Sometimes it’s hard to know what a good deal actually is, especially when confronted with a wide assortmen
t of meat cuts, some with bones, some without, some flash frozen, some untrimmed.
I’ve figured out a few basic “rules of thumb” as a guide.
Chicken
Which is cheaper, a whole bird, or boneless breasts?
According to the USDA nutrient data base, about 1/3 of a whole chicken is waste (bones.) This means for every pound of whole bird, you’ll net 2/3 a pound of meat. Multiply the cost of the chicken by the inverse of 2/3 and find the actual cost of meat. Easy “in your head” equation: multiply the cost per pound by 150%, or one and a half.
So, if a whole chicken costs 1.00 per pound, you are actually paying $1.50 for the edible portion. This assumes that you eat the giblets and skin!
Therefore, boneless skinless chicken breasts are only cheaper than a whole chicken if you can get it for less $1.50.
This equation, of course, does not take convenience or fat content into account. How much is the time spend deboning a chicken worth to you? But I hope the one and half times rule of thumb can aid in your frugal decisions.
Pork
A bone in pork chop is 27% waste; a boneless chop is 11% waste. So, 16%, or about 1/6 of the bone-in chop is waste. For every pound of bone-in chop you buy, you are getting about 5/6 the amount of meat that you’d get from a boneless chop.
Multiply the price per pound of a bone in chop by the inverse – 6/5 – to compare the price to a boneless chop. 6/5 is a stupid number to do mentally in the grocery store, in my opinion – so multiply by 1.2
So, if bone-in chops are $1.99, you are paying $2.39 comparibly for the meat part. If boneless pork chops cost more than $2.38, in this case, than bone-in is the better buy.
Beef
Beef roasts come boneless or bone in. (I’ve always found it cheaper to buy a roast and cut it into slices than to buy stir fry, stew meat, or flank steaks.) A trimmed chuck roast (bone in) is 19% waste. Make it easy (this is a rule of thumb, after all) and say 20%, or 1/5 of a bone in roast is waste. That means 4/5 is meat. Multiply by the inverse – 5/4 (125%) to compare it to a boneless roast. So, if a bone-in roast costs $2.49 a pound, that’s the equivalent of paying $3.11 for boneless beef.
So, to recap:
Multiply the cost of bone in chicken by 1.5 to compare it to boneless chicken.
Multiply the cost of bone in pork chops by 1.2 to compare it to a boneless chop.
Multiply a beef roast by 1.25 to compare it to a boneless roast.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I am going to write this down and keep it with my grocery stuff. I am always wondering if I am really saving money or if it is just tricking me into doing more work.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks! I really appreciate this post as it is extremely helpful. I never really took the time to consider this before, but with your handy mathematics… I love it!
Thanks, Lisa!!
PS. More pictures of Mr. X please!
We usually pay between .78 and .88 per pound on our chickens and boil the skin, bones, and whatever else to make up broth that we use in soups and other meals.
THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you for giving me a handy tool to figure the ACTUAL price of meat. This will be a very valuable tool to add to my cheapskate mom tool belt.
And just as importantly, thank you for some practical, real life ways to use math for homeschooling my 6th & 7th grade girls.
I was just praying with a friend last night about how to teach my 6th grader math. She memorizes concepts and then forgets them quickly. Never knowing when to add or divide…confusing terms. I start to fear she’ll never get it.
I’ve begun praying that I find some ways to teach her math by living it. Yes, there’s making 1/3 of a batch of cookies, but I need more than that. This morning I decided to catch up on your blog before searching the web for ideas. Praise God, this is an answer to prayer. She loves to cook, so I think she will enjoy helping our family save money when purchasing meat! THANK YOU!!!
Great tool to have. Thanks for posting it.
We buy whole chicken for .89 pd. Anytime I boil one we have chicken noodle soup (which is 2 meals since we make bread too), chicken pot pie (the 2 breast) and then sometimes a chicken dumpling which has all the leftover meat. Works out to each meal having $1.25 for the meat portion. It balances out for when we make carnitas or chile verde which is a couple of our more expensive meals.
I do that too. I freeze the broth in my silicone muffin tins, because 1 “muffin” is 1/2 a cup. Make it easy to measure out frozen broth to make rice and stuff!