If you were really poor, a bread machine is probably the easiest & cheapest way to make bread. It comes out to be around 25 cents a loaf, and you can control how much you want to make per batch. You only really need yeast and flour. However, the $25 bread machine is a small investment required.
Wouldn't making it by hand and throwing it in an oven be cheaper?
Although it depends on your oven if gas or electric, your time and effort, how much power a bread machine uses. The oven makes bread far better than a bread machine but a bread machine is better than mass produced, sliced, preservative laden white bread.
But you could time it so the bread is baked when the oven is used for cooking supper.
A toaster oven with small bread pans also works great and is more versatile for about $10 more. Among other things I made sweetbread this way for several months when I was in college using instant pancake mix mixed with cracked wheat.
Making your bread by hand is cheaper. And I'd drop the yeast. Just do your own wild-caught sourdough. (You do need salt, however. Bread without salt doesn't really work. And water.)
If you're only optimising for cost, sure. If you're also optimising for effort, yeast is a no-brainer.
The machine is useful if you're not good at/willing to/able to plan a bit. You have to do a number of steps on a schedule when baking by hand, there's only one to worry about with a machine.
