Meat and cheese ends are still a good deal

At the grocery store, you can save quite a bit of money on your deli meats in two ways. The best way is to just buy a full ham or turkey, cook it yourself, and then slice it. You get the most bang for your buck, but then you have a lot of food that will need to be eaten fairly quickly.

The better way is to get meat and cheese ends. Around here, deli meats usually cost around $8 per pound or so, but the meat and cheese ends cost only $2.99 per pound. Well, they did until today. Now they cost $3.49 per pound.

Before deli meat can be sliced, the ends need to be cut off. When the folk at the deli counter cut the meats and cheeses for people, they often take a few slices off and put them to the side before they begin loading the scale. When they get to the bottom, they can not keep slicing or they would risk losing a finger. All of those ends and random slices usually wind up mixed together in a pail and is sold at a discount. The food is fine, and you can often get more expensive cuts such as roast beef as well. If you are going to make a salad, getting chunks of ham or cheese is great because you can cube it fairly easily.

The fifty cent increase in the cost of my meat and cheese ends is very disappointing. It is still a very good deal; it costs a lot less than getting the meat sliced specifically for me and does not involve my having to eat more of one kind of meat than I really want to. But it seems that everything is getting more expensive. The prices that I have been used to at quite a few places over the last few years have all seemed to be going up over the last month or so.

You should still check with your local grocery store to see if you can get meat and cheese ends at a discount though.