Credit Brunch: Get self-sufficient at breakfast and save £££s

17 October 2008 - You needn't give up your morning luxuries to balance your budget; simply invest in a few key appliances and you can have all your breakfast favourites and still save money. A handy guide out today from Kelkoo, the UK's leading shopping comparison site (Hitwise UK) shows how you can switch from takeaway treats to homemade goodies, become more self-sufficient, and help beat the credit crunch.

Cut out the cafe and get yourself a home coffee-making machine, and you could save over £700 a year on your daily caffeine fix. Become a domestic goddess with a breadmaker and you can save nearly £1 on every loaf you make; an annual saving of around £200 for the average family. And if you're a smoothie fan who feels they need to sacrifice their average £3 juice boost on the way to work, then grab a blender and make your own for a quarter of the cost. For an extra treat, kit yourself out with a muffin tray and bake yourself 11 takeaway breakfasts for the same cost as one shop-bought one.

As if the benefits to your budget weren't enough, the homemade approach also has added bonuses for your health. By getting hands-on with your food, you can control salt and sugar levels, which can be dangerously high in some packaged products.

Bruce Fair, Managing Director, Kelkoo UK comments: "Breakfast can not only be the most important meal of the day for your health, but also for your bank balance. By making these few simple changes you can continue to enjoy your morning pick-me-ups but also save your hard-earned cash."

	Morphy Richards 47001 £24.99 Average cost of Starbucks coffee: £2.05 Cost of having a Starbucks coffee every day for a year = £748.25 The cost of a coffee machine is from as little as £24.99 on Kelkoo, and with the cost of the coffee beans works out at 5p per cup It only takes 13 working days to break even for the cost of the machine and the coffee Saving = £719.61 a year
	Breville BR9 Rapid Bake Breadmaker &poound;39.99 Ingredients for bread: 82p for flour and 52p for yeast, plus a little butter, sugar and salt (negligible). Enough for 6 loaves works out to be approximately 22p a loaf. Average price for a loaf of bread = £1.20 Saving = £260 a year for an average family of 4
	Muffin tray and 100 cases £5.19 Ingredients for banana muffins: banana, milk, sunflower oil, nutmeg, brown sugar, flour. 50 muffins cost approximately £6 To make each muffin costs 12p Average takeaway muffin in coffee shop = £1.40 Saving = £467.20 a year
	SB105 Mini Smoothie Maker in GreySilver £30.49 Fruit from market stall - buy yourself some bananas, a pineapple and some orange juice for £3. Makes 4. Average takeaway smoothie = £3 Saving = £821.25 a year