Just in case anybody out there thinks that Iowa must be a place where food prices are miraculously low, you only had to look at the grocery ad from our local Fareway store for December 22-28, 2021. This is one of our lower price stores, but we were in sticker shock when we looked at the prices for beef and seafood!
$45 for 2 pounds of shrimp, almost $40 for a pound of lobster tails (notice the 4 ounce portions in the small print). That’s $197.80 for an 11 pound case of snow crab…with a $25 gift card as a bonus.
$16.99 a pound for a 5-7 pound beef tenderloin…that’s about $85 for a 5 pound bag.
You can see we are in Iowa, as anything pork…ham, sausage, tenderloin or boneless pork loin are very reasonable. A 5 pound boneless pork loin is about $15 not $85.
The biggest advantage at this store is they will cut and wrap your meat to any size package ready for the freezer and it doesn’t cost you any extra. They will slice your boneless pork loin into chops and wrap them in 1 or 2 chop packages…while you wait, for instance. The savings on freezer wrapping can be substantial.
I’m not sorry I have my freezer filled with only sale price meat, seafood and poultry.
Shopping to replace those items
this year may be a minefield. I see more beans, soup and casseroles in
our future.
My husband took a deer last weekend. 1st time we had somebody else grind it into burger in a long time. We usually do it. But, with all going on, and he's been leaving early to work and coming home late. He's also has to work all this weekend. So he told me to take it to a processor. I picked it up yesterday and got 35 packages of deer burger. It cost $132 to have them grind it and add fat for burger.
ReplyDeleteIt was worth it this time because of what I said above. But, usually I don't want to pay the cost or have someone else handling our deer meat.
Your seafood prices are outrageous. That is totally ridiculous and that store will lose money because it will ruin before somebody pays that price.
I guess the lesson here is to buy local...but seafood hasn't been that expensive in awhile even here in the midwest. Luckily they are a full service grocery chain that usually has the lowest prices on most things.
DeleteYour comment about thinking your table will contain more beans, soup and casseroles in the future is exactly what I've been planning on! It all takes time but I don't know how the folks who buy only "convenience" foods have enough money to do so. Even for all the "made from scratch" cooking I do, I rarely buy anything that's not on sale. It all helps, doesn't it?!
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