The most expensive grocery item that I buy is meat. Hence when I want to cut back on this bill, I look for great sales. One of those “WOW” sales was in my Sunday flyer this week. It also said that the quantity was limited and the sale started on Wednesday.
Since sales like this don’t last long in my markets, I made sure that I was at the store when it opened at 9AM. Many times I have missed out because the sale item is gone the first hour. There were about 12 people waiting in a line outside the store for it to open. I hightailed it to where I knew the chickens would be.
These were roasting chickens that were on sale at Aldi’s for $ .79 a lb. I got 6 of them for roasting in the autumn months. They should last us until turkeys go on sale in November.
I had 20 lbs. of chicken that I purchased early spring but it is now all gone. So I was waiting for a good price to stock up. I love the smell of chickens roasting in the oven. Since my oven is a convection oven they don’t take as long to roast as a regular gas oven. So that saves me about 25% of the energy.
Plus there are only two of us and I can get 5 meals out of each of them especially if I make chicken rice soup. We usually have a roast chicken dinner for the first meal. Then some kind of chicken casserole that will last us two days. Then if I make soup, we have that two nights and sometimes we have leftovers for lunch. That is why they call them “rubber chickens” because they stretch.
I will be mentoring two people who have asked me to starting in September not individually but by blogging. Today’s advice is just a little sample. That way everyone can benefit from my advice. And since I don’t put ads up the advice is free of charge. Use what you can and pass over what you can’t.
One of the things I want to do is teach these people how to shop on the cheap by cooking from scratch. The main component of this is buying when things are at rock bottom prices. If you track when prices are at their lowest during the year, you will know what time of year to buy any item. Turkeys will hopefully be under a $1.00 per lb. this Thanksgiving season. These past two weeks I have seen my lowest prices on pork chops at $ 1.49 so I purchased 10 lbs.
This chicken has never been this low at $ .79 a lb. in my area. So if you need chicken and have an Aldi’s, stock up. You can do what I do by roasting it and making a # of meals. Or you can cut the roaster up into parts – breasts, legs, thighs, wings, and use the back meat and little bits left on the bone for soup. This is a whole lot cheaper than spending $1.99 a lb. for chicken breasts when they are on sale.
BTW, my Top’s and my Dollar General already have their Halloween decorations and candy out and we are only half way through August. I find it kind of ridiculous! This and Christmas decorating get earlier every year. I am planning on staying out of the stores as much as possible. So I will just ignore all of it.
Tonight we are going to try the jarred Tikka Masala, with chicken and peppers, that I purchased to see if we even like it. It we do, I will make it from scratch and put it in our menu rotation. I will let you know what we think.
Till I post again, have a wonderful end of August!
11 replies on “Cutting The Grocery Bill”
Looking forward to you posts love learning new things. I need to check my Aldi's. That's what I do stock up on meat when on sale because it is expensive. Have a great day. Joyce
Hi Joyce,
You have a wonderful day too!
Hi Liz, this is Chris. Great article! One thing I wanted to add was that a lot of young people may not know how to cut up a whole chicken, but I have seen videos on YouTube that show how to do it.
Hi Chris,
That is very true but I assumed that most people would google it or look at it on You Tube. Maybe I shouldn't have assumed. When I do a large post on the topic, I will include links.
I am suffering since my large freezer broke. The freezer over the refrigerator is small. When the freezer broke, I lost so much meat. But buying meat on sale is the best way to lower the food bill. I hear so many people who will not buy meat on sale, just one chicken, because "I am not in the mood for chicken." I always ask the person, "So, you are not in the mood to save money this week?" I only eat boneless, skinless chicken, but I have a friend who eats it all, and is sooo happy to get cooked food. So, he gets the rest to take home.
Hi Linda,
So sorry about your freezer. Could you fit some in if your cooked it up and then diced it?
Dreamer,
It's full of that, too. One night I cooked a chicken in the crockpot because I had to cook up stuff. I called a guy friend from around the block and told him to bring a pot and get a chicken from the crock pot. He obliged. I had already cooked one chicken and put it in the freezer in bags, had another one cooked and waiting in the freezer, and the third one was too much. So, he took it out and was happy. He is a guy that handles his food frugally. He told me he makes big pots of spaghetti, ate it for two dinners then ate it for lunch for two days, and finally froze. Most guys would pour it out for animals or in trash.
Packages of cooked stuff fall out on me. I do give exbf things, but we can only store so much in either freezer. I lost two turkeys when the big freezer broke.
My daughter called the other night, she'd gone to our local grocery store (for something else) and walking by the meat counter she noticed large packages of pork ribs marked 10 cents a lb. obviously mismarked but she thought let's see and that's what she got them for. There were six packages which is what she took. She said she felt bad but would not have been upset if they told her no at the till. She had 6 kids so they will enjoy this. Last year in a marked down meat section I found several packages of lean ground beef at 29 cents lb. 🙂 not sure if this is ok ?
Hi JRE,
If they are marked down I would see no reason not to take advantage of it. I think we have all stumbled on something like these great deals at one time or another.
As a way to save money, I buy pork loins, on sale here in Arizona a few times a year for $0.99 a pound. I then cut up the meat into pork chops, stew meat pieces and one roast and freeze them all….although the pork chops don’t have bones, they are wonderful and easy to cook.
Hi Hilogene,
That is a great way to save. I wish we had the prices I had when we lived in AZ here. But alas we don't,