Living The Dream—2026-07-28 (Patreon)

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CUTTING CORNES by Tyra Wilson

I picked up the ground beef and almost laughed.

Seven dollars a pound.

Seven.

For ground beef

Not steak. Not something fancy. Ground beef—the stuff folk used to buy when they couldn’t afford nothing better. I turned the pack over like maybe the other side had a coupon taped to it. It didn’t. Just more plastic and a price telling me to put it back.

So I did. Felt more like crying than laughing.

I stood there looking at all that meat, thinking about spaghetti, tacos, maybe some hamburger helper if I wanted to stretch it. Then I started doing the math in my head. Meat, noodles, sauce, maybe cheese if I was feeling rich. By the time I bought everything, I’d would’ve spent almost what I make in two hours.

That meal would have to wait.

I get a free meal when I work, anyway. That’s where my meat gonna come from this week. Burger at McDonald’s for a crew meal. It ain’t home cooking, but it fills me up, and free tastes better than seven dollars a pound.

And I still gotta get laundry detergent. That stuff costs like it got a mortgage to pay. I picked up one bottle, saw the price, and put it right back. Found a smaller one on the bottom shelf and stood there trying to figure out how many loads I could get if I used less than the cap said. Probably more than they claim. Them lines inside the cap be lying.

Everything is like that now. You don’t buy what you want. You buy what you can get away with. Store-brand cereal. Cheapest bread. The eggs with the cracked-looking carton. Paper towels so thin you need three to clean up one spill.

You cut corners till your whole life shaped like like a circle.

But I won’t be buying cheap toothpaste.

I tried that once. Tasted like cough syrup mixed with chalk. Had my mouth feeling clean and punished at the same time. Some things ain’t worth saving fifty cents on, and toothpaste is one of them.

So I left the meat, bought the detergent I could afford, got the real toothpaste, and kept moving.

Prices too high to stand around being emotional. You either put it back or pay for it.

Today, I put a lot of it back.

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