How much time do you spend grocery shopping and thinking about meals and preparing meals? I assume a lot of time goes into food in your household.
Why should you keep your kitchen stocked? If you can afford it, buying in bulk or stocking up when items are on deep discount will save you much money 🙂 But you may be wondering how you can purchase meat in bulk. That’s where the food saver comes in handy.
I purchase my hamburger in 5 pound packages. When I arrive home, I food saver them into one pound pouches and freeze. I can make taco salad or hamburgers or meatloaf or goulash. All I need to do is pull the meat out in the morning to unfreeze.
Sometimes we purchase whole beef tenderloin on sale and Rich cuts the filet for me into steaks. We have found that with the fat that needs to be trimmed and the section of skinny meat on the end, we purchase more efficiently if we purchase the precut filets. When the whole tenderloin is on sale – the precut filets are also on sale (sometimes that isn’t marked in the circular). The butcher is happy to cut the filet the thickness you need.
Pork tenderloin is on sale a lot. If you have two or three competing grocery stores, you can get a BOGO pork tenderloin every 4 to 6 weeks. I have two great recipes for pork here.
Chicken. We eat chicken a couple times a week. Prepping raw chicken is a hassle since the cutting board can’t be wood and needs to go in the dishwasher for sterilization. And the counter needs to be cleaned. So I usually get THREE family size packages of skinless and boneless chicken at the grocery store at Sam’s Club. I trim the fat and pound the chicken then put my families serving size in each food saver package and freeze. I pull the package out the morning we are having chicken. By prepping a month or two of chicken at once, I save myself a lot of time!
Great tips! I’m all about stocking up. I’ve looked into the food savers but have wondered if the money you put into the machine, then into the roll bags make it worth it. Does it end up evening out do you think?
April,
Well My folks gave our food saver to us! But if it broke, we’d get another. There’s something to be said about stocking up and buying on sale. Thankfully we have that second freezer.
I love having something in the freezer that I can pull out. But some people feel it’s too much work. So whatever works for you 🙂
Heidi
$100 is less than I was thinking a food saver would be. You’ve really tempted me to get one! I know I’d love the benefits. Better start saving my pennies!