I am always very envious of you in the States, with your very low prices. $5.44 = £3.41 at today's conversion rate. The cheapest plain block coloured cotton I can buy is £5.50 per mtr = $8.75. We regularly pay £8-£12 per mtr for cotton fabric ($12.73 - $19.00) in quilting shops. Even on my local market I am looking at about £5-6.50 per mtr.
The global price of unprocessed raw cotton reached an all time high in 2011 - $2.23 per pound. Although cotton prices have now started to drop (under a dollar a pound), manufacturers are still using cotton they purchased some time ago, and - in true entreprenurial style, and in response to market forces - are passing the cost onto us, the consumer. So much for the free market economy!
I am very careful what I purchase. I recover previously used material from clothing: any cotton fabric from shirts, dresses, etc. It is a bit time consuming, but in a funny kind of way, gives me a link with the past, when quilts were made using leftover fabric. My favourite quilt is one that I didn't make! It was made by my great grandmother, as a bedcover for my grandmother when she left home to get married. It used old dress fabrics and leftover pieces of material, because she didn't have the luxury of purchasing new fabric from her local quilting shop! All through my childhood I remember it being on my grandmothers bed. It is now on mine!