butcher box vs mail order meals

[Jmort1754]

Anyone ever do these? Does it end up cheaper in the end?

I know some family does misfit garden or whatever that is and they like that.

 

[MJB]

Butcher Box looks good but i have no experience

 

[Okhotnik]

You can shop in the outer aisles of grocery stores for protein and veggies, fruits ,eggs, dairy and save 50 per cent over butcher box. My friend does it and I checked out and just laughed. Are people really this helpless? lol. Buy a chest freezer and buy and store stuff on sale. I hear the internet has some recipe web sites. Cant confirm

 

[fngTony]

We’re trying hello fresh. Cost is on average $8.50 a serving but that would be $20+ plate at a restaurant. We have an erratic schedule with two horses teenagers to feed. The meals come with everything including seasoning and they’re tasty, a happy medium between frugal shopping and eating out. We used to be frugal and plan every meal and grocery trip. Life gets busy then we started eating poorly out of convenience. To get back on track we’re keeping the recipes that come with the ordered meals to hopefully replicate them at a lower cost. Another reason we started to use them is that we were bored with food but afraid to spend money on new stuff to try or dealing with going out.

….heading of to Costco, wish me luck

 

[Ucsdryder]

We’re trying hello fresh. Cost is on average $8.50 a serving but that would be $20+ plate at a restaurant. We have an erratic schedule with two horses teenagers to feed. The meals come with everything including seasoning and they’re tasty, a happy medium between frugal shopping and eating out. We used to be frugal and plan every meal and grocery trip. Life gets busy then we started eating poorly out of convenience. To get back on track we’re keeping the recipes that come with the ordered meals to hopefully replicate them at a lower cost. Another reason we started to use them is that we were bored with food but afraid to spend money on new stuff to try or dealing with going out.

….heading of to Costco, wish me luck

Costco? Say bye bye $300 dollars. At least you can get a 1.50 hot dog!!!!

 

[Mturney]

We got a few hello fresh boxes. They were good so we kept the recipe and bought the ingredients ourselves. Same easy meals at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Theringworm]

We have done Butcher Box for the past 3 years after we had had enough of the declining quality and taste of regular store-bought chicken. We do the custom box that costs us $169.00/month which includes shipping and no additional fees. It's mainly all chicken breasts, with a couple packages of bacon. They typically throw in a couple freebies like steaks, pork chops or ground beef to try and get you exposed to other offerings I would guess.

Is it cheaper than buying organic chicken at the grocery store, I honestly haven't compared the pricing. It's convenient and during COVID we never worried about not being able to find meat at the grocery store. COSTCO is a 100 mile drive from us one way. So a trip there and back is 3/4 of the cost for the Box itself.

It's worth it for us now, is it cheaper, I don't know. Are there better alternatives maybe. I'll get around to doing a comparison at some point. For now, it works. We did have an issue where someone throughout the delivery process stole all of the chicken breast out of the box, leaving the bacon, retaped it up and forwarded it on to us. I called and Butcher Box, sent us an entirely new full Box at no charge and it arrived in a couple of days. Their customer service was on point.

 

[MuleyFever]

My wife does the meal delivery thing. It feels like she gets one every other week. She plays 3 or 4 of them to take advantage of deals and she will not use one for a while then they give her deals to order again. Its nice to be able to try a lot of different dishes. Its sort of our going out because we never eat out. Slightly more expensive that the grocery store, sometimes cheaper with the deals, and way less than eating out at a restaurant.

 

[butcherboy]

My butcher box is the freezer in my basement! Lol

 

[Afhunter1]

I raise my own cows and chickens. Not cheaper than buying meat but so much better!!!

 

[WV Mountaineer]

Yep. Chicken farming for eggs doesn’t pay under todays prices. I just bought a 5 dozen box yesterday for $11.00. $4 higher than 4 months ago. $14 lower than the last 5 dozen box three weeks ago.

Under three weeks ago pricing, it might pay. Though. I don’t get the beef though. If you’ve got the fence and pasture, they’ll keep it eat back. As long as you can keep them in.

 

[A.hol1]

We do butcher box and is about the same price as local store but tastes way better than store lately. Seems quality on just about everything is on the decline!


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[Michael Rankin]

I just looked at butcher box, it look like about $15 per pound for meat on the curated plan. It doesn’t really say what you get, but I would guess you not getting 16 pounds of grass fed steaks.

Not sure of the quality, but I don’t see how it would be cheaper than the store

Organic chicken breast is $6.99 per pound
Regular chicken breast is $2.99 at the local Fred Meyer store.

I looked into the hello fresh. Money wise it made no sense to me.I almost tried it just to get some different meal ideas. I’m 43, and have been cooking my meals since I was around 10. Started to get tired of the same stuff like others mentioned. In the end I just didn’t want to pay $8-$10 per meal per person, and then I still have to cook and clean up.

I don’t do organic foods, so that probably makes all these services seem even more expensive to me.

Not saying these don’t work great for some people, but I think your paying about twice as much as going to the store yourself.

The OP asked if it ends up being cheaper. I think these companies advertising is extremely misleading on this aspect, at least the ones I have looked into

 

[Theringworm]

Just confirmed with the wife on what comes in our Butcher a box. We receive the following:

- 12lbs of skinless Chicken Breasts
- 3lbs of chicken wings
- 2lbs of Salmon
- 2 lbs of bacon monthly free for the duration of the subscription
- 2lbs of ground beef monthly free for the ration of the subscription

So 21lbs of meat for $169 a month Which equates to $8.04 per lb.

Our local grocer H.E.B. charges anywhere from $8.74 to $10.80 a lb. So we are saving anywhere from .70 to $1.76 a lb.

 

[Mike Islander]

We've done 6 Hello Fresh meals. Very good recipes and quality ingredients. Introduced us to some good styles of food that we hadn't previously considered.

My wife is a fantastic cook and tries a lot of recipes. This is just one more source of ideas, and makes it easy to try new foods.

 

[def90]

Generally it's always going to be cheaper to buy at the grocery store and make it yourself. What you are paying for with these services is the convenience, TV dinners on steroids. That convenience can seriously add up over the year but if you have the disposable income I'm not one to judge.

 

[Beer_Me]

Tried Hello Fresh for the first time last week. Was very surprised how tasty and easy the recipes are... not very intimidating at all. Loved the fact that all the ingredients (spices, sauces, rice etc.) comes pre-measured in little pouches.

Some of the servings felt to be on the small side, but I'm a big boy with an appetite.

 

[Afhunter1]

Yep. Chicken farming for eggs doesn’t pay under todays prices. I just bought a 5 dozen box yesterday for $11.00. $4 higher than 4 months ago. $14 lower than the last 5 dozen box three weeks ago.

Under three weeks ago pricing, it might pay. Though. I don’t get the beef though. If you’ve got the fence and pasture, they’ll keep it eat back. As long as you can keep them in.

I don’t do eggs. I do 50 meat birds a year since they only take 8 weeks to grow. My beef is grain fed out at least 100 days. I feed only the best and no hormones or antibiotics. You can buy cheaper junk at the store than what I have in my beef but quality isn’t even in same solar system.

1.5” thick cut Fillet and 16oz Delmoico’s from other night. I sell beef too…..

 

[Jmort1754]

I don’t do eggs. I do 50 meat birds a year since they only take 8 weeks to grow. My beef is grain fed out at least 100 days. I feed only the best and no hormones or antibiotics. You can buy cheaper junk at the store than what I have in my beef but quality isn’t even in same solar system.

1.5” thick cut Fillet and 16oz Delmoico’s from other night. I sell beef too…..

View attachment 522529

Ship beef? Lol

 

[Jmort1754]

I can cook, she can cook.
I work out of town for 3-4 nights a week on average. She works 12 hour shifts alot during the week.

It is definitely more of the convenience for us.