When y'all bake a whole chicken...

How long does it last?

Because I'm seriously thinking about (temporarily) bringing back the Naked Ledger and using it to illustrate my grocery budget every month.   I would post my food receipts and then make a daily list of everything we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I get this feeling that when people see that we spend $700 a month on  food, they think we're eating steak three times a week when in reality, I'm buying discounted pork chops and bulk ground beef (at WAL-MART, no less).  I meal plan, never leave home without a list, use coupons and price shop to an insanity-inducing degree.  I even price shop my friggin' Wavy Lays potato chip addiction, people!  I won't buy them for more than $2.50 a bag (and if I hide it from everyone else, I can make a single bag last an entire week)!

I think I could do it for about a month before it would drive me completely insane, but it might be worth a try.  What'cha'll think?

To answer my own question, I usually buy the largest roasting chicken I can find and it never makes it back into the fridge.  That's ONE meal for us.  If I'm lucky, after my family has picked the carcass clean,  I can boil it with some carrots and make some (weak) chicken stock to save for the next time I make rice.   

Comments

[alison]

$700 a month on groceries is reasonable for a family of 4. There are 4 of us and we spend about the same. When cereal alone is 5 bucks a box and you need at least 4 to get you through the week, there's $20 already! I would love to see this Naked Ledger you're talking about. Bring it back! :)

[bethany actually]

I don't usually bake whole chickens, but we eat a lot of vegetarian meals, and when I do cook meat it's usually more of a side dish-sized portion than a main dish. I know not everyone is down with that, though. ;-)

[Elizabeth]

I would say it all depends (with the chicken) on whether or not I let my husband just pig out, but usually a meal and a half? Like dinner and lunches maybe.
I LOVE the Naked Ledger and hearing about your budget - and I am also obsessed with stretching our grocery money, so I would love see your grocery budget illustrated and written out.
We try to spend $600 a month (including dining out) for two adults and an eighteen month old, and we always go over, so I don't think $700 is unreasonable at all.

[Laylabean]

YES! I miss The Naked Ledger. I'm not quite as disciplined as you are, but I try to shop carefully. All the same, it's shocking how much we spend on groceries every month. Ugh!

As for the chicken question - I can usually get one meal for the five of us, leftovers for one adult, and have enough left to make soup. We're not big meat eaters though - and yet I still spend a small fortune every month.

[Stefania]

Count me in as a NL fan! I roast a chicken at least once a month. We can get a meal and a half out of it. We all fight over the dark meat and the breasts are usu left over and with that i will make chicken salad or similar the next day for lunch. The carcass is always made into stock which i use as the base for all my soups. I'm with you on the grocery shopping. I am constantly looking for ways to cut costs. It's like a game.

[Kelly from Almost Frugal]

Grocery shopping has gotten insane lately. I spend at least €500 a month, being careful, for a family of five. I can't believe how much food costs now.

And count me in as another fan of the NL. PLEASE bring it back- I loved that blog, and it's one of the reasons I started trying to get my budget together, which then led to my own PF blog.

As for a chicken, we usually get three meals out of it. One roast chicken dinner, one picked over chicken lunch and then chicken veggie soup with the carcass. But it used to be four meals; having the baby grow up is really making an impact!

[Rayne of Terror]

We spend $6-700 a month on groceries and in the summer we have a garden for most of our veggie needs. With two working parents, I've been relying more often on the premium meats at the butcher, like pre-made kabobs and burgers.
A roasted chicken lasts 1 or 2 meals for us depending on the side dishes. I have never made broth from the carcass.

[Scissorbill]

Two meals. We spend $600 a month on groceries, not including paper products for a family of four. I've heard that frugalites budget $25 per person per week.

[kj]

I think the time you'd take detailing your spending/cooking/saving on the Naked Ledger would take away from your family and that's not a good thing.
You don't have to defend the amount of money you spend on anything---your husband (and YOU) work hard, and with your financial planning background, I think we can all assume that you are not foolish with your money (99% of the time). :)

[laura]

same boat here, a whole chicken only last one meal in our house which is a family of 4 soon to be 5. i would say we spend $600.00 easily with bulk paper products including diapers. usually we eat out once a week ahh give or take. but im also obessed with finding the best sale and coupons. FYI sometimes the local library will have what they call the "coupon box" and on our weekly trip i raid that box :) talk about a rush !

[Mom24@4evermom]

We spend more than that a month, although that includes things like household items--laundry detergent, shampoo etc. We have 5 people in our family, but $700 would not go far.

[CK]

I don't eat meat, so I don't roast chickens. I do, however, eat fish so I have a bit of comparison. We got a whole haddock (about 26") from the fishing co-op last night, which will last us for fourish meals. One half-fish fillet last night, left-overs for me for lunch, freeze the other half for a second meal later, freeze the rack (bones) and scraps for fish chowder. We are two adults and a (fish-eating, but not a huge amount) baby.

We spend between $300-$400/month on food.

[Tracy]

Ok, I have a family of six (point two, if you count fetus). I always buy two chickens at a time, because we go through one completely, and part of the second. Then I use the leftovers for...well - soup, or chicken & dumplings, or chicken casserole...whatever.

[Carrisa]

Hell I'm a family of two and sometimes there's no chicken to put back into the fridge. Of course we may just be lazy and are throwing out perfectly good chicken we can't reach or something. Most likely located on the wings! But we devour the shit out of the breasts and thighs.

But at least when I make a roast there are leftovers.

[Kelly]

I miss the Naked Ledger. That blog is what brought me to Mandajuice. My roommate and I hate dark meat chicken, so we just buy frozen chicken breasts. This works for us, but is probably much more expensive. However, I would hate to roast a whole chicken, and just throw away the dark meat. I can't feed it to the dog, because I am trying to get her to loose weight. Please bring back the NL.

[kendall's mom]

Roast a whole chicken?? Excuse me Martha (Stewart) but you're making me look bad. Here is my recipe... go to Costco, buy yummy already cooked chicken, go home, put in my own damn pan, when husband pulls in drive way conveniently pull said pan out of stove and wipe pretend prespiration off of brow... Serve with steamed broccoli and rice-a-roni that I also SLAVED over... And no, to answer your question, I never did get my homemaker's badge from girlscouts...

[Astarte]

A chicken lasts us sometimes one meal, sometimes two if there's enough left that I can put the (slim) pickin's into a potpie. I can only do that if it's a larger bird, though.

We spend that much a month, too. In fact, I don't know many people who don't. It's nearly impossible to eat healthily and spend less than that a month, I think, these days.

[Jenni]

We've been as low as $400 but usually average $600. (I've stopped keeping really good track because- PIA!)
BUT, I am currently ROCKING the whole chicken! I've been buying them 4-5 at a time when they're on sale for 0.79 per pound and freezing them. I 'roast' em in the crockpot with the skin removed because YUCK! skin is icky! I take it out, remove all the meat I can, throw the carcass back in with water and the broth cooks while we eat dinner and into the evening. I clean it all up before bed.
So, we get two meals: the original and then a soup or pot pie made with the leftover pickin's and broth. (And, homemade broth- YUM. Love it!)Sometimes even a lunch out of the leftover soup!
Oh and PS- bring NL back! When you do good, I cheer for you! When you don't do so good, I think 'see, it ain't easy for any of us!'. Either way, I miss NL!

[Becky]

I get one of those little rotisserie chickens and from that I usually get dinner, a lunch for Rex to take to work, and enough pickings to make chicken salad for me and one or both of my girls.

I've never actually budgeted what I spend on groceries, but in general I'm cheap on most stuff, and then I splurge what I saved on a few fancy items (like when I want to try out a new cheese or recipe that uses a bunch of crap I don't normally have on hand). I' would guess we spend between $400 and $600 a month, but that's really just a guess.

[Monica]

There are 2 adults and one ... god, 3 adults, but one with a teenage boy appetite.

One chicken = one meal usually, although if I can get the larger ones from the butcher I can swing it to two with a stirfry from the remains.

Our budget line item is $800. and includes everything purchased at the grocery store and food purchased elsewhere. Including eating out.

The motivation there is the better I do at controlling the costs at the grocery store, the more often I can say "I don't feel like cooking order me a pizza"

[Shan]

We're a family of four, and though I'm too scared to add up what we actually pay for groceries each month, I'm sure $700 isn't too outrageous. I am terrible about shopping frugally, but in my defense we are mostly vegetarians and I save a ton of money by rarely buying meat. Our main protein sources, like eggs and beans, are way cheaper.

[kheatherg]

I'm going to make this a short comment:

$750 a month aint shit.

God Bless the day i only spend 750 a month.

[Lisse]

Two meals (the roast and Chicken pot pie) for a family of four, plus stock for soups later.

Put the cooled stock in Ziploc bags and freeze flat on the shelf - saves room in the icebox.

[1hot&tiredmamat]

We're a family of 6 and we usually eat more than a whole chicken at one meal. I usually don't buy it whole though because we all love leg quarters and they are usually cheaper anyway. When I do buy a whole chicken I buy it at the deli. The rotisserie chickens in our grocery store's deli are cheaper than an uncooked chicken of about the same size by about $1. I don't know how they do it, but I like it. I buy the whole cooked chicken if I'm using in in something like a soup or potpie or our favorite, chicken white bean chili.

Our grocery budget is $866 a month (that's 200 per week times 52 weeks in a year divided by 12 months in a year). Really -- it's $200 a week because we get paid weekly.

I LOVED the Naked Ledger. It's how I found you!

[Audrey]

If I am going to the trouble to do one, I just do two at once. They fit side-by-side in either a large Pyrex or my roasting pan. It's not really that much more work, BUT I get at least two meals from them. And then: chicken soup in the crock pot with the carcasses.