A Year’s Worth of Turkey

(By Rachel)
Ever see those promotional deals of 29-49 cents a pound turkey and wish you could get those kinds of deals year round? A 16 lb turkey for around five bucks - who can beat that?
Well, you can't get those kinds of deals year round. In this country, the marketing of whole frozen turkeys for next to nothing is definitely a seasonal thing. Stores offer incredibly cheap turkey deals, knowing that while you are in the store you will likely pick up the other items on your list. It's called a "loss leader" - the stores actually make no profit on that item, even losing money on it - but they are willing to do it to get customers in the door, knowing they will make back the money on other items.
In order to get the TRULY cheap turkeys (29 cents a pound) you will be limited to usually one brand, and it will be frozen. And you will be required to buy anywhere from 25 to 50 dollars of other groceries. However, if - starting in October - you begin living off your pantry and out of your freezer, or even better, eating everything that is currently in your deep freezer instead of buying any other meat.....you'll have extra grocery money and extra freezer space. You can use that 25 to 50 dollar required shopping (that you didn't spend while you were living off your pantry) to restock the pantry items you used, or to do some wintertime preparedness. Pantry staples that won't go bad, and that you KNOW you will eventually eat.
If you have cooperative family members, you may be able to slip them a couple of five dollar bills a week, each week that a promotion runs, and they can pick up turkeys for you too. After all, they grocery shop too. They may also have freezer space to store those big birds too.
Some with large families plan ahead, beginning to empty their freezers in late summer, socking away 25 dollars a week, 3 months before Thanksgiving day. Then, by shopping daily for a couple of weeks pre-Thanksgiving, they amass a dozen turkeys. That's a year's worth of turkey dinners - one a month. For a family of six, like my parents raised, that was enough meat for one dinner, plus two dinners of leftovers - one casserole dinner, on soup dinner. They had an indoor fridge, an garage fridge, and an enormous upright freezer, so they could do that. If you do it once a month only, and you have a large enough family that you go through the bird within 3 dinners, you don't get tired of turkey.
Even if you don't have that kind of freezer space, there is still hope. Some people, whose families don't mind the smell of roasting turkey for a week straight - thaw them, cut them apart, roast them (most ovens can accommodate 2 birds if they are cut up) then debone the meat and store it in freezer-weight zip bags. This saves on a lot of space.
If you haven't socked away enough money in advance to do the 600 dollars worth of grocery shopping necessary to score a dozen turkeys (or even the 300 necessary for a half dozen) and don't have accommodating family... there is still hope. Go to the store the day after Thanksgiving and make them an offer. Depending on how many leftover turkeys they have, you may get them for the promotional price without the required purchase. It never hurts to ask, and can help you practice your negotiation skills. The worst thing that might happen is that they say no. It's not like you have anything to lose.
Happy Turkey Hunting!