The link for making your bacon is broken.

YMMV. I used a kitchen scale recently to justify buying the bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. After accounting for waste, it was basically the same price as buying boneless/skinless. However, the meat in the former is usually more tender. But I don't like donating my labor.

I need to try the pork loin thing, though.

This isn't always possible for the standard consumer. For those that have the time to scour the coupons and bargin shop, this might work.

When I cook dinner, I want to be able to start quickly. Cutting a chicken requires skill (read: "once you've done it a couple of times").

I don't think Boneless breasts don't end up costing more than buying a whole bird that often. On the surface, a whole bird may look cheaper on a per pound basis, but once you account for the weight of the bones, you're paying more on a per-pound of meat basis.

... or go vegetarian (or even vegan) and grow all your own food in your very own backyard.

We already do this, buy a giant pork loin and chop it up for ourselves ahead of time or a london broil and make so-so steaks out of it. Sometimes it pays to buy cheaper meat and invest in some marinade or marinade ingredients. There's also a supermarket near me (Redners Wharehouse Market) that's started running a 5 for $20 meat special. You can get $40+ worth of meat for $20, its great.

Logical. When there's workers involved it always costs more. For instance a whole chicken breast will always cost less than one cut into cubes.

Isn't this more of a lifehacker story? I mean, of course businesses charge for value added products. If you have the skill and the time, doing your own butchering will obviously cost less. But I think most consumers know they are paying for a service on that count. Its certainly a good tip for someone looking to save money, but its hardly a case of the consumer done wrong. There IS a reason the stores are charging more, after all. Now, if they inflate the price, that's a different problem. But just charging for the service provided is very reasonable, even if its a service some consumers choose to do themselves. Pre-cut meat is little different than frozen pizzas, cartons of orange juice, or packaged baked goods. You're paying for a service.

So basically they are saying go by the Alton Brown way of thinking?

Why not just raise your own chickens in the backyard?

[home.centurytel.net]

You gotta be careful... If you cut it wrong you'll get fugu poisoning.

@howie_in_az: But then you'd have to butcher your own vegetables...

Been doing this for years. And the bones/carcass of a chicken don't have to be waste - you can make your own chicken stock from them! So you'll save there too.

Buy our steaks in a wet pack - a whole NY strip package. This way the steaks are to our desired thickness. Same for pork. We can make regular chops, stuffing chops or a boneless roast.

YOu can also save yourself possible e.coli contamination by grinding your own beef/meat if you have a kitchenaid processor and meat grinder. It's where we get our hamburger meat from.

@fluiddruid: Makin' bacon, huh?

Maybe I'm biased because of my vegetarianism, but this strikes me as rather difficult.

@LBM: Seriously, wow.

You can do this for ground beef easily. I buy a beef roast for 1.99-2.50/lb and grind it up myself. I think it tastes better and you know that the risk of contamination is low. Also, there isn't much good ground beef you can get for that price/lb.

@crabbyman6: My family does the same thing. We also save by buying meat from local farmers directly. If you buy a half/whole cow butchered up you can save a lot, though naturally its paying all up-front first, in the long run its far cheaper (and healthier) than store-bought. We like to make our own sausages, as a lot of the salts/preservatives in store-bought ones aggravate my stomach.

bacon link doesnt work--waaaaaaaaaahhhh!

Argh. I hate when articles like this make it seem like it's a huge, scary ADVENTURE to do something as simple as hacking up a chicken and using parts other than the breast meat.

One of the best things about buying whole chicken is that you can remove the skin and fat to make schmaltz - which makes for the rest of the chicken being healthier.

@fluiddruid: Suggestive.

And I donno, I hardly eat meat so this probably wouldn't be a thrifty idea. Also I don't even know how to separate my reds from whites let alone debone a chicken.

We buy the pork loin from Costco and cut it up into chops/roasts. $2/pound is very inexpensive. I haven't gotten to making my own hamburger but after the kitchen remodel is done I'll pick up a meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid. We also buy whole chickens and I'll bake or put them on the BBQ rotisserie to cook. I can pay .89 a pound for whole chicken or $3 for just the breasts I'll get the whole bird. The only bits that go to waste are the bones, skin and wingtips.

A note: I like to cook and I am an Alton Brown fan. I also don't understand vegetarians/vegans at all but then my dad was in the grocery business and we always had good meat growing up.

Sometimes you can just ask the butcher and as long as you're buying the whole thing, he'll cut it for you how you want it.

@Applekid: Hunting vegetables is a lot easier than hunting animals. You don't even have to sneak up on them!

I usually take this a step further and grill about once a month. I cook everything I can possibly put on the grill meat-wise including hamburgers. I buy my meat at Sam's Club in bulk and do things like buy a sirloin roast and cut it up into steaks myself. I also quarter up a giant pork loin I can buy at Sam's (like 8-9 lb pork loin)..and dry rub it and toss it on the grill as well.

Then I grill ALL of it, slightly undercooking it. I freeze everyting in reusable, portion sized vacuum sealed bags. When I want a steak, I pull one out of the bag, and put it on a plate with a plate covering it in the microwave for 5 minutes. When the buzzer dings, I have a piping hot, perfectly cooked, tender steak ready to be nom'd.

@howie_in_az: But more fun if you do.

There's nothing difficult about cutting meat.

Taking a chicken apart properly will take a couple of attempts, but it's just more about figuring out where to cut and how to use your knife.

My mother made sure that I knew how to cut up and debone a chicken, and make stock, etc., before I moved out on my own. She reasoned that as a newly-independent person, I would need to be economical, so this was her parting lesson to me. And she was right, it came in very handy. I ended up a vegetarian, but I probably still have the memory to cut up a chicken.

the butcher at my walmart will do all this for free.

I rarely ever buy nothing less than a whole chicken. I have one in the kitchen at home, marinating in brine, ready to grill up tonight.

Cut it up, cook the meat, and use the backbone/carcass to make soup stock. 3 or 4 meals' worth out of a single bird.

The problem is that everything is so readily available and cheap compared to just 30, 40, 50 years ago, there's little true need for these skills (home economics and home butchering). You can still save a little cash and gain some skills, but for most people, they'd gladly take the time savings instead. I'm somewhere in the middle.

Same goes for pre-packaged salad. I never understood what is so difficult about cutting up a head of lettuce.

I just did the same thing with a whole turkey breast, instead of just buying ground turkey or turkey scallopini. Was VERY easy to break down.

You can also save a lot of money by buying bone-in, skin-on breasts -- I do this often, and the meat is tastier (dem bones add flavor!), more tender and generally yields more for less $$ than its rubbery, boneless/skinless counterpart. Marinate the sucker all day in some lime juice, olive oil, fresh garlic and kosher salt, and grill it with the skin on for added flavor -- you can always trim the skin after cooking to cut down on fat.

@howie_in_az:

True, but as a big guy, I need to take in about 3500 + calories a day. How exactly am I going to do that on tofu and string beans and not put out more methane than 3 cows?

Sometimes my time is worth more than saving pennies by hacking away at whole chickens. Make that most of the time.

I have been doing this for years. We buy whole chickens, turkey, pork loin and beef round roasts and cut them down.

I also look for close out deals on meat. I got a bunch of turkey breasts for .99 a pound the day after Easter. We also buy our hamburger from the smaller local grocery that grinds their own burger throughout the day. Far less chance of e-coli that way and it tastes way better for $1.59 a pound.

@Saboth: I try not to go over 1800 calories/day, but I suppose one could make richer sauces or simply eat larger portions if they wanted more calories... Some fancy Indian meals can get pretty heavy depending on the use of cream and butter (shahi paneer as made at my favorite Indian restaurant springs to mind).

Added bonus: you can use the methane to power parts of your home, ward off intruders, and punish the kids (and/or significant other) all at the same time.

I guess I'm not that strapped for cash - good grief. I'll get to it as soon as I get done squeezing my own orange juice, field dressing the cow and sewing the final seams on my version of Dockers....

Screw it - I'm just gonna go Morman.

Butcher your own? Absodamnlutely. I raise my own beeves and chickens. Got a brother who raises Black Berkshires and cures his own hams and hangs a damn fine prosciutto. Maybe some day he'll learn how to cure pancetta or capocolla. Doing your own means you know what you're eating instead of the forced industrial stockyard "meat" sold in super markets. And you save money.

Oh, man, I love doing this with chickens. I can often get whole chickens for 50-80 cents a pound, and it takes less than 5 minutes to butcher them nicely into individual pieces. One caveat, though: Get yourself a good set of knives, and a honing steel to keep 'em sharp. Using a dull knife for work like this is asking for trouble.

Oh, and save those spines; you can make a hell of a stock with them.

Wow. Where have these people been? Sure, you pay extra for the fat you're carving off if you buy the fattier meat, but once you're done removing it, you're still saving money compared to the pre-cut, pre-defatted packages.

@linus: Sure it is. This isn't something you sit down to do when you need dinner in 30 minutes. You do it when you get home from the grocery store. Then you don't go through the step of thawing and freezing again that can be a possible route to lots of trips to the bathroom.

@BlackFlag55: For the pancetta, check out Michael Ruhlman's book Charcuterie. I can't say I can raise my own livestock, but I totally agree that doing it yourself means knowing, and having control of, the quality of what you're getting.

@astraelraen: The best meat I've found to grind in the kitchenaid is brisket. Usually you can get a 10-12lb brisket for $1.25 or so a pound. However, you generally have to be in the south to expect to find a brisket at the local grocery. No doubt a specialilty shop would charge quite a bit more.

Why stop there grow all your own food and raise your own animals then instead of using money you can trade things for goods and services. There is nothing like fresh wrung chicken.

This all comes down to the people that have no concept of time=money. Even when I am not getting paid to do something my time still has value. Spending the day butchering my own meat is not worth the .05 per pound I may or may not be saving.

Some times you have to ask yourself when you are laying on your death bed do you want to remember the times when you took your kids to the park/camping/sporting even on the weekend or those great times you had de-boning chicken.

@bonzombiekitty: Yeah, but you can make cheap chicken stock with the bones. Considering how much store-bought stock costs, the saving there is yoooooj.

@first2letters: BUT! You have to rinse the lettuce! Did you think about THAT?

BTW, one of the most underrated purchases of the past 12 months is a hand-held shredder. I use it for pretty much everything from carrots to parmesan cheese to ginger to lemon zest.

It's one thing to pay a butcher to cut the meat, it's whole another to pay more for shredded products.

@bnorton: Why stop there? You should buy and eat nothing but expensive, tasteless, nutritionally void processed foodstuffs that are ready to eat right out of the package. After all, life's too short to cook or prepare anything. Every minute you're doing work is a minute you could be out at the park/camping/at sporting events!

#1, it's usually closer to $1.00 per pound savings, give or take, at least in my area. #2, it takes about 5 minutes to butcher a chicken properly. How much money are you going to make in 5 minutes on your day off? Are you really going to regret the 5 minutes you spent each Sunday evening cutting up chickens and putting them in the freezer? Are you going to say, "Damn, I wish I could have spent those 5 minutes with my kids"?

Home butchery saves you money, is more sanitary, and gets you a deeper connection with your food. What's not to like? Hell, bring the kids into the kitchen and chat with them while you do the work (though they probably shouldn't be helping with this little job).

That said, I usually don't do this with beef, because the savings just aren't there like they are with chicken and, to a lesser extent, pork. However, when chuck roast is on sale, I will buy an extra to cube and toss in the food processor. Best hamburgers can be had.

@DrGirlfriend: Agreed.

@bnorton: Why would you spend a whole day cutting meat? You're just dealing with one bird or one slab. That adds, what, 15-20 minutes to your post-grocery run routine? If that's too much, then it seems you have a much larger time management/allocation issue.

Plus, cooking is fun! Chopping vegetables is fun! Slicing meat is fun! Being in control of what you eat is empowering! Well, YMMV, but I for one don't mind being in the kitchen. I find it relaxing to prepare food.