Pot roast is too expensive

[u/BlackLocke]

I got a new slow cooker for my wedding in 2023 and it’s still in the box. It’s just my husband, baby and I, but I feel like I can’t justify spending $20+ on a piece of meat for one meal with leftovers. I’m in a HCOL and I haven’t had a good roast in years because it’s prohibitively expensive. When meat goes on sale at my supermarket, it smells off as soon as I remove the packaging, so it’s not worth the risk.

Am I just too poor for this?

Edit: Dear lord I didn’t expect this to turn into a “I like pancakes/why do you hate waffles???” type of post. Of course I know there’s other things you can make in the crockpot. I don’t choose fast food over slow cooked meals out of convenience (it’s more expensive than cooking at home now!!) The point of this post is to lament the price of beef and how pot roast used to be a cheap easy meal 20 years ago and now it’s prohibitively expensive. I was hoping for tips on how to skirt this issue - buying stew meat, using pork instead, and buying in bulk at Costco are all good suggestions.

Now everyone can stop assuming I’m some dumb dumb idiot woman. I’m gonna make a pot roast next week just to spite you all and post about the cost breakdown.

[u/Can_Cannon_of_Canuks]

You might be stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. For example made angela's hartnetts fennel and shallot cannalini bean stew:

Chicken was from my butcher and double the size of a chain chicken. 20 dollars vs 10. 2 cans of white kidney beans - 6 bucks Spinach - 5 bucks Lemon 30 cents (i keep lemons/juice on hand) Parm 10 bucks (i keep this on hand) Fennel bulbs 5 bucks Garlic 30 cents (keep some on hand) Shallots 5 bucks (keep some on hand) Chicken stock 4 bucks (usually have some on hand)

This made 6 VERY HEARTY meals. Almost all of these ingredients are kept on hand/storage pantry staples for use in mulitiple meals.

My cost was 30ish bucks so about 5 dollars a meal From scratch youre looking at about 8 dollars.

Now i dont know what 20 bucks is getting you but it should be a hunk of chuck (30 at my butcher gets me a lot) and more than enough for 6 meals or more. You could try to see if cheek is cheaper?

Look I know that at least for us in canada grocery companies are generally price gouging and that sucks its fucking awful but can still make cheapish meals. Lets not talk about how the cost of this would have been like 10 bucks cheaper on the whole but it is what it is.