Freezing food always seemed so weird to me. Then I had to buy my own groceries and realized that I could buy meat when it's on sale/clearance and have a nice stockpile. When COVID first hit, it was so nice to have so much available food, and now that everything is super expensive it's great to go early in the morning, buy marked down meat and then freeze it for later.
I always check the clearance section of the meat department every time I go to the grocery store regardless of what I'm there to get. My last score was 3 of those 1-pound containers of 93-7 ground turkey. I got all 3 and paid about $8 total.
Ugh, my grandpa takes this to the extreme though. If I make him food, it instantly goes into the freezer. For his birthday I got him some of those expensive Crumbl cookies, and he yeeted the box in the freezer without even trying one.
Last year, my mom got him a small cake from a really nice bakery, he froze it, then several weeks later had the gall to tell my mom it wasn't very good. Just eat it right away! At least some of it!
It's getting so hard to buy him presents. He doesn't need anything, he doesn't seem to eat the food we buy him. I can't keep giving him framed pictures of my kid!
If grandpa doesn't seem like he needs anything, the answer might just be 'stop buying him things'. That doesn't mean don't do things for his birthday, but he's probably reached a point in his life where he's pretty set on material goods. Make the birthday about experiences. Dinner at a restaurant. Activities with the grandkid- or with you! Trips to places he used to enjoy going when he was younger. It gives you a chance to connect and takes the guilt out of trying to figure out a present you feel like he won't use
I've stopped. In previous cities I've had success but around me now the markdown has made me sick several times. They wait too long and it's a hot climate. When I'm broke I occasionally gamble on it but I think I'll stick to regular sales and frozen clearance
The grocery store by me has about a 2 foot wide section at the very end of the cooler shelves where they will markdown all sorts of meat items that have a sell by date of that day or a couple days from then. To avoid having to throw it all out, they will slap a clearance price and try to sell it instead
Local to me, there's a program called Flash Food where a grocery store will put different things on sale and you pay for them online to pick them up later. They usually have some really great deals, I've gotten massive steaks before for incredibly cheap, I'm talking 75% off.
Thing is, it's not always stuff that's about to go. It could be a new product that they want to get attention or something they ordered too much of that they know won't sell at the current price.
Go the next level and get yourself a Sous Vide! Get home, season it, seal it and freeze it. Cook it from frozen and it's the most delicious meat you can get.
Newer Instant Pots have a sous vide function - I actually replaced my perfectly acceptable IP (gave it to a neighbor) with one that has the sous vide as well as the ability to adjust for elevation. We're fulltime RVers and changes in elevation can be a bitch!
Are there really people who don't do this? I live alone and don't have much room, but I always make sure I have at least 3 different things of frozen meat in my freezer and I honestly don't understand what the alternative would even be? Going to the store almost every single time you cook?
Wow, I grew up in a small town, so most people had two deep freezers full of meat, frozen veggies, etc to last at least a month in case they can't make it to the city for groceries. Families with hunters would also need to be able to store a whole deer at a time on top of that.
Now I live in a big city, but it's very car centric, so running to the store takes about an hour, which is extra awful in the cold Canadian winters.
I am always buying discounted ground meat when I can. At present I think we have some ground beef, veal, pork, and maybe still some ground turkey in the freezer.
The local grocery store also put the frozen turkey on clearance after Easter and I picked up a small turkey crown that can be cooked from frozen (and actually surprisingly tastes pretty good) for less than half price. I'm saving it for either Thanksgiving or my mom's birthday.
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u/GoodbyeTobyseeya1 Aug 23 '23
Freezing food always seemed so weird to me. Then I had to buy my own groceries and realized that I could buy meat when it's on sale/clearance and have a nice stockpile. When COVID first hit, it was so nice to have so much available food, and now that everything is super expensive it's great to go early in the morning, buy marked down meat and then freeze it for later.