When I tell people that we rarely spend more than $50.00 a week on groceries, they always respond with, “But that doesn’t include your meat does it?” I have a two part answer to that. “Yes and No!” We hit meat markdowns as often as we need to in order to fill our freezers! Sometimes we might spend more if we have hit a huge markdown. Sometimes we can go weeks without buying meat and still have it every night for dinner.
I know the approximate time my store is marking down meat. Between 4:00 pm-5:00 pm in the afternoons, and again the next morning between 8:30 am-9:30 am. There are usually always two markdowns before my store has to remove the meat from being sold. Sometimes the first markdown is okay but the second markdown, if you are willing to wait, is the one that has meat reduced to around 60% off.
What can you get in meat markdowns? Anything the meat department sells! Chicken, pork chops, roasts, steaks, you name it, and you can find it on meat markdown. The key is when you see it, spend the money to go ahead and buy extra packs, throw it in the freezer, then soon you will have plenty of meat to choose from week to week. Being married to a meat and potatoes guy, we have meat on our table every night. With two deep freezers, we have lived off of our meat stockpile for three months without ever having to buy meat during that time.
These are just some examples of what is in our freezer now or what I have purchased today.
Pack of 12 drumsticks for $3.60. We bought 6 packs. We also got Chicken Breasts markdown to that same price.
Pork Loins $4.40 each. We bought 6 packs that day.
Beef Rump Roast- $4.71, Bottom Round Roasts $4.17
London Broil- $3.87
And rarely do I spend this much for steak but dh was begging for Porterhouse so I obliged- Porterhouse Steaks $4.03
Now, the key is to make sure you are checking the register as the cashier is ringing it up. Sometimes if the person marking down the meat is not careful and is hurrying through the task, he/she will not place the sticker in the correct place.
I sent dh to pick up some chlorine for the pool and he called to tell me they had just marked down some meat. We normally get our markdowns at Food Lion but at times have gotten meats from Walmart. I told him to go ahead and pick up whatever he wanted so he did.
$70.00 for a pack of chicken. Apparently the register read two bar codes together and created it’s own price!
Remember the following tips:
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Check with your meat department at your local store to see when they do markdowns.
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If you have the freezer space, get several packs of whatever is marked down and keep in your freezer for meals at a later date!
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Be willing to spend over your budget one week if that means saving the following week.
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I would much prefer to spend $50 now on markdowns and not have to buy meats for 2-3 weeks.
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Break the packages down to whatever is needed for your size family before freezing.
Very good tips, thank you!