there are two ways to look at the cost effectiveness of bone vs boneless,
this of course does not consider taste at all.

-total gm of meat, you would have to buy and debone/skin some chicken, then
weigh it and divide it by the total paid, to get the edible meat price,
doing it this way is probably cheaper to buy bonless to start with, but...

-total contributions to meals, as susan said making the broth from the
skin/bones, all you are adding is a little water and some cheap veggies to
get the broth, when you consider the filling factor of a flavorful broth
with good tasting fat, and if you do the bones right, the extra nutrient
value of what is boiled/stewed out of the bones it gets much fuzzier, and in
the OP's case, I would probably vote for cheaper bone in so that the broth
would be available, and she could crock pot that i did it often, and that is
little to no work.

Lee
"Julie Bove" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Storrmmee" > wrote in message
> ...
>>i generally agree with you on most things, but having done experiments in
>>the b/s breast area its not as cost effective as you would think, although
>>i think cooking with the bone tastes better, Lee
>
> I know that buying with the bone in is less expensive. How much less?
> That I don't know. But in this house, nobody will eat the breast with the
> bone in. Husband finds it to be too much work and Angela and I have an
> aversion to bones in our food. Oddly she will eat chicken legs. This is
> the only thing with a bone that she will eat. Not sure she knows it is a
> bone. She refers to it as a stick. Those are cheaper, yes. I don't like
> them and I don't like messing with them. But they do like them so a few
> times a year, I will make them for them.
>
> I can not bring myself to bone and skin a piece of chicken or take apart a
> whole chicken. If I were alive way back when people had to do their own
> meats like that I surely would have been a vegetarian. In fact it is the
> bones that is partially the reason I became a vegetarian to begin with. I
> don't know if boneless, skinless chicken breasts were even available back
> then. I think not. My mom left me a package of chicken parts and a
> recipe and a note to make dinner. I could not bring myself to touch the
> chicken parts. We had dissected a frog earlier that day in school. The
> chicken parts just reminded me of that. I am very suggestible.
>