I just got done making suet for the wild birds. It is cheap enough to buy, but gets even cheaper if you make your own. The following is my recipe.
Ingredients:
1 cup lard
1 cup peanut butter (I like to use the chunky)
1 cup flour
5 cups cornmeal
add ins as desired - sunflower seeds, bird seed, raisins, dry fruit, millet, rolled oats, or nuts
Directions:
I pour into molds from suet that I bought in the past. After you have melted the lard and peanut butter and put in our add ins, you freeze the molds. They freeze well for up to 2 months. If you want you can make a small batch and smear on pine cones and dangle them from a tree.
One of my best memories is when I used to boil water, crisco and sugar together. After boiling it I would pour in oatmeal. I would also add slices of bread. I would put this in a butter container and hang it lopsided from the fence. At the time, I could see out my sliding glass door. It was not only attractive to birds but also to little animals who would climb the fence to get it This was while I was up in IL.