What's your best money-saving tip for meat?

I've heard that you need to pay attention to what specific day of the week your grocery store marks down it's meat, apparently it's typically on the same day each week.

As a general rule of thumb, I try to avoid any meat that is heavily cut up or processed. Always go by the price per pound rather than look at the total price. You can almost always save more by buying a whole chicken and breaking it down yourself vs. buying the individual parts and cutting them up yourself. If they have buy one get one free specials on roasts, snap those up - you can use those in so many other ways instead of just making one big roast. Stores like Costco sell entire slabs of steak that you can cut a bunch of New York Strips off of for only about $50 for the whole thing. I can usually get about 10 or more steaks off of one of those easily - whereas individual strip steaks at my grocery store usually cost about $8-$10 a piece.

Also, rethink the recipes you are using meat in. Try to avoid just having a "steak" for dinner. You will get much more mileage out of fajitas or stir fry's for example.

I know a lot of people say to save your bones for stocks when cooking meats, which is good - meat stocks are actually pretty good for you too in terms of nutrients. But whenever possible, I try to de-bone the meat first and save the raw bones rather than save them after they are cooked. If they are already cooked they often have a lot of other seasonings in them that I don't want imparted into a stock.

 

A very practical way to save money on these purchases is to buy a whole piece of meat and we take care of cutting and filleting. The same happens if we buy a chicken. It is preferable to buy the whole chicken and then we take the task of cutting it into parts, because otherwise it is much more expensive. In addition, this will allow us to use certain pieces of chicken or leftover meat to make soups and stews.

Anyway I agree with you, it is very difficult to save money on meat shop, but we must take that challenge and find other alternatives. Thanks for sharing your concerns with us.

 

I agree with Bloomatic, it's my best tip as well. Most people end up paying a little more for the butchering service, which is a relatively easy to do and you'd only have to ever learn it once anyway. If you learn it early, you'll end up saving a lot because you probably will be buying a whole lot of meat throughout your lifetime.

 

The best way to save money on meat is to go to a butcher. There are times where my butcher is about $5 cheaper then what local stores are offering. Plus, you can usually ask them for the bones to make your own broth. At times I either get them for cheap of for free. Can't say it is like that everywhere but it won't hurt to try it out.

 

I don't mind deboning chicken breasts to get boneless skinless chicken breasts. I'll freeze and save the bones for soup stock. I usually stock up when chicken breasts go on. I'll freeze some with the bone in and then debone others. It's a great way to save. This way you are not paying the butcher to debone the chicken breasts pieces. It's not hard to do at all. I've sometimes bought sausages on when they are 50% off and the best before date is that day. I will cook them immediately and freeze or eat that night.

 

My tips for saving money on meat would be to eat less meat. On average people eat too much meat so cooking slightly less meat wouldn't make a huge difference to you but it would save you a substantial amount of money. This works much better than actually cutting out meat and replacing it with cheaper proteins like beans.

 

I do a mix of everyone's suggestions. I buy from the butchers and from my local supermarket. I basically look out for promotions and always compare prices between the two. I also try to add to the mix stuff like corned beef and canned tuna, so that I'm not always having to cook meat. Sometimes I also get readily cooked meat like a whole chicken or ham hock from the deli, which I then have across 2-3 meals. Some it may even stretch to sandwiches.

 

Another current favorite is to make open faced sandwiches with slow roasted or slow cooked meat (or pressure cooked) in a gravy, served over toast with steamed veggies. All the ingredients to make the dish are inexpensive and its cheap if you're making it for yourself or for several people at once.

I usually make it with boneless skinless chicken thighs, since they are so cheap and cook up perfectly for this. Chicken gravy in a can or jar is only $1. Or if you have some bouillon and some corn starch, you can make your own gravy for it for even less. Simply toss the chicken in a little oil and season to taste, then roast it in a tightly covered pan for about an hour or so until it's tender enough to shred with a fork. Drain and shred the chicken then add it to the gravy and warm it all through in the microwave. Wal-mart sells large loaves of French Bread for only $1 each (sometimes 2 for $1), which is more than enough for this. Toast a couple slices per person, and serve the chicken and gravy over them. A steamed medley of frozen cauliflower, broccoli and carrots works great as a side, or you can put it right on the toast before spooning the chicken and gravy over it.

This works out to only about a $1.75 per serving. Almost everything in the recipe can be bought for $1, the gravy, the french bread and the bad of steamed veggies (Dollar Tree), but since you're only using a portion of these per serving, let's say we're at 75 cents so far. A pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs is about $4, divided by 4 would be $1, so $1.75 total.