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Is It Cost Effective to Keep Chickens?

We have been wanting to explore keeping chickens (click here for an interview with the chicken lady) for a while. It is a project that would be educational, and provide us with some fresh eggs. Our environment is perfect for it. We live on two semi-rural acres and would have plenty of space for a coop. Many of our friends already have chickens. It has been a trend in this area for a number of years. They are happy to answer all of questions about raising chickens, what works or doesn’t work, how to keep the foxes out of the … Continue reading →

When Your Family is Tired of Chicken

You know that I love cooking with chicken. It is a relatively inexpensive protein source, it is lean, and it is versatile. This week, however, I think we have hit a big wall, a chicken wall so to speak. (Boy, I bet that conjures up all sorts of funny imagery, huh?) Anyway, it started out innocently enough. Our local grocery store was offering whole name brand fat chicken roasters for $.79 a pound. Around here, that is a very good thing. I like the roasters because after cooking them, I can also make homemade gravy, chicken stock and have plenty … Continue reading →

How to Save Money on Chicken

Chicken can be a good low cost source of protein for your family. It’s versatility makes it easy to use for main meals or even side salads. Chicken freezes well, too, either raw or cooked. Still, even though chicken can be inexpensive compared to other meat sources, the prices have been steadily increasing in the last few years. Getting your food budget to stretch as far as it can go is important for a family. With that in mind, here are some ways that you can make the most of your resources and save money when you buy chicken. The … Continue reading →

Raising Chickens: Interview with the Chicken Lady

Have you ever considered raising chickens? Not only can this be a fun past time, but it can also be very frugal. Imagine, you can have free, organic (if you wish) eggs for free whenever you want them. Chickens can also control bugs and weeds on your property. And, from what I recently learned, raising chickens isn’t as hard as I thought. They also don’t cost very much to raise. I have a special treat for you today. One of our very talented Families.com members has been raising chickens and is very knowledgeable about the subject. She is going to … Continue reading →

Stretching Out a Meal Kit

Prepackaged meal kits can be fun and easy for busy families, but they hardly provide enough food for most families. There are some inexpensive ways to stretch out prepackaged meal kits and make sure that everyone has enough to eat. Let me first start by saying that I normally pass up those prepackaged meal kits because they can cost a lot of money for little food. Often, I can make my own version of these types of kits just by grouping things in my pantry that you find when you open the box of one of these kits. I’ve written … Continue reading →

Muffin Tins and Chicken Stock

If you don’t have a muffin tin, go right out to your local yard sale or thrift store now and pick one up. Or, better yet, pick up several. You’ll be sure to find quite a few of the muffin tins available of pennies. There are so many ways that muffin tins can save you money. Here is one of my favorites. Make some broth muffins! Whenever I cook a chicken, I try to get as many meals out of it as possible (see this article about stretching a chicken, to learn more). But one of the issues I would … Continue reading →

Rubber Chicken: Stretch that Bird!

Have you ever heard of rubber chicken? No, I’m not talking about a real rubber chicken that used to be all the rage among 80’s comics. Nor am I talking about a badly prepared chicken dish, like the one you might get from the hospital cafeteria. No, having a rubber chicken means stretching out one little chicken to make several meals. In other words, stretch out that chicken until there is nothing left that you can get from it. There are a couple of ways to do it, but this is how my family generally stretches a chicken to get … Continue reading →

How to Make Food Out of Nothing

I frequently mention in my blog post how most of use waste about 25 percent of the food that we buy. This is a high number of course, but you know what, if you consider all of the additional things that we throw away as not worth anything of value, this number would be much higher. I’m not even talking about leftovers here, although saving those and making them into meals is important. No, today I want to talk about the many meals that we can make out of the “nothing” food that normally gets tossed. Bitten apple Your child … Continue reading →

Easy Food to Cook from Scratch

If you want to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to cooking from scratch, go after those items that are over inflated at the grocery store. A few simple ingredients, and you can shave 50 percent or more off of the cost of making these meals and food items. Concentrate your effort here to reap the biggest rewards in savings. Cream Soups Store-bought cream soups are usually laden with all sorts of extra salt, fat, preservatives and chemical flavor enhancers. Homemade cream soups are easy to make, better tasting and cheaper than the store bought brands. … Continue reading →

Whole Turkey Versus Turkey Breasts: Cost Comparison

In an article from last week, I talked about the great value of a whole turkey. One question that came up was about buying turkey breasts instead, for a family that won’t eat the dark meat. So, I thought I would do a cost comparison between the price of a whole turkey and purchasing turkey breasts, so see where the better value lays. After roasting our whole turkey, we cut off the breasts and weighed them to do the cost breakdown. This isn’t a completely fair comparison for two reasons. We are comparing a whole turkey that is not on … Continue reading →