Reposting - The original post was made on August 19, 2011. It is now October 24, 2011 and time to buy more Chicken. 41 bags lasted us over 2 months. We also ate beef, fish, ate out once or twice and a few times we had fend-for-yourself-no-cook meals. I will update after our shopping trip!
I can't fathom buying meat for $3.99 a lb at the grocery. So my sister and I go to Sam's Club and we dont even buy off the shelves there! We ask the butcher to cart us out a CASE of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, sometimes we divide it between our 2 families. This week we did not! I got all of this for $80 and some change... I will show you how to split it up, store it and have ready made meat... just thaw and cook in whatever recipe you desire! Simple... and more important - CHEAP!
I also bought a 10lb roll of 80/20 ground beef. I could get the 90/10 but it is about $3 moer expensive for the same size roll. We always drain the grease out of the meat when we brown it so in the end we are getting better than 90/10.
On the shelf, the meat sold for $1.97 a package (about 12 breasts) or $56.30 for about 40 lbs of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts! If you do the math, I spent about $1.30 a pound! That is a $.67 savings PER POUND!
The ground beef - 80/20, was just a hair over 10 lbs for $25.45 which is about $2.50 a lb versus $3.99 at the grocery. And they called it a sale! Chyeahhh...
This is that 10 lbs of meat divided into nice handful sized mounds. I ended up with 21 packaged meals. Which makes each beef dinner about $1.20 and that feeds 2 of us. We do add stuff to it like tomatoes, onions and some seasoning, etc and makes it into spaghetti or tacos and we always have meat left over for hubby's lunch the next day! Plus, you are not in fear of over eating portion sizes this way. Yes, this is a tad bit more than portion size would be according to the books, but it might look like less than you cook when you use beef.
Once bagged, I squish it down and roll it.
Then I place 15 in a grocery bag and seal it up and put it in the bottom on the freezer in the garage.
The meat is packed in 6 packages in the box.
To lessen my mess, I put all 6 in the sink, pull the trash can close an when I get through a package, I put it back in the box which will be bagged immediately and then put out for garbage.
I trim all the fat off them! It is seriously the leanest chicken breast ever! I am lucky, with Sam's the breasts are HUGE!!! They must be 8-12 ounces each on average. Since they take less time to thaw when they are smaller, I cut each breast into 3 strips. I used to bag those 3 strips in a bag.. but the kidlet is now eating meat so I made sure each bag had 4 strips. So Each bag had about 1 1/3 chicken breast in them.
41 bags later...
I bag it up just like the beef and put it in the bottom of the freezer.
Every afternoon around 4, we pull out a bag of meat, toss it in a bowl of water in the sink and it is ready to start marinating or cooking in about 45 minutes!
$80 made us 62 meals ($1.30)! Since there will be days when we eat out or just have sandwiches due to being busy, or even weeks we splurge on steak or tenderloins, 62 packs of meat will last us at least 3 months!
If you are buying meat at the grocery, you are probably buying a pack or two a week! What does that cost? $15 ... more!? You will cut your bill in half if you buy in bulk!
We are currently only buying for 2 adults and a 16 month old, if you have a larger family it will obviously cost more, but the savings ratio should be the same.
1 comment:
Had meant to read this post when I had a bit more time. I don't have any freezer space so this might not work for us. I try to buy my meats at BRAVO supermarket. Have you heard of it? I spent less than dollars last time I went on: more or less 1.50 lbs each of sirloin ground beef, one split chicken breast skinless, churrasco, stew beef, palomilla steak (thinly sliced), and diezmillo steak. It gives me a variety of meats to cook (stove top and grilling). Has anyone else shopped at bravo? Being hispanic, I guess it appeals to me for the various latin products.
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