Does Couponing Really Pay?

Happy Weekend everyone! I am busy moving and I hope you are enjoying this weekends guest bloggers. It's always a frugal weekend with the best frugal guest bloggers around. Next up is Danelle. She is going to answer that question couponers get all the time...
 

Does Coupon Clipping Really Pay?

This seems to be the number one question people ask me when they find out that I teach a Coupon 101 class.

My reply: I average a 90.5% savings at the store for my family of three and two pets. We spend less than $100 a month to feed all of us, and that includes personal care items like TP and deodorant. How does that sound to you?

Granted, I have been lucky to find the occasional awesome meat coupon or hit a series of great produce specials but I work the grocery store selling cycle to my best advantage. Meat is one of those items that rarely has a coupon...so, what do you do? Look for your grocery store selling cycle!

Most stores have a 6 to 8 week cycle.

What does this mean? This week ground beef is on sale for $1.69 a pound. It normally is $2.93 a pound. If you usually eat 1# a week, you need to invest in 8 pounds at that sale price. This will save you $9.92 on ground beef.

$10 is $10 in my world, LOL! Just think of saving $80+ over 8 weeks on meat!

The next week, whole chickens might be on sale for $.49 a pound when they are normally over $1.75 You can get a whole chicken for about $2.00, cook it off and harvest the meat. This should get you 2-3 pounds of meat which tastes a LOT better than the 8oz can of chicken for $3.00 **Just think of this:
by using the sale pricing on whole chicken and cooking it off, that means the same amount of canned chicken would cost you $18 - you save $16!! (per chicken this week!!)

We like chicken for tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, chicken chili, chicken ala king over biscuits and more so we need to buy at least 8 chickens when they are on sale.

8 chickens x $16 savings is $128 savings over the 8 weeks that we add to the $80 you saved on ground beef. See how this adds up? 2 weeks of buying meat on sale has saved you $208 so far and we haven't seen pork, turkey, ham or beef roasts go on sale yet!

If you are not keen on this -- just keep this rule in mind...meat for under $2 a pound is usually a great deal for your chicken, beef and pork.

Now what do you do with all of that meat? Batch cook it and break it down into meals. Let's look at that chicken...I like it when the spilt breasts are on sale for about $.75/pound and get about twenty pounds worth.

Make a light breading of flour and seasoning salt. Rinse off 5 pounds of chicken breasts, pat dry, roll in breading and place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about an hour. You now have plenty of baked chicken for lunches, picnics or a nice Sunday dinner! Keep in mind, depending on the size, this could be 4-6 breasts as they are bone in. We aren't talking about 20 breasts cooked and staring at you in the fridge
:)

Bake five pounds of chicken breasts on a jelly roll pan with a little water in the bottom. Cover with foil and bake at 300 degrees for about 2 hours. Remove from oven and let chicken cool. Pull off skin and take a fork, shred chicken off the bone, package in medium sized containers to freeze for a meal that feeds 4. Repeat this with another pan of chicken...

Four to five pounds can go in the crock pot/slow cooker and rip on low for 8 hours. Do the same as with the oven, cool and shred! Keep in mind you can do this overnight - so you are prepping family meals while you sleep!

Now, what are you going to do with all that shredded chicken? I already had chicken chili and chicken enchilada recipes on my blog in previous posts under the recipes...here are a few more ideas:

Chicken Recipes:

-For fajita chicken -> 1PKG.taco seasoning to two cups water in a Quick Shake and shake well. Pour ½ cup of liquid over each of four containers of chicken from previous recipe (in vent N Serves). Freeze containers. Pull one container out & zap in a 1½QT. Tupperwave container with one sliced onion and one sliced pepper until meat is warmed up and pepper is tender.

-For chicken taco salad, warm taco chicken and pour over chips, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, sour cream, etc.

-For chicken stroganoff, add chicken to cream of chicken soup and 1 cup of sour cream. Heat in Vent ‘n Serve. Pour over noodles or rice. Add can of mixed vegetables for variety.

-For Chicken Noodle Soup, add a quart of chicken broth, bag of frozen veggies and bag or Reames frozen egg noodles to about 2 cups of meat in a large pot. Add a pinch of marjoram and simmer for about 10 minutes then dig in!

-Biscuit roll-up. Take meat/cheese, egg/cheese, vegetable/cheese or whatever your prefer. Place 1½ TB of mixture between 2 halves of a biscuit. Pinch edges together & bake per biscuit instructions.

-Shredded Chicken w/ BBQ sauce - 1 C ketchup, 1 C BBQ sauce, 1 TB brown sugar, 1 tsp mustard. Pour over shredded chicken.

And one of our favorites...CRANAPPLE CHICKEN
1 can (8 oz.)whole berry cranberry sauce
1 1/2 tsp. butter
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 can (13 1/2 oz.) pineapple tidbits, well drained
2 cups Chicken Mix
Combine cranberry sauce, butter, brown sugar and pineapple. Arrange chicken quarters in a microwave Tupperwave Casserole. Pour cranberry pineapple sauce over chicken. Place dish in microwave oven and cook 4-6 minutes, Makes 4 servings. Great with Rice!

Any favorite chicken recipes? Please share!

Happy shopping!

Dannelle

http://operation40k.blogspot.com/