Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Works For Me – Buying Meat

WFMW

My husband is a big meat-eater.  I’m not so much, but I enjoy cooking what he likes.  So I’m always looking for good deals on his favorite things like chicken breast, hamburger meat, steak, roast, and pork chops.

One of the keys for reducing the overall cost of buying meat is adequate freezer space.  My husband bought me an extra small freezer that I keep in the garage, and it has paid for itself at least a couple of times already since we purchased it two years ago.  Consider buying a deep freezer on Craigslist for even more savings.  Buying in bulk and freezing greatly reduces my grocery budget and ensures that we always have something for dinner!

Because meat is a bigger-ticket item, I find that it is often worth it to scour the weekly ads and consider making a special trip to a store that I might not usually frequent. 

But the best advice I can give to get great prices on meat is to make friends with your butcher.  Almost all meat departments will drastically slash prices on packages of meat when they begin to approach their “sell by” date.  The butchers in two main meat departments in which I shop have been very friendly and eager to tell me about their procedure for marking down the meat.  One store does most of their markdowns every Thursday, and the other store has a butcher that does markdowns every morning.  I’ve tailored my shopping times to fit when I am most likely to score good prices on meat. 

Of course, these strategies will result in fluctuations in the weekly grocery budget.  Some weeks I spend more because I can’t pass up a low price, but it works out because my overall prices are greatly reduced.  And that works for me.

For more works-for-me tips, visit We Are THAT Family.

6 comments:

Kim H. said...

One other idea is that if you take all of the sale papers and pick the sales that you want - Wal*Mart will match the prices of their local compeditors if you take the sale papers in.

Once we accidentally got 5 pounds of hamburger meat for 99 cents because the checker didn't read the ad correctly! We didn't know until we'd gotten home and checked the receipt.

Parsley said...

Good tip. I wonder...how long would the meat last...a year?

Joanna J. said...

Parsley,

That is an excellent question. Personally, I have kept meat in the freezer several months (6-8) and it has been fine. I'm going to do some research and maybe write a brief follow-up post.

Sonshine said...

We are big meat eaters here and I do a lot of bulk buying of meat or manager markdowns to save $$. With Manager's markdowns you have to remember to get in the freezer as soon as possible once you have it at home to get the best results for long term freezing. :)

I wrote a post about freezer storage on meats and other items here. Also there is much more at my blog about freezing foods here.

I do not do much in the way of once a month cooking but do make sure that I have a good stash of meat in the freezer. :)

Anonymous said...

we have a deep freeze, too, and it's always full of meat, frozen veggies purchased on sale, and homemade applesauce (that gets made in the summertime).

i just bought about 10 lbs of chicken yesterday!

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