I know that eating processed foods is sometimes more affordable than eating the God-given versions. I am on a mission to find ways to save money AND feed my family nutritious God-given foods. One way that I have found to do this is to use what you’ve got. Stop throwing things away, even bones. Use them to make pre-made ingredients, I call helpers so you can save money and eat well. That is why I make and freeze pulled chicken!

Rotisserie Chickens Are My Best Meal and Money Hack!

Rotisserie chickens from Sam’s Club have become my go-to purchase for making quick and easy weeknight dinners. It also saves me a ton of money! Here’s what I do.

Every 3-4 weeks, I buy 3 chickens at Sams for around $5.00 a piece and make TWO key recipe ingredients to put in my freezer: pulled chicken and chicken broth. I know what you are thinking, at least what I hope you are thinking–they probably coat ther rotisserie chickens in seed oils. That’s probably true, but if you read my other posts, you know I have a day job (That can sometimes feel like a night job too. If you are in the technology field you know what I mean). I calculated the risk with using these birds and decided it was a risk I was willing to take. Why? I toss the skin anyway and most of it melts off while the birds cook. Life is about balance after all.

Breakdown of Money Spent — and Saved — Freezing Pulled Chickens

Expenses

• Sam’s birds: $15.00
• Broth Ingredients: Negligible b/c I am use things in my fridge that are going to go bad and be thrown away to make the broth. But for the Type A folks reading this lets say they cost another $5.00.
• This brings my expenses to $20.00.

Savings

• Uncooked Chickens: $22.11 – These chickens are WAY smaller than the Rotisserie Chickens at Sam’s so this total is probably even higher to get the same amount of meat.
• Broth: I get around 16 cups of broth from this. I won’t buy broth with harmful ingredients so lets consider Zoup! brand which is $5.98 for 4 cups of broth. $23.92
• Total cost: $46.03
• Savings: $26.03 but the impact on my and my families health is immesurable. If you factor in the time I save during the week making meals, the amount of savings skyrockets!

Have you ever frozen left-over pulled chicken or pork, then pull it out to use and its in a huge frozen block. Spoiler alert: That does NOT help you with recipes on weeknights. Here is how I pull chicken and freeze it so its always ready whenever you need it. The average rotisserie chicken weighs about 2 pounds and yields about 3 cups of chicken.