As many readers of this blog may know, teaching families how to budget for healthy, natural, organic meals is one of my great pleasures in life. While there are many ways to budget for groceries and food staples, often times meat remains one of the largest hurdles families face in terms of monthly meal planning success.
Several years ago my family was not financially stable as we are today. While in working hard to become debt-free, my family took on the task of becoming primary caretakers for my grandmother, a dementia patient. My family lived on less than $24,000 per year net income, which encompassed a meager food budget of $125.00 monthly. It was also during this time that I was diagnosed with PCOS, a syndrome which required a more healthful, natural life style. Both my grandmother and myself, due to health regulations and dietary limitations, required an increased food budget.
It was incredibly frustrating to know that the healthy food options my grandmother and I needed might be financially out of reach. But through focus and prayer, we were able to cut unnecessary expenses such as gym memberships, hair appointments, and cable funds which would be fully devoted to funding a healthier food budget.
Mind you, even with an increased food budget of $200.00 monthly, sometimes it felt life it was never enough. Sometimes we simply have to compromise. When we can’t afford organics, we would search our local stores for affordable whole foods instead. We had only one exceptions, our meats. For you see, hormone and antibiotic-free meat are essential elements to any PCOS-friendly life style.
It was also during this time that I was introduced to Zaycon Foods. The company was described to me as wholesale, seasonal, delivery service. A customer-driven, buying club that delivers to many, many locations all over the country.
So, you may be asking what’s so great about Zaycon? Well for starters, it’s where over half of my families meat is purchased from, and in fact, I have a separate money envelope dedicated to Zaycon meats!
Something I really like about Zaycon is that I can buy my meats online. I go to their site, have a quick, simple checkout process, and am given a time and date for pick-up. And as always, their delivery dates always sync up to times my husband is on break from school, which is awesome!
On pickup days, we always meet at the same location, generally a church parking lot. The Zaycon Foods delivery man is always on time, and ready for us to pick up the chicken. Drivers are always courteous, and even load goods into your trunk for you.
My favorite product, their most popular, their fresh, non-frozen, 40 lb. boxes of boneless, skinless chicken breasts–which contain no hormones, additives, or artificial ingredients. I generally pay around $1.69 lb., and under $70.00 a box, this sales event.
It’s worth noting, their prices do fluctuate, but their prices are always way, way cheaper than our local Sam’s Club and Winn-Dixie grocery stores, and you are required to buy 40 lb. boxes, as you cannot buy single pound purchases. If space is at a premium for you, think about splitting the cost with a friend!
So folks, this is what my recent box of 40 lbs. of chicken breasts looked like.
The chicken breasts themselves are big, very big. For us, two chicken breasts were plenty to feed my family of four several years ago, and with the same amount of chicken our current family of three has been able to use the extra portions chicken for leftovers and weekday lunches .
Breasts do not come individually wrapped or pre-trimmed, so you will have to play butcher on that score. This was a simple task, and only took my husband and I about an hour to marinate, bag, inventory, sort, and freeze all my breasts. Please note, we freeze my breasts in gallon baggies, pre-marinated, and ready to be added to freezer-ready meals, or in the case of this box, ready for Summer grilling.
For this box we used the following seasoning and freezer meals options: chili lime seasoning, Korean BBQ rub, orange ginger honey, bourbon bbq, soy and garlic rub, and salsa verde marinade. This box produced 32 meals.
We took this time to catch up on new pod casts from our favorite financial couple, Talaat and Tai from His and Her Money! Yeah, we like to cook and save together!
This box did end up a small amount of fat on my cutting board, but that will fry up for a yummy snack for the fuzzies!
Speaking of the baggies, each is labeled, added to my iPad freezer inventory list, and are then stored in a large, insulated freezer bag. This order is enough to fill up this bag nearly to the brim!
As always this order was top notch, and I will continue to buy again. Also, you can refer friends and family to Zaycon, and collect referral points, $1.00 for every person you refer. The more you know, the more you save!
This service helps me save $98.00 seasonally off the cost of my families chicken purchases, which is nearly half of any given months total shopping budget. Zaycon is a lifesaver for my family.
The next saving event will host chicken thighs in my area, and I will post a review for this service as well.
So, if you are thinking of trying out Zaycon in your neck of the woods, it’s worth noting that pick-up events tend to fill up quickly, so be sure to sign-up for their email lists so you can be alerted to new events in your area.
You can sign up for a Zaycon account here.
Here’s to saving,
