SUPER-COUPONING: Meat prices on the rise

Meat prices are out of control. Steaks that were $5.99 a pound this summer are now over $17 per pound. I went to the store on Sunday and bought a bag of chicken wings. The sale tag said the five-pound bag was $7.99.

When I got home, I saw that the bag of wings rang up for $29.95. I was in shock. I just could not believe chicken wings were $5.99 a pound now. I went back to the store, and they said that the $7.99 price was a sales tag that had expired, and the regular price of the bag of wings really was $29.95.

How can we save on meat right now?

Marie R.”

Meat prices have indeed been rapidly climbing over the last few months. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, beef prices have risen 17.6%, with prices for other meats, poultry and fish rising 10.5%. Bacon prices have increased 28%! So why is this happening?

Many factors are contributing to this, including labor shortages, rising meat production costs, supply chain issues and transportation costs. It all adds up to higher prices at the grocery store, and there doesn’t seem to be a definitive end in sight to when we might see some relief.

Knowing this, it’s more important than ever to pay close attention to sales and promotional pricing. I’ve noticed that the disparity between sale and non-sale meat prices is growing rapidly, so it’s more important than ever to pay close attention to sale prices. When you see chicken, beef, pork, lamb or other meats dropping into a good per-pound range, then stock up on as much as you can reasonably store and use.

If it’s been a while since you cleaned out or organized your freezer, doing so may open up valuable space that you can use to store meats you purchase at lower sale prices. If you have the space in a garage, basement, or other room for a second freezer, you’ll likely find it invaluable for beating meat pricing increases. Having extra freezer space is a fantastic way to beat price increases. Instead of buying a couple of meals’ worth of meats, you can buy as many meals’ worth as you have room to store.

I’m a big fan of five-cubic-foot chest freezers. These can be purchased at many appliance or home improvement stores for around $150, and they’re about the size of a washer or dryer. (To compare, most freezers built into a refrigerator have about two cubic feet of storage space.)

With this investment, you’ll have enough storage space for a full quarter of beef if you’d like! The freezer quickly pays for itself if you consider the fluctuations in per-pound pricing that many mats are cycling through. To use my reader’s example of the chicken that went from a sale price of $1.59 per pound to a regular price of $5.99 per pound: If she only buys the chicken at the lower price, then she’ll save $4.40 per pound. Having room to store more sale-priced meats means that she won’t be forced to pay whatever price the store is charging for meat if she runs out in a week – or a month.

Chest freezers are less expensive than upright freezers, but some people don’t like them because you have to bend over and dig inside to find what you want. I’ll share a method that my father came up with to organize his chest freezer: Use multiple reusable shopping bags to sort your items, then stack each bag inside the freezer, handles-up, like a “brick.” I use a blue bag for seafood, red for beef, pink for chicken, and so on. Then, I can lift each bag out of the freezer and go through it to find the specific items that I’d like to defrost to make meals with, easily re-stacking the bags inside when I’m done.