To want my Turkey to last longer than Boxing Day?

[GreenBunny]

Just been to supermarket and all the Turkeys go off on Boxing Day. For those of you who were (like me) not organised enough to pre order your turkey - when will you buy yours?
ideally I want to be eating Turkey sandwiches until at least the 28th!

Use by boxing day is the raw turkey. Once cooked you get another few days post cooking.

But if you buy it and cook it on 25th you’ll still be eating it by the 28th
you need to cook it by the use by date and then it’s fine

But you'll be cooking it before the 26th? The use by is the last date to safely cook it. You then have at least 3 days to eat/freeze the leftovers

It'll be fine - cooking it buys you a few extra days and in any case these dates are conservative. If it looks and smells fine you can continue to eat it.

What everyone else said really!

incidently though I don’t buy anything until Xmas Eve.

You get 3-4 days for cooked turkey in the fridge and you can also freeze it for using in pies / curry / casserole. It’s fine!

When are you planning on cooking it? We were hosting Xmas lunch on 28th once and that was a real pain as all of the turkeys were prepared for Christmas Day itself. In the end, I went with a frozen one but it was a faff defrosting it.
We’ll be collecting our turkey tomorrow & cooking it on Xmas Day. We’ve got one which feeds 12 as there are 8 of us for lunch on Xmas Day, some will have leftovers of it on Boxing Day, there will be a turkey & ham pie for four of us on 27th and, hopefully, still enough for sandwiches on 28th. Last year, we cooked the turkey on Xmas Day, went away on Boxing Day and made the turkey & ham pie with the leftovers on 29th and I had some more of it on 30th. I did think that that was pushing it but I had no ill effects!

The clock resets when it is cooked in terms of keeping it.

Oh that is so helpful! Thank you very much for all your advice - I had no idea the clock resets once cooked!
@HouseWithASeaView wow a 12 person Turkey must be huge - ooh you have inspired me to look up a turkey pie recipe for the leftovers!