When it comes to food, whats the breakeven costs?

[EfficientN]

I'm about to move from grad school to NYC. As part of preparing my budget, I'm trying to find more ways to bring down food costs (big premium on groceries in NYC). Thus, I've been looking at roasting my own coffee beans (So $6/lb, rather than $10), making my own yogurt for lunch (<$1 rather than $1.99 for lunch).

All of this sounds fine, and I can figure out the expected costs, and then amortize the purchases of additional kitchen equipment (roasting machine, yogurt machine for example), and find my payback periods. However, I wonder about the costs I'm not aware of. For people who live in small apartments, do you ever buy things like a crockpot, and then never get around to using it? What are the basic pitfalls someone gets into, when they try to purchase equipment to eventually lower their daily life costs.

[rocksinmyhead]

first of all I would be extremely cautious about buying fancy new machinery as a way to reduce costs... I would first look for ways to make stuff at home that DON'T require extra new appliances, ESPECIALLY if space is at a premium (honestly, I love to cook and I even live in a 1000sf house, not an NYC apartment, and I STILL do anything possible to avoid bringing new shit into my tiny kitchen). I actually didn't even know a yogurt machine was a thing, this is the only method I had heard of for making yogurt: http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2009/10/how-to-make-homemade-yogurt-2/

[Ynari]

Buy a machine used or borrow from a friend, and then see if you actually use the darn thing before you decide what's truly worth having.

I think a lot of the increase in value you get from DIY food is from increased quality at the same price (well, that's what I always got out of it.)  SO and I were subletting from a friend last year who had lots of kitchen gadgets, so we got to try them out and see what was most useful for us.

For instance, we used the heck out of their bread machine. We made pizza every week. It would cost under $10 for the ingredients for two large loaded high-quality ingredient pizzas, with mushrooms and olives and grassfed beef sausage and whatever else we wanted. Sure, we could have gotten two pre-made pizzas for the price, but they would have been less tasty and less meaningful. I tried making pizza dough without the bread machine once, and it kinda sucked.

They also had a coffee roaster (I think this kind? http://coffeeproject.com/shop/magento/roasters/fresh-roast/fresh-roast-sr-500-or-sr300.html) and it made such good coffee! However, I'm more of a tea drinker and so I'd just mooch off of their morning roasts occasionally. I like having coffee but I'm less picky, so $6/lbs Trader Joe's coffee is fine for me. Whereas the bread machine turned out to be pretty essential for me and SO, the coffee roaster would be a luxury instead of something that simplifies or streamlines regular events.

Also explore multi-use items for small spaces.  For instance, the Instant Pot has 7 functions and if you regularly use at least two of them (say, yogurt making and slow cooking), you come out ahead space-wise vs. having two separate machines. http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Programmable-Generation/dp/B00FLYWNYQ#

[Bicycle_B]

NYC has a lot of Costco stores, I have read online (sometimes I look for Costco locations when I plan a trip somewhere).  So you should be able to get food to cook at a nice low price.

Yelp even has reviews of different Costco stores in NYC.  Apparently different ones have a different selection.  Looks like you will have many good choices available.

[fiscalphile]

As someone living in NYC....

Meal planning is going to help you way more than any fancy gadget.  My fiancee and I meal plan carefully every week and we eat very well- for $35-$40/ week (includes all groceries for 2 people, we eat out very rarely).  We shop at Trader Joes (same prices nationwide, so they are relatively cheap for NY), as well as local Italian and Chinese grocery shops for ethnic items. I know there is a Costco uptown, as well as in Queens, as well as a BJ's in Queens- accessible off the M train.

Don't let the city culture get you to do lots of take-out, order-in, etc.! Expensive food is so accessible and culturally encouraged.... Be proud of frugality and ignore it :)