Is it cheaper to make trail mix or to buy it? (2024)

For years, I have wondered if it’s cheaper to:

a) make my own trail mix with Aldi ingredients

or

b) buy the pre-mixed Aldi trail mix

If I didn’t have a blog, I’d probably just spend the rest of my life wondering.

But since I do have a blog, I have a reason to figure out detailed stuff like this.

I bought a bag of Aldi trail mix, dumped it out onto a sheet pan, separated out each component, and weighed it.

This was a boring job, which is why I put some earbuds in.

Pre-made Trail Mix Weights

Here are the weights of the items in the trail mix.

• Raisins: 10 ounces
• Peanuts: 7 ounces
• M&Ms: 6 ounces
• Almonds: 3.5 ounces
• Cashews: 1 ounce (this is not a very cashew-heavy mix!)

Trail Mix Ingredients (Aldi prices)

I bought all the trail mix ingredients at Aldi, and here’s how those prices break down.

Raisins: $0.14/oz

Peanuts: $0.12/oz

M&Ms: $0.27/oz

Almonds: $0.35/oz

Cashews: $0.43/oz (This explains why there are so few cashews in the mix!)

Pre-made Trail Mix Prices per ounce

The price of the pre-packaged trail mix goes like this:

10 ounces raisins: $1.40

7 ounces peanuts: $0.84

6 ounces M&Ms: $1.62 (the priciest ingredient)

3.5 ounces almonds: $1.22

1 ounce cashews: $0.43

Cost Results

The DIY version adds up to $5.51.

And a bag of the pre-mixed trail mix costs $4.89!

So, the pre-made trail mix is actually cheaper than making your own.

Who knew??

Of course, there are ways that you could make this mix more cheaply.

• M&Ms are not a great price at Aldi (this is true of most brand name products at Aldi); by buying seasonal ones after a holiday, you could easily cut the price of the M&Ms by more than half.
• You could use chocolate chips instead of M&Ms, since they’re far cheaper per ounce.
• You could opt to make your mix without cashews, since they’re the most expensive per ounce.
• You could buy nuts from Costco and probably get a lower price on something like bulk almonds.

But the point of this post is: if you are buying all the ingredients at Aldi, it’s actually cheaper to buy this particular mix ready-made.

If you’d like to try making your own, though, here are the cup measurements of what was in the Aldi bag.

Yield: 5 cups

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups raisins
• 1 1/2 cups peanuts
• 1/2 cup M&Ms
• 1/2 cup almonds
• 1/3 cup cashews

Instructions

1. Mix all ingredients together. Store in an airtight container.

Notes

This makes an exact replica of Aldi's Mountain trail mix. If you can get M&Ms cheaply, or if you use chocolate chips, this is cheaper to DIY. But if you buy all the ingredients at Aldi, it's cheaper to buy the premade mix!

See Also

What Is This Brown Thing In My Chex Mix???