PSA: your grocery store butcher will grind up a steak of your choosing for you at no cost, you only need to ask.
I didn't know people bought pre-ground beef until moving out of my parents' home. Growing up, whenever we went shopping, my mother would start at the meat department, pick out a cheap steak, and ask the butcher to grind it up. We'd return for it later before heading to the cashier. I thought this was the standard operating procedure, as well as eating home-cooked hamburgers bloody rare.
Wealthy is not how I'd describe my parents; a construction worker with a stay at home housewife and three kids.
There are often steaks for sale on the refrigerated shelves adjacent to the butcher counter/case. Maybe that's not so common in the UK? The supermarkets here regularly have meat wrapped in clear plastic and carrying bright orange stickers on clearance, it's what happens to the case-resident stuff when new stock arrives.
My mother would familiarize herself with the schedule of deliveries at the stores she frequented. She knew when and where she could get the freshest stuff for special occasions, as well as when things went on sale to make room for the new meat, keeping our freeezer full of staples.
I don't think it requires wealth so much as it requires some care and effort. These are the kinds of duties a traditional housewife would take on, but I don't personally find it particularly difficult to chat up the butcher and do more or less the same thing as a bachelor.
I didn't know people bought pre-ground beef until moving out of my parents' home. Growing up, whenever we went shopping, my mother would start at the meat department, pick out a cheap steak, and ask the butcher to grind it up. We'd return for it later before heading to the cashier. I thought this was the standard operating procedure, as well as eating home-cooked hamburgers bloody rare.