Found this article on CNN, they are discussing reducing the savings that the Commissary offers.... http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/25/news/economy/commissary-budget-cuts/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Personally, I find that I have almost no savings at the commissary. I shop around at local grocery stores, look for sales, buy in bulk.... Personally, I feel that the commissary of today is part of a bloated military system that could stand some looking at. There are other options that have been looked at but shot down by Vetrans Lobby groups. My personal take is that DoD should focus on war fighting, not grocery stocking. Making some sort of liason with established non-military shopping outlets such as Kroger and Wal-Mart may make sense at most bases (would still need commissary in overseas locations and maybe remote conus bases).
What do you think?
Sir,
The only problem with that theory is that their are many singular duty stations that have limited available local shopping outlets, and some have only the commissary as the next closest market type outlet such as Wal-Mart or Kroger, HEB, etc., is 30 or more miles away, so those families that have to depend on commissary only would quite an issue with your plan or the closing of their only outlet, the commissary.
And many times over the years, I have seen the commissary still cheaper than local markets to include Wal-Mart especially if you know when to shop with them, specifically on off-payday weekends/weeks when more sales come about to bring in the customer even more frequently.
I don't buy meat at wal-mar OR the commissary. I go to a meat locker and buy 1/4-1/2 beef. I get all the cuts of meat and if I recall right, last time I got a 1/2 beef I paid market price per pound plus processing. I got about 300 pounds for $550 which includes steaks, roasts, ribs, hamberger.....that is the best price you can get.
I have yet to see any reason why we couldn't meet the need using NAF. AAFES and NEX seem to do an adequate job providing gasoline, clothing, furniture, electronics, even groceries on a limited scale. It doesn't seem like much of a stretch for them to expand to fill the gap if we eliminated DeCA.