So I went to the grocery store (a supermart uh-huh) today

[moniss]

and because it is cold weather I thought a slow cooker meal would be a good idea. So I went looking through the meat case for a chuck roast. They had some around 2-3 lbs. They looked more like a 50/50 sort of deal. 50% fat and 50% meat. But I left them in the meat case anyway when I saw that these horrible looking cuts of meat were priced at $10.79 lb. Beef crisis indeed.

So I moved my slow cooker desires to pork and cabbage. The pork section had pork steak at $4.79 lb. which is about $1.80 lb. higher than in the spring/summer time frame. Fortunately there were two packs of pork steak that were 45% off because today was the sell by date. So I have a little over 3lbs. of pork steak I had better eat in a hurry.

But a couple of days ago I was at my local, slightly upscale grocer to get their excellent deals on excellent produce and again their fresh meat and seafood counter was abandoned by customers with only one or two cruising by just looking as they moved along. Last year, and for years actually, this counter was always busy and they are located in an upscale suburb. I know I don't belong there but I suffer the disapproving looks and take my things quickly and leave. But seriously the lack of business at their fresh meat/seafood counter demonstrates pretty clearly that even the upscale folks living in the fancy suburban high 6 figure+ homes are balking at the prices.

It is a great quality and variety at the upscale store fresh meat/seafood counter but porterhouse steak was pushing $24 lb and probably after making the mortgage payment, multiple car payments, payments on multiple snowmobiles and ATV's, payments on the vacation home "up north", tuition payments, alimony payments, child support payments, insurance premium payments on all of the vehicles and toys, payments for a big monthly streaming/phone plan and who knows what else there is no longer room for the price at the upscale really good fresh meat/seafood counter.

Those folks will be over by me pretty quick at my grocery store giving me competition for who gets the 45% off pork first. I may be old and slow moving but I can be mean as hell when I'm going for a bargain.