Is buying half of a cow frugal or too pricey for what you get? Is it even worth it?
In my personal opinion, it is ONE MILLION percent worth the investment!
I’ll try not to be too biased since there are some real cons to shelling out serious money to do this. Before we get into all the details, let’s get into everything we got for half a cow! You can find all the visuals in my reel on Instagram here → https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr7GmZrJaFJ/
120 1lb packages of ground beef
2 short ribs
1 full rib
5 chuck roasts
1 beef shoulder roast
1 flank
1 tri tip
3 tenderloin steaks
2 beef skirt flaps
1 beef flap
24 sirloin steaks
24 ribeye steaks (my personal favorite)
24 NY strips
3 packs of liver
1 heart
1 oxtail
1 tongue
Bones for broth
Fat to render for cooking
**We got over 200lbs of meat and almost 300lbs total including the fat and bones!**
In May 2023 my husband Steve and I decided to bite the bullet and buy half a cow. We’re huge meat eaters and the prices at the grocery store were getting ridiculous. Honestly, I wish we had done it sooner!
The entire half cow was $1600 at Carter’s Custom Cuts in Thatcher Arizona (totally recommend them if you’re in the area!!)
I’ll be the first to admit, that’s a lot of money to put down. We were able to break it down a little bit with a $400 deposit that went towards the total price. I believe they have payment plans too! We had the money set aside and decided to just be done with it. Ask the butcher/farmer you are wanting to buy from and see what their payment options are. Everyone deserves to have access to farm to table food!
Lets go over the basic pros and cons of buying half of a cow:
Pros:
-You get to enjoy alllll the cuts of meat you like, and be able to try new cuts that you may not have access to at your local grocery store (think flanken short ribs, oxtail, beef ribs, etc.)
–The price. This is technically a pro and a con. While it may be a pretty penny to pay in the moment, you ultimately pay the same amount per pound for not only your ground beef, but the more expensive cuts too! My Costco currently sells ribeye steaks for $12.99/lb. We only paid $4.50/lb for ALL the meat, ribeye included!
-You can ask for all the random cuts and organs! I asked for the heart, kidneys, tongue, liver, bones and all the fat. More things that you usually can’t find at the store!
–Food security. You’ll have the peace of mind knowing you have plenty of food in your freezer(s) to last you all year.
-You get to recession proof your kitchen by only paying one price for your meat for the whole year! No dealing with price fluctuations that always happen multiple times a year.
Cons:
–You only get so many cuts of meat. This makes sense when you remember that each part of the cow is a different cut, and you’re only getting half a cow! No endless supply of chuck roasts unfortunately. You do have some flexibility with what you want. For example, Steve and I don’t have a very big grill or a smoker, so we opted out of a giant cut of brisket (blasphemous I know!). It just wasn’t suitable to the fact that there are only two of us and didn’t want to cook a giant piece of meat all at once. We decided instead of a brisket to get more ground beef since we eat that wayyyy more often anyways!
–The price can be a con too! For a lot of people, myself included, $1600 is a lot of money to put towards one item. At the time that was one whole paycheck for us. Talk with your family about your eating habits and goals, and look honestly at your bank account to see if it is worth it.
-Half of a cow takes SPACE. We ended up buying a $300 8 cubic foot chest freezer from Home Depot in order to store all our meat. Another expense if you don’t already have one. You’ll need to shell out money for a freezer and make sure you have the space to keep it somewhere.
If you’ve made it this far and are still on the fence, let me give you some other options to buying half of a cow:
-There is the option to buy a quarter of a cow! The same benefits as the pros listed above, just less meat which equals less space to take up!
-You can do the exact same thing with pork! You can buy a half or whole pig, and it’s a lot cheaper than beef. You’ll probably get less poundage from a whole pig compared to half a cow, but it ultimately depends on the size of both the cow and the pig. Pork is an awesome and cheaper alternative to beef.
Ultimately buying this much food at once is a deeply personal decision. We wanted quality meat from cows that lived happy and healthy lives before processing. We wanted meat that tasted great, gave us peace of mind for food security, and only paying $4.50/lb for ribeye was a pretty big determining factor, not going to lie!
Is it worth it to you? Let me know in the comments!