I hadn't thought about that but you might be onto something there. Though this would also require me to do a much better job at folding. Most of these are going to leak a bit when cooked. Parbaking them as is will create some mess.

Or a cookie scoop.

Walmart brand cheese is pretty cheap and block or shred is typically same price or so close that it doesn't matter depending on the size. This was a 32 ounce bag at 21.8¢ per ounce. They don't sell a two pound block so two 1 lb blocks at 23.6¢/oz makes shredding your own the more expensive option.

FYI 64 oz block is 21¢ per oz.

I thought that too, and for pizza night (every Monday) we started buying blocks of cheese. It is the same price (sometimes more) to buy a pound block of cheese. However they seem to be on sale more often than the bags.

The biggest gain, is the block melts better since it does not have the anti caking powder added to it.

Some rice could also bring the cost down a bit

That's classified

As covered elsewhere in the comments here, the cheese is the same price for me whether I buy a block or the bag. This is all using commercial ingredients. You could definitely save money if you started with dry beans. But that's two hours of labor and even if you filled out a few online surveys for a dollar you could better spend that time to offset that cost.

Now if you were going to make a big pot of beans anyway there would be an economy of scale.