Here's a nice little example from Australia (beerbelly.com.au) about how brewing SAVES you money (in Aus dollars) even if you spend £2000 on the brewery kit!:
Sounds good, but my Wife/Husband/Significant other isn't going for it. How do I convince them ?
With the figures in black and white, and some emotional blackmail thrown in for good measure. (What?! They're allowed to do it!)
Here's the maths in a nice little story.
Joe Commercial likes to have a beer through the week, and have a couple of mates over for a beer around the BBQ in the weekend. Joe buys a box of (insert generic brand beer here) pretty much every week, and this costs him $35 each time (we'll ignore the petrol cost of collection).
Thats 52 boxes of beer. He heads to BBQ's at his mates places every now and again, lets say 6 times a year - and he takes a dozen beers with him each time. That's 55 boxes of beer a year @ $35 each = $1925.00 a year.
$1925 x 5 years = $9625 **
1 box of beer contains 7.92 litres of beer x 55= 435.6 litres of beer/year or 2178 litres in 5 years = $4.41 per litre of beer
At the end of 5 years, Joe has nothing to show for his money but six and a half thousand empty stubbies.
Tom Homebrewer also likes to have a few beers, and have his mates around. He knows that he likes brewing his own beer because it has many other benefits aside from cost savings, so he purchases a Brewboy brewery for $4700. To produce the same 435.6 litres of beer costs Tom $331.05 (based on the average cost per litre above).
So in the first year, Tom has spent $5031.05.
Each year, Tom continues to buy his ingredients and make his beer, and at the end of 5 years, Tom has spent $6454.00 **
At the end of the 5 years, Tom also doesn't have 6600 stubbies lying around the place the need to be recycled. He's a bit healthier, because his beer doesn't contain preservatives. His wife is happier because he spends a lot more of his time at home, instead of down at the pub, and he has saved $ 3270, all the while not missing out on anything. He also has a brewery, so he can continue to brew for himself & save money for years to come. Should he ever choose to not brew anymore (heaven forbid), he has an asset that has retained it's value because of it's construction.
In ten years, Joe Commercial spends $19,250. Tom Homebrewer spends $8109 ( including brewery purchase and ingredients for 10 years worth of beer)
(yep.....that's $11,100 saved)
and over 20 years Joe Commercal spends $38,500, Tom Homebrewer spends $11,400
$27,000 saved.
That saved money could be a house deposit or a big chunk off the mortgage or the kid's uni fees or first cars, voluntary super contributions, a renovation, a holiday overseas...........anything Tom and his wife need it to be, because they still have it. Toms wife is happy, so Tom is very happy. (Which is the way it usually works)...whereas, there's a good chance Joe's wife isn't all that happy, because over 20 years, he's spent just under 40 thousand dollars on beer, and there are 27 thousand beer stubbies clogging up the back yard....
Lets put it another way,
Over 20 years, Joe Commercial pays $38500 for 8,712 litres of beer.
For $38500, Tom Homebrewer could buy his brewery and make over 44 thousand litres of beer. ***
(And he's still got his brewery, which the kids will probably fight over when he's gone...
