In the last few years since we moved into this building, on average, we probably have made a Costco trip about once every quarter. That’s usually when I stock up on things I know we use a lot, whether it’s spices in bulk, meat (usually chicken thighs, drum sticks, some type of beef, and lamb leg), seafood (shrimp, wild salmon usually), and household supplies (toilet paper, paper towels, baking soda, soap). But our last trip to Costco was in October during our mini trip to Delaware and Pennsylvania, and since, we haven’t really had a reason to go. And with rising costs for everything due to inflation, Chris said it didn’t make sense to rent a car just to go to Costco unless we were planning to go somewhere else instead. So last quarter, we did a Costco.com order, which didn’t really include any protein because I didn’t think the online prices were that great. Instead, to stock up on meat or seafood, I’ve either been buying small quantities at Trader Joe’s when the prices seem reasonable, or buying at Whole Foods during their occasional sales.

My friend had been subscribing to Butcherbox for quite some time, and though I was intrigued, I wasn’t really ready to commit to $170/box, even if the value did seem quite good given the quality and cuts of meat. She originally gave me a referral code for $50 off. You can set your own delivery schedule, but I wasn’t even sure that the max on the website of every eight weeks was long enough for us to actually finish that much meat/seafood, even with Pookster eating all solid meals now. She’s still a tiny human with a tiny belly! But then my friend told me I could push it off even longer, even if the site didn’t explicitly say that. In the end, I really got pushed over the edge when about two weeks ago, she told me there was a special referral that would give me an entire box for FREE. I would just have to pay for any “deal add-ons,” so i got an extra thick cut ribeye for $26. Essentially, I got $196 worth of protein for just $26, which sounded pretty good to me.

I was very impressed when the box came; it only took about three days to get delivered, and the boxing and packaging were immaculate. I haven’t defrosted any of the cuts yet to see the quality of the meat, but just from the looks of the beef, the marbling looks really good, and the thickness of the steaks are just as advertised on the site. This could be the new way we get the vast majority of our animal protein moving forward if the first batch of protein I defrost looks good. This definitely excited me. I was even happy to reorganize our freezer to make room for all these items yesterday so that I could easily see and identify what we had remaining, and I usually hate doing that.