Hi guys, I just wanted to ask those who live in canada, toronto, where they get their baking ingredients from. 

We have a baking product bulk store but that store is not cheap even though its a home bulk store. I am not a huge business so ofc i cannot buy from suppliers directly and get products for cheaper. 

Here the cheapest butter costs about $4/lbs, and eggs about 22c each. An 8inch cake recipes require at least 2-3 lbs of butter including icing. and if its a vanilla cake there is more butter than chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, all the bakers that i know use brands like Callebaut but they expensive and the cheapest goes 35$ for 1kg when you can get chocolates from grocery stores for half the price. Ive bought both and i know the expensive one ofc tastes better. commercially produced chocolate has a grainy texture and its gross to me. As i work from home my parents continuously tell me that i need to make my cakes cheaper bc people apparently care about looks and not taste. tbh i know this is not true but i do know cheaper cakes ofc sell more. ive tried reducing my costs as best as i can but living in such an expensive city makes it so hard seriously. I even reluctantly tried wasc recipes to reduce costs but there is this flavor in boxed cake mix that i taste every time i make it, and it just puts me off, and i cant sell what i dont like.  i keep seeing people selling cakes from home for like $20-$30 but it makes no sense to me bc where do they get their stuff from. 

I also want to ask if any of you pay yourself in the cake orders or just ask for the cost of the ingredients. if so how much do you pay yourself. I tried doing 15$/h but thats way too expensive for people as some cakes take over 10h to complete. so now i go between 8-10$/h. Do you guys pay yourself or is that something i should cut to make my cakes cheaper? 

Also where can i get gold leaf and edible paints that are non alcoholic?