Here are three things my wife and I have done to make our carnivore diet a little more affordable.

1) We shared a cow from a local farm. We bought 1/6 of a cow for about $700 which worked out to $11 lb

2) We discoverd a huge pack of rump cap in our grocery store meat section. Rump cap is also called Picanha in Brazilian steakhouses and is tender with a big layer of fat across the top. Once cut into steaks, they resemble NY strip but are way better IMO

3) We also discovered whole ribeye and cut 8 or 9 thick steaks out of a $111.00 pack...way cheaper than the normal $25 lb or so.

Bonus: a lot people are unaware of chuck eye steaks, which have been called "the poor man's ribeye". Almost as good has ribeye, half the cost!

1. We try to make it to Sam's just before close, or in the morning to catch the "short date" mark downs. We pick what we like and freeze whatever we aren't going to use soon.

2. We just bought two cows that have been bred. It will be a long time before we see meat from that but still looking for some steers to feed out (this market is crazy expensive right now). Not sure how much money we will save this year, but hopefully the investment eventually ends up providing great meat at equal or less cost.

3. Totally agree on chuck steaks- I think when they are thin sliced, they might be even more tender.

We found a local butcher where we can purchase our hamburger. It is more than Costco but we find we get a better yield from it per pound. We can also get local-sourced fresh beef liver so we are planning on making our own liver pate (we won't eat liver otherwise😄) using a carnivore pate recipie we found online. We can also purchase 1/4 and 1/2 sides of local beef.

Chuck steaks and hamburger is usually the go-to's for me when saving a few dollars.

I also hit the marked down red-meats whenever I see them. Most of the time I don't care which cut, just the reduction in price is the key. The fattier the cut the better but I can always add some bites of butter to get the fat content up.

Around here pork and chicken are cheap in comparison to red meat and I stock up, especially leg thighs or quarters, whenever they go on sale.

I also check out ads at different stores. I don't drive to three or four stores to catch their sales but if one has a particularly good sale, I will do the remainder of the shopping at that store.

Sams's is also a good choice. The closest one to me is about 35 minutes away but on the way home from work. My wife and I seldom shop together there because is it does not make a lot of sense to drive 35 minutes (gas and time) to save (maybe even less) on food. (the time carrying most of the weight). I usually stop by there on the way home from night shift. It is convenient with that approach and sometimes convenience can carry some dollar value.

Our chickens produce more eggs than we can eat but not enough to off-set the cost of feed and time. I feed the extras to the dogs so it sort of off-sets their expense some. This one the value is in knowing where they came from and what went into them being made. I can't tie it to a dollar amount but I feel like there is some 'value/savings' in just knowing.

We used to do our own cows and pigs but have gotten away from it several years ago. Between my Mom's restaurant and another in town my feed cost for the pigs was just the gas and time. Just an opinion and never had the heart to do the math. We always seemed to need one or two more cows sold or butchered to break even. Every time it looked like we were going to be on the + side of the equation it would stop raining. A drought or semi-drought meant I had to buy hay and when people know you have to buy hay, that price goes up too. By no means did we have the Yellowstone, nor was it a large cattle operation, but by the time we did the math I always hoped we just could break even. My wife and I have talked about getting more and spacing their ages out, so we have one aged/grown enough each fall. Go from there.

Great topic.

Scott

I wish I could tolerate beef liver for the nutrition. I just can't stand it, even mixed with burger. To cover our bases, we take dedicated liver pills instead.

I also wish we had chickens, one day. My wife and I eat A LOT of eggs and knowing exactly what the chickens are eating would be great.

Dessicated liver is a great supplement. It is a true source of energy for most people. Big fan.

When it was studied in the 60's they did a performance test on rats. One group were fed a normal rat diet, one group a performance enhanced rat diet and then the third group was fed a lot of dessicated liver.

The rats were dropped in a bucket of water and were forced to swim for time (first group swam for X amount of minutes and finally gave in to exhaustion. The second group went further but eventually exhaustion got the better of the second group as well. The third group that was heavy on dessicated liver never stopped swimming even tripling the time of the first two groups and eventually they gave up on looking for a time. Dessicated liver had proven itself.

(This could be seen as torture disguised as science but most of what we know stems from the death of something else)

Scott

We also have lots of chickens- some of which still aren't laying (teenagers). However, eggs are definitely a staple in our diet. My husband is carnivore as well, and the kids are mostly animal based. With the price of beef, I sure hope we at least break even. We bale hay on some land leased for other purposes, and we had lots of hay this year. Since the hay was at little cost (other than sweat and time), we thought this might be the year to take the leap and get some cows. However, it is looking like a soaring leap with the price of cows right now.

Yep.

Prices were up this week at the market. My brother-in-law carried 6 this past week. He said he did pretty good, all things considered. He is mostly just trying not to feed them this winter.

It seems like it is high on whichever end we are on. LOL

Scott

I raise or hunt most of the meat I eat so I don’t have many shopping tips.Raising your own or hunting isn’t really that much of a cost savings it’s just what I like to do and it keeps my taxes down. It’s also nice to know where my food comes from and what’s in it.

The one shopping tip I have is to always buy on sale and in bulk. When I do buy meat I will generally buy a whole rib roast and cut my own steaks. I might spend two hundred dollars on one roast but I’ll get 10 to 15 one pound steaks out of that roast. You can’t buy the individual steaks for that price.

I was in a hunting conversation once and I said there are not much savings in meat cost when hunting deer. The came at me like a lynch mob out for justice. Now if you own your land, you don't lease land, or pay for a club membership, don't buy a new gun every other year with the latest in optics, or feed a pack of hounds year around, and don't spend a boat load of money on the 'best ever dog box' and you can get around your annual tags/limits, there is probably some savings.

If one were to factor in his passion for hunting and it is what he will be doing anyway, there is some value in that and knowing where your meat comes from most definitely carries value as well.

Adding up all the money spent then do the math on the number of pounds in the freezer and for the average hunter it is much cheaper to go to the grocery store.

As Geezy has said, that way of life is slowly eroding/being eroded, similar to the small farmers/ranchers. If they were giving sausage/pork chops/hams/bacon/pork bell/side meat/fat back/chitterlings/pig feet away at the store for free my father-in-law would much rather be at the pack house in sub-freezing temperature with the only warmth coming from a scalding box scraping hair knowing the food that was to come rather than take advantage of free meat at the grocery store.

Not many like that left.

Scott

Here, if you own a certain amount of acres, you get a certain amount of tags for deer and turkey. Both archery and gun. I have, said certain amount of land. But the last few years, I let one or two fellas hunt and get a share of the rewards. I like when the amish friend gets two deer cuz he brings me one all cut up and all I havta do is package it. The only thing I don't have is fish and it's not too far away. About five or so miles in two directions is a reservoir. So no, I don't spend much for fish and game. I am pretty cheap. I usedta say it cost me about $3.80 to go fishing. That was for a gallon of gas and an RC cola. I spect it's still about the same. A gallon of gas and a jug of water. 😀

Yep. When others hunt here they do the same. It is a doubly win for me. We get some meat that does not cost much more than the time and the packaging paper. The second thing is the dogs get all kinds of guts and bones and goodies.

I sort of eat free meat (but then someone has to pay taxes on the land whether the deer choose to live there or not, LOL) and I don't have to spend money feeding the dogs for a day or two.

The deeper we dive I think the costs are somewhat the same across the board which places even more "value" on knowing where and how your food originates.

Since I don't really hunt anymore but have a bunch of friends who do, I get leftovers/scraps for the dogs throughout much of the winter. It is good for them and if I do a deep dive it saves me some money and if I dive deeper, I can use those savings to buy the rib eye vs. the chuck steak and money wise it is all the same.

LOL

Scott

On 8/20/2025 at 2:34 PM, Scott F. said:

I was in a hunting conversation once and I said there are not much savings in meat cost when hunting deer. The came at me like a lynch mob out for justice. Now if you own your land, you don't lease land, or pay for a club membership, don't buy a new gun every other year with the latest in optics, or feed a pack of hounds year around, and don't spend a boat load of money on the 'best ever dog box' and you can get around your annual tags/limits, there is probably some savings.

No hunter in his right mind ever addd up the cost per pound of meat. Ignorance is bliss in this regard. I just love to hunt and it’s my therapy. My success is not counted in how much game I take but how much satisfaction and enjoyment I get out of it. I love living off the land as much as possible.

I dropped my deer lease this year because I bought a big enough place that I can now hunt my own land so there will be a savings there especially if I process my own meat. But yeah, game meat is the most expensive food there is.

58 minutes ago, Geezy said:

I just love to hunt and it’s my therapy.

Fishing is my therapy. I just like to be by or on the water in my kayak. If I happen to catch something for dinner, then It's a bonus. Sometimes it won't even make it to the house, as I carry a frying pan in the truck.