Stocking Meat | Planning for Meal Success

March 10, 2025

Typically, Aldi, Ingles, Walmart, and Food Lion are my grocery shopping haunts. Aldi provides probably 80% of our grocery needs with Walmart filling in the gaps for more specialty items. Food Lion and Ingles provide quality meat for our family at reasonable prices, even better than Aldi at times.

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For a while, I shopped week to week and just bought meat for the week. This strategy offered convenience and light storage necessities but was not the most economical.

I have a small chest freezer on my back patio (we have no room for it in the house), but I got so frustrated trying to use it. Due to open-air conditions, the freezer was subject to drastic changes in temperature and since we are in the muggy South, drastic changes in humidity. These changes caused massive buildup of ice on the lid of the freezer, and I just could not keep up with chipping it off constantly. So for the longest time, I unplugged the freezer and let it just sit on the patio.

The freezer is under the green checked runner.

Then last summer, after being tired of staring at an ugly chest freezer, I sewed a slipcover out of drop cloth for the freezer. Still not in use, the freezer played stage to several décor items and looked lovely. Then came the holidays and all the extra food like frozen turkeys. Timidly, I turned the freezer back on wondering what the slipcover would do to the functionality of the freezer. I pinned up the flap beside the air vents so as not to inhibit air flow. Low and behold, the slipcover was a dramatic success—it actually kept the lid from icing over!

All that long, blogger-babble to say, I’m back in business with a small chest freezer, and this busy, homeschool mama who wants to plan ahead couldn’t be happier.  Today I want to share with you how I’ve been stocking up on meat, how I store it, and how it’s helping me plan ahead.

How I Stock Up on Meat

In the last month, I have watched the meat specials in the weekly ads. Then I made a mad dash to my favorite haunts to purchase as much meat as I could without feeling like I was stealing from the next thrifty homeschool mama doing the same thing I was.

The night before one of our planned shopping expeditions, I prepared the children what our morning would like. I told them the morning flow would be similar to our Sunday morning routine: get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast in the truck. By giving them advanced notice, this gave them time to mentally adjust to our unusual deviation from our morning routine.

I wanted to get to the grocery store as early as possible for several reasons. First, I do not like to be “out and about” during normal school hours as a homeschooler. I never want to raise any unnecessary eyebrows if at all possible though SC is a very friendly homeschool state. Second, I wanted to get to the deals before all the other bargain hunters cleaned out the meat aisles.

Once we got home from our expedition, I sent the kids outside to play while I got down to business…the not-so-pleasant business of dividing up all the meat (hey, at least I don’t have to butcher the animals like a real farm wife did and might still do!).

On this particular trip, ground beef was the prize of our shopping labors. Although intending to buy just the 80/20 sale meat, I noticed several other percentages of ground beef on sale. I happily grabbed some greatly-reduced 73% and 93%.

I divided the meat into gallon and quart size bags depending on what I planned to do with the meat. My family loves pan-fried hamburger patties, so I went ahead and shaped several bags worth and put them into gallon bags. I put 3 pounds of the 73% into a gallon bag for a future crockpot of sloppy joes for a Sunday lunch. The rest of the meat I put into quart bags and then labeled their percents.

How I Store Meat

It’s really nothing fancy…I just put the meat into my freezer. I try to keep similar cuts of meat grouped together in grocery bags for ease of finding. If I had a massive amount of meat, say from purchasing an entire cow or pig, I’d need a better system, but for now, this simple system works.

How I Plan Menus with the Meat

Even as I was putting the meat into bags, my mind was full of ideas for how to cook the meat. I then wrote down those ideas into my Homemaker Notebook and created a menu for about the next 6 weeks. By creating a menu based off of what I found at the grocery store, I am wisely using what I actually have. Then as I am cooking throughout the week, I can “shop” my freezer instead of making mad dashes to the grocery store and wasting time and fuel.

Here are some meal ideas that I wrote down:

 -pan fried burgers

-sloppy joes

-tacos

-beef and veggie soup

-meat sauce and pasta

-meatloaf

On Saturday, I went ahead and pulled out the meat I would need for the week and put it into my meat bin in my refrigerator. This gave the meat plenty of time to thaw, and the meat was ready when I needed it. (Please be advised that letting thawed meat sit in your fridge too long could be bad for your health. Please do your own research on how long meat can sit thawed in the fridge. I had several larger pieces such as roasts and chicken bone-in thighs which were just fine for several days and actually needed the time to properly thaw.)

 

My cooking went so smoothly as I was able to pull exactly what I needed out of the fridge at the time needed. I’m so thankful for my little chest freezer and how it’s helping me plan ahead and feed my family more efficiently!

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What tips and tricks do you have for meat management? Happy cooking and homemaking!

-Ashley

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