Food is so expensive, right? This is a constant topic among all demographics of people I interact with. I’ve come to realize that I take my “life skills” for granted by thinking everyone shares the same knowledge I do. Now I’m not stating I’m at expert at anything but growing up on a farm did drill home some pretty basic concepts to feed a family. Farmers by nature are frugal of course and they have the land for a large family garden. So over the course of the next 6 months of my gardening I’ll post some ideas to help those of you try to save a little bit on that grocery bill.
MEAT – I’ll start with this one first since it doesn’t fall under the gardening category. This is the biggest expense in the grocery store. In order to save money you have to think differently about how you buy it. I rarely pay full price for any package of meat. I don’t meal plan, write a grocery list and go buy those items. Instead, I shop the sale items I see when I walk through the store. Typically there is a 6-8 week rotation of sales. So if chuck roast is on sale today it might be another 6-8 weeks before it’s on sale again. When it’s on sale I might purchase 2 roasts so at least 1 goes into the freezer to be used in the next few weeks before it goes on sale again.
Buy meat in bulk if you can to save even more. We typically buy a side of beef from the local butcher but stores often have great savings on bulk packages. If hamburger in a 10 lb package is cheaper than a 2 lb package, buy the 10 lbs and then repackage it into 5 smaller portions and put them in the freezer.
Chicken packaging these days is bizarre! It’s difficult to find a store that will sell you a whole bird. You can get a package of legs, wings, or breasts but none of them combined in one package. I have a family that is split on the white meat/dark meat preference so I need both. You can buy 3 breasts, 4 leg quarters or a dozen wings but not just the parts of one bird. It just doesn’t make sense! The answer is to buy a package of each, combine and divide into two bags with both cuts of meat. One of those bags goes into the freezer.
The concept is to slowly build up a reserve of meat in your freezer so you have multiples of the same things and all items were bought on sale. This might take 6 months to a year depending on how much space and budget you have. The end result is I make dinner from what I bought on sale.
This works for pantry goods as well!
Liz Walker Real Estate 