Man, hearing this makes me think of my buddy Dave. He runs a small landscaping thing and some guy sold him a $40 template pack for quotes and invoices. Dave laughed at it, said his scribbled notes on the back of receipts worked fine for years. But he tried it anyway and within two months he stopped losing track of who owed him what, which used to eat up his whole Sunday nights. He still talks about that stupid $40 pack like it saved his marriage. Cheap stuff can hit way harder than the price tag suggests.

Something people sleep on with dried beans is the water cost. Canned beans are mostly water by weight, so you are paying for someone else to soak and ship heavy cans around the country. A pound of dry beans takes maybe a few cups of water at home, but factor in the can, the label, the truck, the shelf space, and each can costs way more than the beans inside are worth. The dry bag also wins because you control the salt. Canned beans are loaded with sodium, and rinsing only gets rid of some of it. Then there is the flavor thing, and this is where it stops being about money at all. Once you cook your own from dry with an onion and some cumin, going back to the can tastes like metal and sadness. The math is great but the taste is what keeps you doing it.