Rather then buy stew meat I buy the least expensive steak and cut it down to size myself. I can stretch the meat out over several meals and carrots, onion and potato's, and tomoto sauce are about all I add to the mix. A piece of bread and maybe fruit makes a good meal.  I freeze the un-eaten portion for another .
Just because you see a poor person buy a steak doesn't mean they are living the life.  Due to a string of uncontrollable problem such as the home and cabin industry in my mountain home the home handyman end of the industry has been saturated by former contractors and carpenters.  Before the crash it was difficult to find a descent handyman so I thought I had a safe niche because contractors were to busy getting lucrative contracts to build vacation homes for Silicon Valley people.
Then a seizure, then a sever back problem and then with no driver's license...and on it goes, a person such as I can't find work.
I also did home inspections which declined and the competition came.