Have you ever gone grocery shopping, passed by the baking section, and couldn’t help spending the extra $1 to $2 on buying a box of cake or brownie mix?

Or maybe you’ve been to the refrigerator section and happened to purchase one of those tins of Pillsbury cinnamon roll or biscuit dough that pop whenever you open them.

Well, you could be saving yourself the money by making some things at home– such as cookies and cake– or save yourself the time and just go for something that will only require you to add eggs and oil to a mix.

Here are the top 5 things you shouldn’t buy pre-made. 

1. Pie crust 

Pre-made and rolled out pie crust is one of the most tedious things I encounter at any baking goods section. First of all, who in their right mind would want to pay two or more dollars for something that takes you under 20 minutes to make? Pie crust is essentially just butter and flour. The reason why it’s so flaky is because the butter is kept cold or chilled, which will give any dough flaky, crisp layers. To make a simple buttery and flaky pie crust, simply just cut-in 1 and 1/2 cup flour and 1 teaspoon sugar with 1 stick of butter that has been chilled and cut into cubes (use a pastry blender to ground or cut the butter into the flour). Once you have incorporated the butter to the point where it resembles coarse crumbs or pea-sized pieces in the flour, gradually add 1 tablespoon of ice cold water. Once a dough has formed, cover with plastic wrap and let chill for 30 minutes before rolling out.

2. Chocolate chip cookie dough

Unless you were planning on just binge-eating the tub of dough for the heck of it, you should always make your own chocolate chip cookie dough. Making your own dough gives the cookies a much fresher flavor. Plus, you get to control the amount of sodium, sugar, and fat (butter) in the dough. If you have brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, chocolate chips, and flour sitting around, there’s no reason you shouldn’t go for it. It’s fun and requires no waiting time aside from the 10-15 minutes it has to cook in the oven for.

3. Hand pies or toaster strudels

Listen, I get it, they taste so darn good. But do you know how much money you could save yourself making your own mini hand pies and strudels at home? Those strudels or pies are essentially made from pie crust dough, which is why they’re so flaky. And as for the filling, it’s all jam! These little suckers are probably the most money-laundering treats any store could lure customers with. Want an apple toaster strudel? Simply just roll out pie crust dough (homemade of course), and cut into 2 small, equally sized rectangles. Place a tablespoons of apple puree or apple jam in the center, lay the other rectangle on top, seal the sides with a fork, brush with egg wash, and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Have these made before hand so the following morning for breakfast you can just pop one in the toaster to reheat it.

4. Apple pie filling

Another pet peeve of mine is seeing people buy those cans of apple pie filling. They’re full of preservatives and are never fresh. If you have sugar, apples, and cinnamon at home, there’s no reason why you can’t make a simple and delicious apple pie filling with just these three everyday ingredients! Just melt butter in a skillet, cook down the apples until tender, and combine sugar and cinnamon with cooked apples to create a ooey-gooey, sweet smelling pie filling.

5. Alfredo sauce 

Something about store-bought Alfredo sauce freaks me out. I bought a package of Alfredo sauce a couple months ago. Not only are pre-made Alfredo sauces bland , but they are extremely chunky for some reason, which means you have to add water or milk to loosen it up, making it taste no better than it already did. Alfredo sauce is simply just heavy cream, butter, garlic powder, Parmesan, and parsley.

Obviously, from a cook’s perspective, you should make most things at home. But there are even times when I just call it a day and buy certain pre-made foods.

Some things are just too time consuming to make all by yourself, or they just take up too much ingredients. That said:

Here are the top 5 foods that you should buy.

1. Puff Pastry

Unless you were too eager to gain the experience and bake like I was, never attempt to make your own puff pastry! I made it once, and sure it was fun and it turned out just like the Pepperidge farms puff pastry sheets we are all so use to using, but it was a major time consumer! Homemade puff pastry requires you to make a buttery dough (with chilled butter for flakiness and flour), but it’s not like your average pastry dough where you cut in butter with flour, water it down and wrap it. Puff pastry requires you to make the dough, roll it out, wrap it up, place in the freezer for 30 minutes to keep the butter in the dough  chilled and workable, after 30 minutes roll it out again into a long sheet, fold, wrap, freeze, and repeat until you have rolled the dough out for a total of 8 times! All that just to make sure the butter is incorporated and the dough could puff and have all those layers. Unless you have 3+ hours on your hands like I did, save yourself the labor and buy it from a store.

2. Broth or stocks

Let’s get one thing straight. Broth or stock is made in a large stockpot filled with boiling water with boiled down vegetables or meat that have released their flavors into the liquid. Not only does broth and stock take a while to make — it must simmer for 2-3 hours — but it takes up most of your arsenal of veggies. To make broth, you basically chop up three essential vegetables: onions, carrots, and celery. Throw them in a stockpot, and for more flavor, add any vegetable you have around such as bell peppers, turnips, broccoli, etc. Fill the pan loaded with all the vegetables from your kitchen with water, bring to a boil, and then let it simmer for hours. And by the time you’re done, you have 8 cups of broth… and you’re drained of all the vegetables you could hold in your kitchen.

3. French fries

French fries are typically eaten for lunch or as a snack. It’s something you want to be prepared fast and enjoy right when the craving hits. But the truth is, the process takes longer than you think. You can’t just come home from school and have a batch of french fried whipped up by 30 minutes. You have to peel the potatoes, precisely cut them into batonnets (French word for thick, matchstick-like cuts), let them rest in cool water for 20 or more minutes to allow the starch to release from the potatoes, and then deep fry them in two batches to get the golden crisp color. This means you would have to deep fry all the fries for only a couple of minutes until slightly yellow, pat dry, and deep fry again for a good couple of minutes until crisp and golden. Also, you must combine ingredients such as sugar, paprika, and garlic powder to toss the warm fries in and coat them with. Unless you’re planning to make these on the weekends, these will take up time on a already busy weekday.

4. Pasta

As someone who has attended about 3 pasta making lessons at culinary classes outside of school, I can definitely tell you it is not worth the time. It taste just like the store bought pasta, but takes up so much time! Although the dough only requires 4 simple ingredients — flour, eggs, salt, olive oil — there is much more than just making the dough and shaping it. You have to knead the dough smooth in a certain clockwise motion, let it sit for 30 minutes to stiffen, roll it out 7 different times on a pasta roller, which I doubt most people just have sitting at home, let it dry on a pasta drying rack, and then finally boil it.

5. Bread

Bread might be one of the easiest things to make out there, but it takes patience, which ironically, I don’t have much of, unless I’m making something satisfying or desirable that’s worth waiting for, like cinnamon rolls. But unlike other recipes that require yeast, making bread requires three rises, which means after kneading and making the dough, you have to back off three separate times for a couple of hours to allow the bread to rise.