We rely a lot on the venison from Brian deer hunting. I also buy in bulk, and we have, in the past, bought a cow/steer from a local farmer and had it butchered. The last time we did that, it came out to a little over $1.10 per pound!! We also got a lot of the bones too...I made beef stock and froze it, and then we used the bones for our German Shepherd. When I buy roasts, I usually stock up on them when Kroger has them buy one get one free. I'll get 4 of them usually, and I plan at least one roast meal a month, utilizing the leftovers for at least 1-2 other meals. I also will check the reduced meat section at Kroger now too. If there is something there that is just too good to pass up, I'll go ahead and get it.

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~*~ Angie~*~
Wife to Brian
SAHM to Sarah & Andy 2/11/2000

I have started planning menus from our grocery store ads... there are two ads I look at and usually they have some meat that is buy one get one free. Since I started getting whatever meat is bogof then planning my meals around that, we have eaten so much better, sometimes they have jumbo shrimp bogof, and although I wouldnt spend 20.00 on one bag, getting two for 20.00 is a good deal, plus we can eat shrimp 2 different times, this method allows us to buy roasts, pork tenderloin, crab meat, and just have our freezer stocked with really good stuff, plus when I look at my grocery bill I like seeing what things could have cost if I had bought these items when they were not on sale.
Makes me feel good
Plus I use coupons for the rest of my groceries..........

I usually just try to scan the fliers and buy bulk size packages of whatever is on sale, when I get home I divide it and freeze in meal size portions. I also like to do a breakfast night,soup and sandwich night which helps. We have a meat market here in town, but it is not much less than the grocery store.

Use less than 1# of meat per meal, replacing with filler products. IE: I make pasta sauce with a jar sauce, 1/2# ground beef, onion, can of small diced tomatoes and a small can of sliced mushrooms. It makes it more hearty and isn't just a mass amount of meat & pasta - and a small can of tomatoes & can of mushrooms together is much cheaper than an additional 1/2# of meat.

Make sure to portion your meats accordingly. America is SO off kilter with their portions. Remember a portion of meat is the size of a deck of cards. That may help too.

Also, if you can (or can save ahead of time), buy an extra ham or turkey when holidays roll around. I'm going to do that when Easter comes, and plan to do it for every holiday. You can't beat 89 cents a pound for ham/turkey, and those can be made into SOOOOO many dishes, even just using a small amount of meat in each dish.

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I try to use a roast like that too.

One trick I learned from my Mom: When I want the boneless pork loin chops that always are around $3.50-$4.00/lb, I buy a pork loin roast (found this week for $1.99/lb) and cut my own chops. I spent $5.00 and got 7 (1 1/2" thick) chops out of the roast to put in the freezer.
I also repackage my ground beef out of the family pack into freezer bags with less than 1 pound per package for past I use only 1/2 a pound and for tacos I use instant rice to fill it out. In fact DH likes the tacos better this way.
I buy chicken in the big IQF bags and the boneless skinless breasts are always really big so for recipes calling for chopped meat (stirfries and casseroles) I usually only use one piece for DH, our 2 yr old and myself.

Here is what I do because dh is a meat person and doesn't like any kind of pasta and the only beans he will eat is baked and green.

Buy reduce meat whenever possible.

Buy meat on sale and stock up.

Buy meat in bulk instead of premade. Like I hamburger meat and make my own patties, verses buying hamburger already made into paties.

Add other stuff to cut down on the amount of meat in a dish. Like when i make chicken potpie, i will use use less chicken and more vegetables. With meatloaf i add rice and onions and mushrooms and salsa, so i can use less meat.

When turkeys and ham were on sale for thanksgiving I bought 3 extra and froze them. Now i have a ham for easter. And a couple of turkeys for dh to grill or deep-fat fry.

I like to buy whole chickens and cut them up or boil the whole thing and use 1 chicken for 2 different meals.

Buy the cheapest cut of meat and season it and throw it in the crock pot.

I stew meat and make "beef tips and rice" in the crockpot.

We rely on venison as well, I am fortunate to have 2 big hunters in the family. Therefore, I buy very little meat. Occasionally I will buy chicken but I always watch the sale papers and buy when its on sale.

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KAYLA'S MOM

I also buy in bulk (ground hamburger, turkey, whole chickens etc) and divide and freeze into smaller portions. When serving I also watch the portion size. I'll take a package of ribeye steaks (purchased on sale of course) and cut them in half. I roast up the chickens and then plan other meals for using leftovers like quesadillas. Every now and then the local grocery store has a huge meat sale where everything that fits in their paper bag is an additional 20% off. I take advantage of this and freeze xtra. I also find that sometimes buying a whole tenderloin and trimming/cutting it yourself saves money than buying the precut steaks.

I buy meat in bulk at Sam's Club. I had been buying the frozen skinless boneless breasts but the price has continuously gone up over the last year. So now I buy Sam's boneless skinless breasts or even better the tenderloins. They are in the fresh meat section and are about 40 cents a pound less than the frozen bagged breasts. I kept a couple of bags from the frozen and separate the tenderloins and stick them on wax paper and freeze them for about an hour then place them in the bags. We eat lots of chicken so getting it for less than $2 a pound is great. We have recently started eating fajitas about once a week. With adding peppers and onions that I buy at a local fruit/veggie stand plus the tortillas, it is a very filling meal. Another thing I do is that we occasionally order chinese and there is always quite a bit of rice leftover, so I will take the fried rice and throw some taco seasoning and salsa in it and voila! we have spanish rice! I buy roasts that are big so when we have a roast, I can take the left overs and convert it to vegetable beef soup. But we don't eat many roasts, maybe about every 3 months. I buy ground beef at Sam's too. I usually buy 2 large packages, sometimes 3. I then make my own burger patties with one package, take another and separate it into small portions. My hubby is a big meat eater, plus my kids are 11 and 14 so we normally use about 1 1/2 pounds per meal. I was using ground turkey but the price on that skyrocketed too, no we can't afford to do that anymore. The final package if I bought 3 that month, I separate and add to it for 2 meatloaves and meatballs. I normally spend about $75-$100 a month on meat for my family of 4. That is 2 packages of chicken and 2-3 packages of ground beef, plus dino chicken nuggets, breakfast sausage, bacon. Some months it is $75 and others it is $100.00 It just varies based on what we need. We rarely buy steaks because they are so high but at least every 4-6 months I break down and buy some ribeyes. Other than that, I do occasionally buy a 1 pound boneless tender steak, cut it up in chunks, cut some chicken in chunks and soaked in italian dressing along with some baby portabello mushrooms and make shish kabobs(sp?)