Does Gardening Actually Save Money?

I’ve been a pretty adamant believer that home gardening for most people (myself included), doesn’t significantly save money. And that’s ok! We do it for different reasons:

• Gardening gets us outside.

• Gardening is a healthy hobby,

• Gardening is a learning experience,

• Gardening is a useful skill and most importantly,

• Gardening humbles us and gives us more respect for both farmers and food.

You’ll never see food waste the same way once you have a garden!

With another war, rising gas prices (which effects our food costs too!), and a cost of living crisis none of us can escape, I’m wondering if this is finally the year that a garden may actually save significant money.

In 2014, my first year of gardening, I kept track of how much my garden produced and how much money the veggies would have cost had I bought them at a grocery store.

I did end up saving money— kind of. I really should have added in the potting soil which probably would have knocked another $10-ish off the savings. Now is $270-ish dollars worth hours and hours of work? If you enjoy it, yes! If you don’t enjoy it, maybe not?

But let’s just take those numbers and update them for 2026.

So, it’s not as significant as I thought it might be… The total savings increased, yes, but the supplies cost almost doubled. 😮‍💨

I’m a much better gardener than I used to be. I can’t believe I didn’t get any squash in 2014. Something must have ate it because usually I have so much that I’m foisting it upon my neighbors, whether they like it or not!

I also now grow fruit which is WILDLY expensive. A small carton of blackberries is $3.99 and just last week I ran out of blackberries from my freezer. That’s almost a whole year of blackberries.

I also now know how to save seeds and to seed exchange with folks in my community. Although seeds aren’t super expensive (especially in comparison to buying a potted plant), when you buy a bunch, the costs do add up.

I spend way more money on dirt and mulch now than I used to. I don’t have a lot of patience with weeding, so I love to employ a good mulch. I also grow a lot more stuff in pots than I used to. So, I can see those costs really adding to the “spent” category. Unfortunately as a two person household, we will never make enough compost to support all of my garden needs.

I also was hoping to build some pretty raised garden beds in the front yard this year, but any raised bed gardening is way more expensive. I usually just put stuff in the ground because it’s more cost-friendly. And it works! Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to do raised beds because you don’t. With the cost of everything (gestures broadly), I may hold off again on this for another year.

All this is to say that…

What’s your experience with gardening? Do you do it for the cost savings or for the love of the great outdoors? LMK if you think it saves you money in the comments.