sugar is not a necessary ingredient for bread making especially if you are using a bread machine.

There are many bread makers to choose from so if you want to save some money at the grocery store but are not much of a baker than a bread maker would be an ideal purchase for you.

The bread making products you can buy are designed to make one and a half to two pound loaves which is plenty of bread to get you through a week.

A basic bread recipe for a one and a half pound loaf consists of the following ingredients.

1 cup of milk

2 large eggs

1.5 tablespoons butter or margarine

1.5 teaspoon of salt

3 cups of bread flour

2 1/4 tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon dry yeast

Simply take three to five minutes to combine these ingredients into the bread pan of the bread maker and you are good to go. Your new kitchen gadget will spend approximately three hours doing the rest of the work for you.

And of course when its done your home will be filled with the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread.

Not only do you save time and money making your own bread but you are also making a very healthy choice.

Have you ever read what goes into the bread that you buy in a supermarket? The next time you are in the bread aisle take a look at the ingredients in any loaf of bread on the shelf and your jaw will drop.

The amount of additives and preservatives is mind boggling.

Now back to the bread maker...

You are not limited to just basic bread, there are many varieties of bread you can make just by following the simple instructions in any bread cook book or any old recipe you can find on the internet.

Most if not all of these products list a good number of bread recipes in the owners manual.

French bread, raisin bread, sandwich bread, and chocolate bread just to name a few.

They are fun investments and will eventually pay for themselves. And they are great from a time standpoint as well.

Again, the prep time to make bread in a bread maker is three to five minutes.

This is definitely something to consider and if you are interested in buying one make sure you do your homework. There are plenty out there and reading on line customer reviews is very helpful in making a decision. It worked for me.