Home brew budget problem

How do you control / justify what you spend on homebrew. I keep spending too much !
I went the The Home Brew shop this morning for a couple of 11g packets of yeast, I came out with a bill for £90.04 ! So in trouble with her indoors.
Got 25kg Maris otter, 3kg Crystal, 100g of cascade, simcoe and southern cross, 6 packets of yeast, 200 crown caps, PH testing strips and a small co2 refill.

So far still arguing that whilst I spent £90.04 but I have saved at least £810. Based on about 300 pints @ about £3 each minus my £90.04 spend.

I am normally very frugal with my little hobby, but have rocked the boat this time.
"Two packets of yeast you said (£4.48 total) you spent £90.04" "sorry dear x x"

I will make a list next time and get it approved.

As far as hardware I try to make what I can with cheap parts.

For ingredients, I shop online for the best deals and buy in bulk. I'm not sure what suppliers you have available to you. My goal is $25 (15 pounds) per batch. Have you tried washing and reusing yeast? This could save you a lot.

I justify it by declaring how much a 22 oz bomber costs in the store ($5-10 dollars) VS what I can make it for (~$1)

I can't use your current excuse because I also go to the pub quite regularly and blow £40 in a evening. Then again I have the freedom of being a single man.

I try to save where I can, but I also write my hobby needs into the family budget. That way I already have an amount set that I can spend comfortably on the hobby. We also have an amount in the budget that my wife can spend without asking me--we call each our personal fun money (but I guess you could also call it our "peace money"). Add to that the fact that I make sure to brew something that my wife will love regularly. My wife also sees that the process of brewing makes me happy. Because of this she doesn't see it as a negative waste of money.

My justification is that I need a hobby to keep my self from going crazy. Almost every hobby has some sort of cost: golf has greens fees and sticks; carpentry has tools and wood; etc. All hobbies require time, by definition. Brewing, for me, allows me to tinker around and build gadgets, and keeps me at home while I'm doing my hobby - available for my wife and kids, for the most part, while I'm engaged in my hobby. At the back end, I get 5 gallons of beer - which pretty much makes it the perfect hobby.

Plus, I get the beer I want, and the price is lower. One of the bonuses is that my wife is starting to like beer. Not love, but recently she's had more than the obligatory few sips.

My wife and i are on a very tight budget (i'm the only one working so she can stay home with the baby). So we both have our own separate part of the budget for whatever we want to use it for, no questions asked... Everything i do for brewing, getting a coffee, buying music, etc. All comes out of that budget. Unless of course we are out and want to get something to eat, than that would come out of another part of the budget...
But everything brewing related comes out of my "no questions asked" budget.

Plus i just had a kid, so brewing time is non existant at the moment... so that helps when i can't find time to brew haha.

You don't need a hobby like home brewing when you have young children, you will find it's the best time of your life !
Enjoy your young family, it's the best stimulus life will ever give you , good luck.

Make a list before you go.

Stick to the list.

Similar to Rivenen my wife and I have separate "allowance" accounts that we can use for anything we want, no questions asked. She's a saver. I'm a spender. And every bit of mine goes towards my hobby/addiction.

Instead of washing yeast I make a larger starter and decant what I need and save the rest to keep it going. Less work, less stuff to clean, less time, less chance for mutations, and no chance for any crossover stuff such as brewing a dark beer followed by a light beer. This saves money for sure!

Certainly can't say your after some yeast and come back with a couple of arm loads of supplies though!

I buy hops in 1lb increments and seal with my FoodSaver and my grain in 50-55lb sacks which is much cheaper per ounce/lb than buying smaller. That helps, but I've still easily dropped near $3,000 in 2+ years of homebrewing.

Flipadelphia said:

I buy hops in 1lb increments and seal with my FoodSaver and my grain in 50-55lb sacks which is much cheaper per ounce/lb than buying smaller. That helps, but I've still easily dropped near $3,000 in 2+ years of homebrewing.

Click to expand...

$3,000 in just ingredients or in equipment too? I've done about $2,250 since February 2013 but that includes all my equipment and about 18 5 gallon batches.

Travestian said:

Similar to Rivenen my wife and I have separate "allowance" accounts that we can use for anything we want, no questions asked. She's a saver. I'm a spender. And every bit of mine goes towards my hobby/addiction.

Click to expand...

We do the same- but we're both savers so it works out pretty good.

He used to sort of think about how much money the equipment and ingredients cost, and worry about it- but now he loves the beer so much that he encourages me to buy sacks of grain!

I do buy everything in bulk that I can, and reuse yeast, so my "per batch" cost is very cheap. A 10 gallon batch now costs me from $16-30, depending on the ingredients. Of course, I have thousands sunk into my brewery system and I just conveniently forget that!

I don't have other expensive hobbies, and we have no debt, and that does make it easier.

Wow, is Yooper a babe ?

I've never seen HER, but SHE is a WOMAN.

Omg

fartinmartin said:

Omg

Click to expand...

Really?

My wife is a teacher, and I am currently a stay at home Dad. My wife loves my Brown Porter recipe, and keeps telling me to enter a contest with it. In order for me to enter a contest, I must have a batch available to enter.
So my trip to the LHBS is okay, as long as I don't get too spend-y per trip. I reuse my yeast, so that's $8.00 I don't have to spend every batch, and, keeping my 5 gallon costs right at $20.00. Sometimes my efficiency is better than my estimate, so I get almost 6 gallons of drinkable beer for less than $2.50 a six pack. My fermentation chamber currently has hard cider in it, so I will start cold crashing today, so I can brew beer hopefully on Thursday.

I have been brewing beer over a year, and with what I have learned, I need to learn a lot more, and feel like a noobe often. My equipment was bare minimum, a 22qt SS BK that doubles as a mash tun, a Zapap lauter/sparge tun, 3-6.5 gallon fermenters, a re-purposed propane burner, thermometer, and hydrometer. Within the last month, I built a IC out of 5/8" tubing that was on sale, ($29.00) a turkey fryer setup also on sale, ($20.00), and a 40qt Aluminum stock pot also on sale, less than $50.00 delivered. Due to the Christmas crunch, my next batch will break in my new pot, burner, and IC. At this minute I haven't decided if my 30 qt turkey pot, or my 40qt stock pot will get a valve first. I will keep y'all posted on how my new equipment break in batch goes.

If you call some breweries around you, if they're a good sized one... they usually sell defunct kegs for cheap. I got mine from Widmer for $45 each. Way more sturdy than a normal cheap pot as well (this is for saving money, not pointing fingers toward anyone) - $15 at harbor freight for an angle grinder and you're set.