My only cost-based “nope” is pizza - except for Domino’s and, occasionally, Papa Murphy’s, as they tend to be much cheaper. (There was a special at Domino’s a week or two ago - I think it was any 14" pizza with two toppings for $7. Round Table wanted over $20 for the same thing.)
However, deli meat is approaching that point - especially with my spending $20 on a single Togo’s sandwich.
It’s been a while since I went to the sushi bar. I see it as a way of saving money, so I feel like it falls under the idea of the OP.
Over here (Chicago, which many say is not cheap, but if you know where to look, it’s not that expensive), most places I go to will have family packs of leg & thigh quarters for around a buck to buck fifty a pound. Boneless, skinless breasts (which I don’t really like and rarely buy) right now are on sale for $1.99/lb. That’ll cook up a lot of food – just pure protein. You just gotta read the circulars and see where the deals are. Spare ribs for $1.69/lb at the local meat packers. You can also get drumsticks there for $0.59/lb.
Gave up the Keurig (type)coffee pods d/t rise in cost - box of 80 pods that I preferred went up $6. Dusted off the french press and am grinding beans again as I had done for many previous decades before I was gifted the Keurig appliance. Although the pods were easy & quick, I never felt great about the waste, but it sure was nice not cleaning the french press for awhile. Not sad about it - coffee tastes better from the press.
Not the sushi bar, but to the the Japanese store in an area with a lot of Japanese auto salarymen. I spent $34 on a combination of maki, sashimi, and fish to cut myself (nothing exotic, just tuna and salmon), and was astounded at the price. On the other hand, these plus the sushi rice I make myself (including homemade vinegar), and a (cheap) daikon soup (Chinese, not Japanese) did feed a family of four.
Most of our meals are considerably cheaper though. The kids aren’t teenagers yet, though!
For some reason Walmart store brand 2 liter soda has shot up to US $1.42, so I’ve switched to Food Lion, which is 95 cents.
Same for my pasture raised and/or cage free- several of those brands have stayed close to the same price. I’m happy to buy bargain eggs from (somewhat) happier chickens.
Food nowadays in Australia is stupid expensive! And given that most of the better quality meats, beef, lamb and fish are exported, it’s hard to eat like the days of old.
So steak is a rare luxury, like maybe twice a year. Porterhouse or sirloin is around $50 per kg and with four to feed, it’s an expensive purchase. Same with lamb (unless I happen to be at the supermarket when stuff getting close to use-by date is massively discounted). And don’t get me started on bloody fish! I live in the tropics where fish is plentiful, but I can’t buy fillets of anything under app $40 per kg. Ridiculous. Thankfully the rest of the family are anti-fish so on very rare occasions I will buy some just for myself.
But everything else is expensive too. Plain old milk is $3.40 for 2l, a loaf of ordinary bread is $3.00 and a block of generic cheese is $10!
BUT, we do eat a LOT of chicken.
Around here, the cheapest pork cuts (which is the cheapest meat available) are around $6 / lb (5 bucks on sale) now.
This.
Does cutting back on quantity rather than items or brands count?
I lost a bunch of weight in the last 18 months or so, and was a bit surprised to notice how much money I saved on food bills—I mean, US $20 per week, easy, just on one person’s groceries. Admittedly, I usually focus on buying local/in season (so, cheaper) as well as sustainably produced/organic (so, more expensive), so I didn’t notice a lot of impact directly attributable to inflation. But the combination of less processed/junk foods and smaller quantities overall produced an unexpectedly noticeable amount of savings.
Now that I’ve decided to go after that last twenty pounds or so, I notice the food expenditures tending to stay significantly under budget again. But I haven’t really moved the needle on brand or variety of the more limited quantities of food I do buy.
Ice cream. The prices seem to have increased at least 50% since covid began. It’s almost never on sale these days and when it is still costs more than full retail three or four years ago. It was never exactly a staple, but now it’s regarded as a luxury in our home; suitable only for birthdays or other special occasions.
I thought of another item. I was always a Diet Coke girl. Hated Diet Pepsi. Now with the price of a 12 pack of pop, it’s sign me up for whatever is on sale!
We’ve cut back on a lot of expensive foods. Haven’t given up anything entirely. We don’t eat expensive steak often. $25 a pound is too expensive to eat often. The same goes for some seafood. My wife loves the big sea scallops but they’re going for over $20 a pound right now. When those items cost half as much we could splurge on any weekend, but everything else is more expensive also, so if want to splurge occasionally then we have to cut back on everything to stay in the budget. We had been eating out less often anyway, cutting way back during COVID, but a big sushi meal every few weeks is now only happening every few months. To get a quality sushi meal now costs twice what it did 4 years ago so a California Roll once in a while tides us over until the next raw fish feast.
I’m another one who has cut waaay back on beef. Specifically steak. Luckily my son bought me a immersion cooker stick a few Christmases ago, so my occasional forays into top round, chuck and blade still come out tender and delicious. But nice, thick, juicy cuts of prime beef is mostly out of the question. And the “cheap” cuts are a twice a month luxury.
I was thinking about this thread last night while shopping. I realized that ALL the various grades of ground beef (including the three-pound bulk package) were just too expensive and I was not going to buy any unless it was on a significant sale.
But since then I remembered that I should check out the Latin supermarket a mile from my house and see what they were selling for. I know their seafood is much cheaper. I should start shopping there more often.
This reminded me to search for this old thread, $4 a pound beef. What are you paying? That was back in 2014 and $4 a pound for ground beef was fairly common around here. As mentioned then, better cuts of beef would cost far more.
I have been paying $4.99 a pound for ground beef for several years now, always called a sale price but on sale twice as often as not. The regular price seems to top out at $5.99 a pound, which I think is the limiting price point around here.
I’m having trouble staying above water through this inflation.
I never buy beef anymore. Mrs. Tree’s doesn’t look at prices when she shops for groceries, so she buys the beef. I just can’t justify the cost.
I’m trying to ease us into a few vegetarian/vegan meals a week, but I’m getting some pushback. The old lady’s a straight carnivore.
I quit buying pop too. If I need a sugar drink, Kool aid works just as well.
Bourbons. Back when it was an unsophisticated tipple, you could get a bottle of Blanton’s, for example, for $40. Now, if you can find it, it’s in the neighborhood of $150. Stupid expensive!
So now it’s Four Roses, Michter’s, or Belle Meade (a decent Tennesse bourbon) as my daily tipple. Still in the $40 per bottle range.
To be fair, $40 in 2003 is equivalent to $66 today so, if you are still getting $40 bourbon, you are ahead of the game (not counting for quality).