How do you save money when buying meat??

Hi ladies- well the cost of meat is a killer these days and I can't find a wholesaler close by so what are your tips for saving money when buying meat?

For eg. Do you get pork mince instead of regular as its cheaper but tastes the same? How do you buy beef for casseroles? I buy the 500gm strips from woolworths but it doesn't go that far and shrinks down in the slow cooker! So what do you buy alot of? What's the cheapest way of buying it?

I did shop at the butchers for a while- I can't figure out if it's cheaper than woolworths or same price but better quality!

Sorry for the boring topic but I've got to change how I buy meat especially with a growing family wink

Hey when your doing meat in the slow cooker, buy the cheapest cuts of meat, like chuck steak or blade steaks, whatever they have on special - the slow cooker makes everything tender. You couldnt use it on the BBQ or anything - but great for the slowie.
With minces, i buy beef, chicken & pork (i dont eat any of them, vego), & i will do 1/2 beef & 1/2 pork or chicken. Works out a little cheaper & once its cooked, you cant tell the difference really.

dont buy meats already cut up into strips, you pay extra per kg for it - buy a steak & cut it yourself.

We are lucky where we are now, we buy meat straight from the farm - got a fresh leg of lamb in the oven right now actually...

Meat is sooo bloody expensive, i cant believe it - i cant stand it personally, but i still feed it to the kids & DH & costs an arm & a leg...

We usually get half a cattle beast at a time and stock up the freezer- its sooooo much cheaper than the supermarket. (but you do need a huge freezer) My only down side to it is I always run out of certain cuts before others but that just means I have to get creative wink

LOL - we do that too now that we are living the dream in the country.. one slaughter we get a sheep, the next slaughter a cow.

Hi

Im not sure where you live but sort of local to me is the dandenong market which I find fantastic for meet. Ill buy Rump steak as I find if you cook it quickly its very tender and diced beef for the slow cooker. You have to buy things in bulk but i usually find i can get 4KG beef mince for $20 which really does go a long way! Hope that helps and your able to get some good bargins smile

Thanks girls- great tips! Will have a chat to the butcher - its all so expensive these days!!

Thank you wink

Hi ladies- well the cost of meat is a killer these days and I can't find a wholesaler close by so what are your tips for saving money when buying meat?

For eg. Do you get pork mince instead of regular as its cheaper but tastes the same? How do you buy beef for casseroles? I buy the 500gm strips from woolworths but it doesn't go that far and shrinks down in the slow cooker! So what do you buy alot of? What's the cheapest way of buying it?

I did shop at the butchers for a while- I can't figure out if it's cheaper than woolworths or same price but better quality!

Sorry for the boring topic but I've got to change how I buy meat especially with a growing family wink

Hi.

I buy which ever grade of mince is on special but I dont buy pork or lamb mince cause I really dont like it. I also buy it in the bigger packs and split it into two and freeze it, especially when its much cheaper the usual.
With casserole/stewing meat I buy stewing steak because its cheaper. You have to cut it yourself but its not that much effort. I find my local super iga is normally cheapest for red meat.

One of the smaller igas has a policy of heavily reducing meat on Thursdays/Fridays so I drop in and see if there is anything worth getting then.

Sometimes tin tuna is good for keeping costs down. And tuna mornay and tuna patties make a nice change sometimes.
Left over tuna patties are good cold in sandwiches with salad and mayo for lunches the next day.

I'm lucky in the fact that my mum & step-dad have their own cattle & chooks so we get the majority of our meat from them these days but before we got our meat from them, I just bought cheap cuts and did lots of slow cooker meals smile

I just try to use it sparingly.

Most meals I bulk up with lots of veggies / lentils etc (red lentils and grated carrot are great in spag as they bulk it up and are great for you, but the kids can't see or taste them).

I hate cooking so it's always good having at least 1 'freezable' meal left over after everyone has finished eating. It's not really saving money on meat... but if you can get 2 meals from the same amount then it's effectively half the cost wink

We are getting a side of beef in the next couple of weeks $6.70/kg which is great as you get all different cuts heaps cheaper. Its more up front but saves in the long run. When buying chicken I tend to get it from the chicken shop as it works out cheaper and they do great roast chooks packs of 2 for $11.
I have been wanting to cut down on how much meat we eat anyway as you should only have 100gm per serve so have made things with lasagne, spag bol etc with lentils and the kids and DH loved it. Also was less oily.

I go to our local burcher and buy whole rump for $6.99 per/kg
We mince it (it actually turns out cheaper than woolies mince)We also stew it, cut some for stirfrys and some just as steak

Our main way of saving money is shopping around and buy in bulk when it's a good deal!

We always buy our mince from IGA. It has less fat than the Woolies heart smart or Coles 5 star and it regularly goes on special for $6 something. When it does we buy around 6 kilo so it lasts until next time it's on special. 6 kilos is 12 meals for us so less than $3.50/meal. We also buy whole rumps, whole scotch fillet etc. and occassionally pork spare ribs from IGA aswell. They regularly have pork leg roast for $4.99/kg. they are usually quite large but I just use the rest to make pork & gravey roll for the next day or something.

We love our IGA for meat and fresh produce but they don't have much in the way of groceries for us!

Our chicken shop always have chicken breasts for $6.99/kg. Once again only use around 500g for stir fry etc. Although I do use a kilo if making chick. kiev etc. but still only $6.99 and low in fat! Plus they're right next to Coles and Woolies. Yep, two in the one shopping centre!????

We buy our sausages from our local butcher for around $5.50/kg but much nicer than the supermarket ones.

The rest we usually buy from Coles/Woolies. Everytime DF goes in he looks what meats they have marked down and if it's something we usually eat he will buy it. Quite often it's half price or less and we used to buy one or two if they have it but now we tend to buy it all. So if they have 5 whole cornfed chooks for half price we buy all 5.

You do need a large freezer for this but in the end it saves us money.

Plus we always have a large variety on hand to choose from!

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it earlier but I would consider Kangaroo Meat. It's cheap and best of all, it's environmentally friendly. On top of that it's usually lean. I think it's a great meat that us Aussies are lucky to have access to. If you go to coles they sell Kangaroo Mince for around seven dollars a kilo. That's pretty good value. It tastes great in spaghetti bolognaise or chilli con carne...etc. I think roo is the best meat here is australia. It's lean. It's rich in protein and iron. It's very affordable.