You can remove "fast-" from the headline and the first sentence is still true, but it's hard not to justify the expense of eating at all. I tend to go multiple years between eating at a restaurant of any kind, and buy my food in grocery stores. But I still feel the sticker shock. Eggs, beef, fish are particularly outrageous, but the large price increases are everywhere. It's cliche to notice how much a few bags of groceries costs now but when I'm walking out of the store with two small bags for $200+, I notice.
So when you abandon fast food and change to preparing your own, it will help but less than you might hope.
> but when I'm walking out of the store with two small bags for $200+, I notice.
I do all of the shopping and cooking for my family. I understand your general point, but I’m having a very difficult time understanding how you could get to a $200 bill with “two small bags”. I don’t think I could get there without loading up on expensive steaks and seafood.
I normally purchase a lot of vegetables and fruits and some meat. There’s no way I could get to $200 total with a number of bags I could carry in my hands, even in a HCOL area.
I'm carnivore. Medium priced meats: chuck roasts, beef shank, salmon, chicken thighs. Butter, eggs. Huge supermarket chain in a small town. That market basket has particularly inflated. I buy most meat in bulk and I'm back to buying at the grocery after half a year of eating a single cow and a lamb, so a lot of it hit me at once.
This is your issue. You’re an omnivore, and it sounds like you’re overemphasizing meat. Buying primarily plant-based items will greatly cut down your grocery bill, and hopefully introduce you to some delicious new recipes on the process.
I’d recommend checking out Greek, Italian, Indian, Japanese, and Ethiopian recipes for some extraordinarily flavorful and filling vegetable-heavy meals that are relatively cheap. With Japanese, focus on buying tofu rather than meat since its cost should be generally cheaper.
I was omnivore for fifty years plus, vegetarian for several years, and even raw vegan for a while. But gastro issues made me go low residue and diabetes made me go low carb. Carnivore is what's left. Though I've been coerced into it, it has increased my healthspan a good bit.
Tofu is on the low side of carbs and fiber for plant food, but I believe that the fat and protein profiles and nutrient availability are better from meat.
The point is cost of his diet has gone up, which happens with meats - immigration has permenantly driven up up cost of many offcuts because now they're used in more recipes now. But still pretty telling when "medium" cuts prices are going through the roof. There's still "economical" carnivore diets considering how much industry is subsidized, not as economical as just hammering beans, but if one eats a lot of meat, one notices.
>So when you abandon fast food and change to preparing your own, it will help some but less than you might hope.
While true, there are many people who cannot do this because they work 16+ hours per day. And if they have children it is even more difficult.
To me, this points to the fact people in the US are not being paid a "living" wage. I even heard Walmart will help new employees apply for food stamps, that is sick because we are subsidizing the owners of Walmart and their stockholders.
> While true, there are many people who cannot do this because they work 16+ hours per day. And if they have children it is even more difficult.
Whenever I read these comments I feel like people either grew up in an alternate reality than I did, or they get their perception of poor people from the hyperbole on Reddit.
People who grew up in poverty and work two full time jobs aren’t the ones feeding their families with fast food for 2-3 meals per day. They’re the ones who are experts at cheap cooking, crockpot meals, and cheap meals at home.
Reading comments like this that hit a checklist of cliche bullet points (being “forced” to feed your family with fast food, parent who works 16+ hour days, using Walmart as the canonical American job, mentioning the anecdote about Walmart instructing people about how to apply for assistance) I suspect the experience is more of a conglomeration of talking points from politicians and Reddit rather than real experience.
I don't see how going to a fast food place saves you time: it takes significant time going to the fast food place, waiting in line, driving home. And at home you can multi-task--while waiting for the food to cook you can put the laundry in the washing machine, sweep the floor...large numbers of household tasks.
The actual situation. I have just picked up my child from wherever they are and I'm bring them home. I can either spend upwards of an hour cooking or I can stop at a fast food restaurant in the drive through and get food immediately with no effort on my part physical or mental.
Who is waiting while food cooks? When I cook I am attending to the food the entire time. Perhaps if you are a heavy oven user you get time to do other things, but otherwise, no.
And laundry lol. To barely keep up with the laundry, I have to do a load a day and the on the weekend I do several loads. It wasn't like this before I had a kid, but everything grt dirt faster and more often with a child around.
Being a parent who works is _exhausting_. You're always weighing money vs time investment. In many cases it's just easier to buy food you don't have to make or think about then have to do the whole rigamole of planning and buying groceries and then cooking the food yourself. If you're like me and you order a head via an app, you don't even have to wait the few minutes fast food takes. It's right there for you and you carry on your way. I can now spend my mental energy on something else.
> Who is waiting while food cooks? When I cook I am attending to the food the entire time. Perhaps if you are a heavy oven user you get time to do other things, but otherwise, no.
Long long ago I had a neighbour who cooked ONE day per month and froze everything. He printed out a menu card for himself with 3 and 4 course meals. He used a table cloth with the fine silver utensils and fancy plates. He would sit himself down, look at the menu, pick something then move the food from the freezer to the microwave. It looked like a high end restaurant. His argument was that he hated cooking and didn't want to spend any time on it.
The house had a shared kitchen. The one day he cooked was hilarious. He cooked for 40-50 people (inc guests), made various kinds of soup, all kinds of meat, pastas, curries, deserts etc
He one time pondered buying a rice cooker to make better rice but decided it was to much like cooking.
The food went in plastic bags in containers, when frozen he would pull it out of the container to save space and avoid having to wash the containers.
I also know people who eat together. They have no further relationship. They take turns cooking. Small groups like 3 or 4 but also larger ones like 6 or 8 people. You do need space for that ofc.
If you really attend to the food for an hour it is probably a more nutritious and more sophisticated meal than the fast food? How much money are you saving in that hour?
Parenting is just hard work. I'm afraid it includes teaching how to cook.
By the time I pick my kids up from preK and kinder, it’s 5:00pm. Swinging by the drive though, I can have the kids in chairs eating by 5:20. Cooking a dead simple meal like spaghetti, we’re not eating until closer to 5:45, because of overhead in getting everyone in the house and situated to where I can focus on cooking while they play. It’s even worse if they have bad days, we’re eating closer to 6:00pm.
Nothing wrong with eating later, in fact we prefer it because fast food is kinda crap and I don’t really like them eating processed foods. But it definitely saves time, not to mention on the cleanup side too.
And no, can’t really multitask during the weekdays because the timing is so tight. I can do dishes as I go but that’s the limit because the kids start screaming at each other that their feet are touching or whatever the drama of the day is…
Yes and saving that time means there's more time to go to the park or the store on the way home, etc. without having to get everybody ready to go out again.
Also my kids are picky eaters (autism) so it's not like we only have to make one delicious and nutritious meal for everybody. It's more like two or three different meals, or my wife and I have to settle for buttered noodles or what have you. Eating out lets us get a different meal for each person and there's still a chance of the adults being able to eat something delicious and/or nutritious. Or we can get take-out for the kids and make our own dinner or vice-versa.
I'm very liberal, but you have to admit that democrats held power at least as long as republicans over the last 30 years. There's plenty of ratfucking from both parties.
That is not true. Democrats have only had enough votes (60 in the Senate) to pass legislation for 6 months in the latter half of 2009 (which is when they got Affordable Care Act passed, with heavy compromises).
Also, Republicans have held the House for 22 out of the last 30 years. Hence why Republicans were able to hold up more Supreme Court judges from Obama, and obtain a Republican majority on the SC.
Thanks for the correction. It was the Senate that didn’t confirm the appointments, I misremembered as House. Which is also pretty supportive of Dems not having control for most of the last 30 years.
Can't Democrats make non-trivial changes at the state level? US states are very powerful. California's housing problems aren't a matter for the US Congress. Democrats hold a trifecta and legislative supermajority there.
Unfortunately, NIMBYism is popular in both parties on the local level. But note that California Democrats did take action to force permitting of more dense housing on the state level.
Also, on the state level, Democrat led states have higher minimum wages, stronger labor protections, parental leave and paid leave in general, expanded Medicaid, and other policies that raise the floor in general.
In a wealthy first world country, it's very difficult to pay a living wage while also keeping prices low. Prices of things we buy are very sensitive to labor costs, so low income earners find themselves on a treadmill where their wage increases get eaten up quickly by cost increases.
The solution would be something like wage crush from the top. The mass of this change wouldn't come from billionaires or the 1%, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the 50-90%.
There are tons of "average" people who got absolutely stacked in the last 5 years. Especially here on HN. They won't raise their hand, it's pretty taboo in this environment, but consumer spending and unrelenting housing prices make it very clear which social classes are fucked and which ones are richer than ever. And it's not billionaires and everyone else.
> In a wealthy first world country, it's very difficult to pay a living wage while also keeping prices low.
Is this true? I have repeatedly come across people saying tipping in North America is insane since in most of the rest of the world it isn’t required because restaurants pay living wages to start, and the pricing is on par or less than in North America.
You have to look at exchange rates and relative incomes if you’re comparing US to Europe. (And a service fee is often tacked on in the UK for table service so it’s not unique to the U.)
Essentially any personal service is pretty expensive even for someone of above or even well above average income. Non-dedicated services such as Uber or a car to the airport are certainly more manageable than a private driver just as a restaurant is more manageable than a personal chef.
But anything along these lines is still relatively expensive.
You're talking about a bullshit lunch of sandwiches. Most people are talking about breakfast, lunch and dinner where they have to juggle the wants and temperaments of their whole family and then spend more than an hour planning and getting that food. Because part of grocery shopping is inventorying your food stores and considering price and sales and how much money you have. When you're poor, you don't go to one grocery store, you go to multiple. I used to travel with my money to get stuff for the hour and it took hours. She made so little that it was better she spend her time rather than her money. When I was a poor college student I got it.
I'm a middle class white collar worker who makes every single meal my child eats and it sure as fuck doesn't take me one or two hours to feed my kid. I meal prep and I lose my entire day to just making food for the week.
This entire discussion is about the price of goods going up even though people aren't being paid a living wage, so I'm not sure what argument you're making.
There is also land and capital, of course, but it is not very often that the landlords don't also want a raise when labor starts making more money. That is their living, after all. For all intents and purposes there is only labor.
Granted, you can often play political games with labor, such as only raising the wages of workers in the USA, while leaving the labor making the plastic trinkets in who knows what third-world country to continue to struggle. In that sense, it doesn't necessarily happen linearly. Not really achieving the goal of a "living" wage then, though.
> I tend to go multiple years between eating at a restaurant of any kind
Man, not to derail from the topic, but it never ceases to amaze me how varied our lifestyles can be. My wife and I have always loved going out to eat at restaurants, it would be a strange week where we didn't go out at least once.
Going years between restaurants, including fast food, is pretty extreme. But if I leave out travel, eating even takeout is a maybe a twice a month sort of thing. I could certainly afford to do so more often but I mostly can’t be bothered and there aren’t a lot of great options around where I live and plenty of options to prepare a 20 minute meal at home.
When I grew up in the 80s in a typical middle class suburban family, restaurants were a real rare treat. Like something you did maybe once a year or so on birthdays or very special occasions. I've got to believe this whole "restaurant for lunch every day and for dinner twice a week" practice is relatively recent, and maybe limited to cities, at least in the USA (not sure about other countries).
As for my family, we've basically stopped going. It's just gotten ridiculous. The various hidden service charges, and tipping which has gotten way out of control (like really? you expect 25% for bringing me a microwaved Sysco meal?). $100 used to get you an amazing meal/experience for two, like something worthy of an Anniversary. Today, after all the taxes, tips, and fees, you can easily drop that for a mediocre Olive Garden "experience".
The mainstream just hasn't caught up to the varied choices the world offers to individuals now, and that makes the bell curve seem a lot more flat than it actually is.
And what percentage of the US population has read a book in the past year? In the past 3 years? And what percentage can’t imagine not having access to live TV in some manner?
I’m sure a lot of people have behaviors that are totally alien to a large group.
We could expand that to other activities that I imagine a large segment of the population has never gone to.
Not all food. Bananas are the same price they've always been, for example. Store brands have inflated less than name brands. Mom and Pop restaurants have inflated a lot less than chains and can now be cheaper than McDonald's.
That was the case for a while, but hasn't been for quite a while in the US. Food at home has been one of the factors bringing down the inflation rate for more than a year. The most recent data release shows only a 1.2% increase in the last year. It's true that food at home has risen by 25% since the start of the pandemic, but that was driven by what happened in 2021 and 2022.
Inflation on food away from home has come down quite a bit as well, but its inflation rate is still above 4%. At "limited service" food establishments (fast food), the inflation rate is well above 5%.
One can make nutritious under $4/meal on organic WholeFood prices when sticking to raw materials, i.e. not prepared foods. Those with access to a yard in the right climates can improve on that with some garden beds (herbs & leafy greens have a good return). So I think that really depends on what you're purchasing at the store.
Fast food chains have the benefit of scale but they still have margins to make. That food is rarely healthy so you're also increasing your long term healthcare costs by going that route.
I believe that a major issue here is that many of the younger people in the US haven't gained the skills to cook for themselves. With those skills comes efficiency and the ability to reduce waste. For those working low wage jobs (of which I was for about a decade), time spent on cooking has a higher value than say a knowledge worker who can pick up some contract work on upwork.
I feel we've grown far too used to cheap food in the US. Particularly meat which relies on consolidation into large operations that require antibiotic use, cheap labor in poor conditions, and questionable practices in processing and livestock welfare. So yeah, perhaps that happy meal should cost more?
> One can make nutritious under $4/meal on organic WholeFood prices when sticking to raw materials, i.e. not prepared foods. Those with access to a yard in the right climates can improve on that with some garden beds (herbs & leafy greens have a good return)
I agree that cooking can be done cheaply, but I never recommend gardening as a way to get cheaper food. I say this as someone who gardens a lot and enjoys it.
Gardening is fun if you enjoy it, but it’s not a realistic option for lowering food prices. It’s definitely not a solution to high food prices. It’s a hobby.
But you’re right: Even shopping at Whole Foods in a HCOL area it’s trivially easy to prepare reasonably priced meals. I don’t understand what some of these commenters are buying with claims of $200 for “two small bags” of groceries. I don’t think I could accomplish that without loading up on expensive beef, cheeses, and seafood.
> Gardening is fun if you enjoy it, but it’s not a realistic option for lowering food prices. It’s definitely not a solution to high food prices. It’s a hobby.
Agreed, it's not a solution. But if one is buying rosemary, thyme, basil at the store those kinds of things are priced high and are very cost effective / low maintenance to grow. If one is really just getting by these aren't things to reach for but for a middle class family trying to save some money it's kind of a no brainer if they purchase them regularly.
It's the same for food prep. For some items the time to prepare doesn't offset the cost of buying the prepared item so you really only gain better nutrition or flavor. Other things, say granola, stock, dressings/sauces almost always give you a tastier, healthier product for cheaper.
As you mentioned in your other comment these kinds of things are skills that lower income families tend to have / gain. It just seems that it's becoming increasingly less common.
I wonder if it's a recent phenomenon starting with the millennials growing up in higher standard of living households where those skills weren't really needed as much and now they've gone and moved out into an economy that's far less forgiving.
As someone who grows some herbs in pots, the people being discussed on this thread aren’t going to get vapors usin a jar of dried herbs that will last for a while. Admittedly you really need fresh basil for certain things but never had enough luck growing it to do more than stick a leaf or two on something for an accent. And gardening sure doesn’t cure a not enough time to cook problem.
I think there's two groups being discussed in this thread.
The ones walking out of the grocery store with $200 in groceries that fit in two bags. And families with low wages. The former is more likely to benefit from growing herbs and leafy vegetables as they are more likely to use them. Dried herbs can be pretty expensive as well.
But yeah, I only had one sentence about gardening in my original comment. Didn't mean to emphasize that as a groundbreaking differentiator in saving money on food.
That sounds odd, do you buy particularly expensive ingredients? I'm not in the US, but I prep my own meals with average quality ingredients. Not accounting for the extra time that it takes (which amortizes well with meal prep), I probably spend between 1/4th and 1/3rd as much as I would spend if I were to eat a similar meal at a restaurant.
> That sounds odd, do you buy particularly expensive ingredients?
Yes. Far more expensive than the cheap ingredients like the flours and oils of fast food. I focus on making my food as nutritionally dense as possible, which ain't cheap. But I ate a lot more than my share of fast-food first and did a lot of damage with it. I'm positive I'd be dead if I didn't change. That would certainly be a lot cheaper.
Agree. I don't tip myself. And abundant portions at home are easy left-overs. And often the ingredients are not completely consumed by one meal and so amortize across a number of meals.
I think if you run the real numbers, eating at home is still a huge savings. And this allowing that you are probably using higher quality ingredients.
I agree with your assessment of walking out of a grocery store with two bags costing ~$200. I went to Canada to see the eclipse and was absolutely shocked how cheap it was to go to the grocery store. Not only was the currency conversion in my favor, the prices were reasonable and aligned to what I remember from pre-pandemic times. $200 Canadian had a completely full cart. Americans are absolutely being price-gouged.
> $200 Canadian had a completely full cart. Americans are absolutely being price-gouged.
This is baffling for two reasons:
1. Canada currently has massive inflation problems. Housing prices are out of control. Groceries are expensive. Maybe you went to a small town somewhere and shopped as cheaply as possible, but your experience isn’t common.
1. I go to Costco in the US every week and fill the massive cart (bigger than your grocery store cart) for around $200. If you can’t fill a normal grocery store cart for $200 then you’re either in an extremely HCOL area or you’re shopping for expensive things.
> Canada currently has massive inflation problems.
When you break down CPI, the inflation is almost entirely on the back of rising mortgage interest costs. Canada has been within the inflation target for at least a year now if you exclude mortgage interest.
That said, even including mortgage interest, the current rate is 2.9%. That's not exactly a massive problem. That's pretty close to what the BoC is looking for
> Housing prices are out of control.
Price of rent, maybe. For buyers, the housing market crashed in 2022. Affording a home for the Average Joe hasn't gotten any easier due to higher interest rates (see the part about CPI), of course, but that's not the price of housing.
> Maybe you went to a small town somewhere
Groceries in small town Canada tend to be more expensive.
> When you break down CPI, the inflation is almost entirely on the back of rising mortgage interest costs.
This is only true recently as the interest rate hikes took a while to filter down to actual mortgages and then make it into the CPI numbers. Prior to that, groceries were a huge component of inflation.
> Prior to that, groceries were a huge component of inflation.
Years ago, sure. That whole war in Ukraine thing, coupled with the EU shutting down fertilizer plants in 2021, along with some devastating weather in the US breadbasket and an ounce of COVID-19 sent the food industry into a complete tizzy, indeed. As a Canadian farmer, the price I was being paid for food had doubled by 2022 as compared to 2019. But it was short-lived. Things are pretty much back to normal now and have been for a while. The farm gate price has returned to 2019 levels (in nominal dollars). There isn't any remaining pressure on groceries. "Currently" is what was specified in the original comment.
> I went to Canada to see the eclipse and was absolutely shocked how cheap it was to go to the grocery store. Not only was the currency conversion in my favor, the prices were reasonable and aligned to what I remember from pre-pandemic times. $200 Canadian had a completely full cart.
Wait, what? As a Canadian I can assure you this is not the case. It is so much different than what you are saying that our generally passive population has undertaken a month long boycott of our largest grocer to protest the outrageous pricing. When I see American prices on social media, I am shocked at how much cheaper prices are, even with currency conversion.
Inflation, plus a pinch of good old corporate greed. In europe most money since first covid came lost at least 20% of its value (so if somebody claims their property gained cca same amount of worth, it just kept its value). Holding money really seems to be most stupid thing to do with them.
Big retail chains were making record profits, raised prices, offloaded most of risk elsewhere, and didnt correct once covid became another meh.
You can add travel cost there, folks went mental with traveling after restrictions were dropped, and so far dont seem to slow down.
I started mentoring college students several years ago. I’ve been stunned by some of their spending habits. Many of them are just not price sensitive at all, even when they should be.
Many will complain about how expensive fast food is, but then brag that they refuse to learn how to cook. Some will complain about how expensive fast food is, then talk about going to Five Guys or other expensive fast food places multiple times per week. It’s strange to hear someone complain about how they can’t afford their daily Starbucks any more, yet they continue getting it every single day.
I don’t know what happened. I didn’t go to college all that long ago, but even then it was rare to see someone drinking daily expensive coffees and fast food was more of a treat than a meal plan.
Now I hear college students complaining about how expensive their DoorDash was on a regular basis, which blows my mind as an adult who could afford DoorDash but avoids it because it’s so expensive.
It’s like supply and demand suddenly broke because a lot of people started downplaying the price factor into their decision making. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the way we’ve let people load up on $100K of loans at the beginning of adulthood and the payments are delayed until much later? I’ve witness multiple conversations where students wonder if they could get more student loans to help free up their budget to buy brand new cars or really nice apartments or even vacations. For some, it’s like a magic money faucet that unlocks whatever they want, and the consequences haven’t even begun to arrive yet because they haven’t graduated. I really worry about the downstream effects this has on perceptions about budgeting and how expensive things are. When you’ve just been given a $100K loan but haven’t received a bill yet, that $15 burger seems like nothing.
I grew up in the 60's and 70's in a middle-class family. Moms generally didn't work until maybe the mid 70's. In my family, there was no "allowance" and no extra money, so anything we (kids) wanted, we had to work for: babysitting and mowing yards starting at 12, working at a grocery store at 15 (I remember because my mom had to drive me to work), etc. You want a new bike, you save for it and buy it. I started working at 12 and never stopped until I took a breather in my early 30's and could afford to not work a few months.
It seems to me that many kids of the last couple of middle-class generations were raised in 2-income families that could be more generous with their kids. My nephews for example didn't work much until their 20's, didn't work during college (only summers), had nicer cars, went on vacations, etc.
I know "kids" who are now 30, working at restaurants or bars, sharing apartments, maybe don't have a car, are walking to work, and use DoorDash because they don't have a car to get food and/or groceries (they don't know how to cook either, because never learned while growing up).
Way different upbringings. A lot of young adults who do have money don't want kids because they are used to having and spending money and are smart enough to realize that kids will greatly cramp their lifestyle. The ones who are struggling know they can't afford kids: they're barely staying afloat themselves.
I mentioned to a coworker I'm not rich enough to use my credit card, or even debit card, for everything. People tend to spend more using credit vs cash (0,1). Anecdotally, I noticed the same thing when I was younger, and since switching to cash for all in-person expenditures, my partner noticed, and mentioned, the same thing. I think most college students would concur, if they gave cash a chance for a few months, and I think being raised on exclusively credit cards leads to bad financial habits.
I think Visa and other private financial institutions are aware of this affect, and attempt to drive social change and expectations through legislation, advertising, sly dealings to ensure terminal ubiquity, and sweetheart media coverage painting cash as outmoded.
Cash makes a real difference for me when budgeting. And I should leave it at that before this becomes half rant, half anti-creditcard manifesto.
> "The whole conceit was that you were getting some OK-level of food for a low price and you could get it quick," Roberts said. "Now I can't justify the expense. If I'm paying $15 for a burger and fry and drink and it's McDonalds quality, forget about it — I'm going home."
My n=1 - I live in a pretty upscale American city, and ~$15 will get you a very nice burger and fries (no drink) at some of the most upscale restaurants in town. Pay attention to their Happy Hours, and it's more like $11 or $12 (so you could add a soft drink). A huge portion of meaty lamb roganjosh & rice at my favorite Indian take-away is $16. Why would anyone ever want to go near a McDonalds?
There was a time when ~$3 could get you two very average 450kCal burgers from McDonald’s. One could hypothetically survive off $6/day. Less if you were in a cheap state.
This is the experience people are disappointed about missing; McDonald’s was never about the big ticket combos, it’s always been about the value deals which couldn’t be found anywhere else. I worked for three years at a Canadian McDonald’s, week after week our most popular sandwiches were the McDouble and Junior Chicken, each coming in at $1.46 CDN after tax. Now they’re both $4.50 after tax, roughly a 300% increase in the span of 10 years. People are right to be upset: the entire category of ultra-cheap-takeout is being swept out from under them with McDonald’s being just one of many companies following the same trend.
A good burger will run you $25 in Boston. Wages are generally higher, but still. It's kind of insane. That being said, I noticed probably even 10+ years ago that fast food prices were a pretty bad deal.
I live in the Greater Boston area and you can still find decent meals for say $18 takeaway. I saw the chart on reddit and can't find it right now but McDa prices effectively doubled in the last 5ish years. Many fast food places way outpaced inflation.
It makes almost no sense to go fast food. Cava is about $12-13 out the door. It's even crazier on the west coast where in and out exists. I don't understand how McDs exists and since its significantly more liked than Burger King, even in a HCOL area, I don't see how they make money.
Boston's food prices are pretty nutty. I've been here for almost a month and a lot of things here are outrageously expensive. I'm not even talking about food that tourists are meant to eat, but just everyday basics. The funny thing too is that there's so many college kids here that the price of a mere burger seems like a low-level swindle to capitalize off the proliferation of student debt and gimmies from Late Boomer (Gen X) parents.
> Why would anyone ever want to go near a McDonalds
Depending on the franchisee, it's often one of the only late night options in town, giving sustenance to the stoners and post-drinks drunchies of the world.
They also got in on the drive-thru cafe concept before Starbucks figured it out, thus a lot of people became accustomed to going to their local "McCafe" in the morning. Never had their coffee, but I've heard it's not half bad to at least being acceptable. Oddly enough, public opinion seems way more divided on the quality of Starbucks than that of McCafe.
It's funny that restaurant burger prices in my EU country are basically the same as in your "upscale American city". I thought everything there was more expensive since the higher percentiles of your salaries are so much higher.
North America has a unified agriculture market amongst Mexico, US, and Canada - drastically simplifying logistics.
The EU has a similar setup, but 26 countries still adds some overhead versus 3 countries with some form of a "Commerce Clause". It makes sense though - a Polish farmer probably can't compete with a Dutch farmer at scale due to less capital to invest in relatively expensive automation or larger operations.
At least you aren't paying East Asian prices for a lot of produce.
Don’t forget to factor tip and taxes into your prices. Without those it’s difficult to actually compare them to countries that actually show the final price.
McDonalds is a great place to hang out. It’s well-lit, down to earth, not too loud or quiet, you can serve yourself drinks, and meet people from all walks of life in there.
This applies to Burger King also: both franchises have (usually) hidden away on their discount menus small 'classic' hamburgers: small burger and bun, pickles, mustard, and ketchup. They are very inexpensive (usually, but may depend on individual places).
There little classic burgers remind me of when I was a kid, and I enjoy them. Two of them makes a light meal.
I am in my 70s and very well off financially, but it makes me feel bad to see a young family in front of me doing custom orders for adults and kids, and run up a bill much more than going into a non-franchise locally owned restaurant and getting a real meal.
Another tip for older people: Burger King offers a $1 large cup of coffee to seniors but you have to ask for it.
Whataburger (a Texas regional chain) has (or at least they still did as of a year or so ago when I last ordered one) one of those basic burgers and I don’t believe it’s even on the menu - you just have to know about it. But I like their name for it - the “justaburger”; it’s just a burger.
Ann Arbor locals generally don't compare The Gandy Dancer or Weber's to Applebee's.
I'll assume that you are not from this area?
(Admittedly, you can spend $29 on a burger at West End Grill. Though that's not with fries, but their excellent sautéed vegetables, and choice of soup or salad. And if you're dining there, I'd really suggest spending a bit more to get their smoked duck.)
> Roberts, 38, now only gets fast food "as a rare treat".
I feel that that is it should be? When I was young it was important enough to mention at the monday class circle if your grandparents had taken you to visit the Golden Arches and everyone would be very jealous.
Growing up in the 80's, I got fast food (McD's, Pizza Hut) maybe once every two or three weeks. I got to go to a "nice" restaurant perhaps twice a year.
My parents however, left us with a Tombstone pizza or Swanson's TV dinner three times per week when they went out to dinner.
I have a personal rule that if I can remember the last time I ate fast food, it's too soon to eat it again. That seems to space it out to no more than a handful of times a year, and I agree that seems to be about the oftenest I would like it to be.
Growing up poor (mom was single, working as a secretary in the 1970's trying to support two small kids) Shakey's pizza offering free drinks on Tuesday nights (if you ordered a large pizza and brought in a coupon) was our special night out.
Fast food has never been "normalized" for me and I think that is a good thing.
For an entire family, maybe so, but let's not confuse fast food for that rare gourmet meal experience.
It's niche is good value convenience food for those on-the-go, and cheap enough for kids parties etc.
If it's now premium prices, local options are likely to be way better. I mean I'm not in US, but there's absolutely no way I'm paying $12 for a mcdonalds quarter-pounder-and-cheese - I remember them being famously under $1 and thus a great car snack on the way to a meeting or whatever.
And in case this is their intent, I really don't think the chivas regal effect can apply in this case - that's reserved for when the average punter can't really discern quality.
I don't disagree from a nutrition standpoint, but the very American innovation of cheap food arriving at your table fast now being seen as too expensive isn't a good sign from an economical perspective. This is like saying that if gas hit $10 that it's actually a good thing since people should drive less anyway. Like, yeah, but that's really not the key issue. Maybe the word orthogonal is what I'm looking for here?
What is hard for me to justify on a routine basis is delivery. It ends up being $20 for half of a meal even when I go with cheap fast food. So I always want more food than that, which will be $30+ easily. For one person, from the least expensive restaurants.
I guess it's different if I have a "real" contract. But right now I am trying to save "runway" for my current "startup" and it seems like opening DoorDash more than once or twice a month is a pretty bad idea.
From my perspective, food delivery apps have always been in the category of an extreme luxury, and I’m still somewhat shocked how many people seem to consider them as something to use on a regular basis.
I find them useful for placing an order in advance if I really want takeout, but then I go pick it up (I know there are still fees involved when ordering through an app, but I’ll often use the app just for the menu and call the restaurant directly to place the order). At that point I’m usually ready for a break in whatever I’m doing anyway.
But for people who order regularly, being able to cook and feed yourself is an essential life skill that should not be replaced by getting food delivery all the time.
re: "From my perspective, food delivery apps have always been in the category of an extreme luxury":
Of course it is! I am in my 70s and well off financially and I only use food delivery in the rare event both my wife and I are ill at the same time.
I find it a pleasure to run out to get takeout food, or more usually stop by my local produce store or local market and get something to make dinner. I am a very busy person, and at the end of each day I have never had enough time to do everything I wanted to do that day, but still spending 20 minutes to get food, a little more time to cook a tasty meal (or more rarely get take out food) just seems like one of the basic enjoyable things in life not to be missed.
Is this a generational thing? Do younger people just not enjoy going to a farmer's market, to a local health food store, cook, etc.? I am not being judgmental, just curious.
Some traditional city delivery services like the local Chinese restaurant may be somewhat reasonable but I have literally never used one of the app-enabled delivery services nor been tempted to do so. I feel like there are a bunch of basically luxury services that have been normalized.
I would love to see the actual stats on what people are doing instead. Like, are they getting more takeaway from other places, because the prices are closer now? Or are they biting the bullet and cooking at home? There might be a few people who are just eating less often, but I can't imagine that's happening at high enough numbers to account for the change.
I justified fast food to myself for a long time, telling myself I didn't have the bandwidth to plan meals, cook them, etc., and certainly not on busy days.
I don't remember where I found the idea, but eventually I ended up with two 2-week meal plans. I saved those grocery lists on the "to-go" order list for the grocer that's on my way home, and once every other week, I stop in and some nice employee brings the food out to my car. It doesn't even cost extra to have them do the shopping. For $15, they'd even bring it to my doorstep.
It does mean spending 3 hours every other weekend prepping the meals for the two weeks (it can be done in three 1-hour slots if it needs to), but then all I do at any given meal time is pull a jar out of the fridge, reheat it, and eat it. Most of the meals are fine cold too, just slightly less enjoyable. I have a little insulated lunchbox I put the food in if I think I might not be home at mealtime.
It took a little iterating, but it's vastly simpler, easier, healthier, and more convenient for me than the fast food ever was, and I've wondered since then if people are just intimidated by the change, or have some other reason that really does make fast food their best option.
I’d be curious to know your recipes/plans - I can never seem to get something that’s healthy, cost conscious, and stable for 2 weeks in a prep plan.
For myself, I eat a lot of the local grocery store’s (HEB which I like a lot) prepared salads and sandwiches. They also sell a lot of pre-seasoned meat for grilling that I rather enjoy. Also we have a ton of Texmex restaurants here which are fairly unhealthy, but you can do pretty good if you divide one of their meals in half and get two servings, and the price for that is usually around the cost of a single fast-food meal. I also have the privilege of sharing a lot of meals with my parents and aunt/uncle as we are all locals.
Yea meal prepping has been huge for me. It can even turn cooking into a more communal experience if you get a few friends together on Sundays and spend a few hours in the kitchen. Cooking was very lonely for me before I made a day of it every other week. Better than fast food, cheaper than fast food, faster than fast food.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've come across quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggesting that a lot of people in the US -- but especially those earning below median income -- badly need to earn more to make ends meet. Food, energy, entertainment, sneaky hidden fees, and high interest costs seem to be the main culprits.
With unemployment near its lowest rate in 50+ years, the pressure is largely on employers to pay up if they want to retain good people.[a] I wouldn't be surprised if we see labor costs rising in the near term, putting pressure on companies everywhere to raise consumer prices further.
Some economists and government officials claim that inflation is under control, but the anecdotal data I'm seeing suggests it's too early to sing victory.
I had a back and forth on Reddit about how the rest of the world is capable of taking their breakfast or lunch to work and it exposed the degree to which many people are behaviorally addicted to fat and salt.
“I have a commute and no time to fry and egg or make a sandwich” but can wait 10-15m in a drive through twice a day.
When I sometimes used to go into an office I’d have a soup or something for lunch and ate breakfast at home. Never really used the cafeteria beyond the soup. Of course this wasn’t some fancy free lunch, much less dinner, thing.
I can't imagine what the arguments looked like. No, you don't understand, it's impossible to wake up 10m early to fry an egg or make a sandwich? I don't get it.
Try shopping at your local ethnic grocery store. There’s a Korean market with high quality cuts of pork and chicken for practically pennies in my city.
They absolutely try to extract every cent where they can. For example, in Pleasanton - [0]
It's just difficult when I as an native am not going to get duped into spending $10 on "chai tea" when I know it's only worth $2 and the input cost at scale is $0.02.
Just take a look at the HMart prices near a college campus or around a 2nd gen Asian American neighborhood and an HMart in a neighborhood with plenty of 1 and 1.5 Gen Asian Americans.
I agree! My personal favorites are Korean and Mexican markets. There is a Mexican market near where I live that optionally sells meat already brined. Properly brining meat is a nuisance, so nice get it pre-brined: just take it home and cook it.
In Switzerland we have these bodegas? but quality of stuff there varies. I wouldnt call meat 'quality', more like dubious origin or with extreme markup (easily 100-200% on top of good chains here).
Bear in mind that food quality standards are very high here, so a lot of external stuff including US food products is seen as subpar, rightfully or not.
There’s a sad story in the city as well of a Mediterranean grocery that was once high quality. It seems the owner died in 2020 and the kids have run the quality into the ground.
This is probably a good thing. When it was super easy and cheap to get a crap meal for $10, lots of people did it and lots of people got bigger and that $10 a day added up.
For us, when we go out, we'll do a sit down restaurant and actually enjoy it more because it's rarer.
It still costs pennies to make French fries. I'm not really sure why they charge $5 for them now. I'm sure inflation is real, but I'm sure some greedy Fs in corporate offices are taking advantage of the situation by artificially inflating prices because they now have an excuse to do so. People will only pay so much for crap food, until they don't. The last thing McDonalds wants is people to start to learn and enjoy cooking at home.
I find it hard to sympathize with consumers about rising food prices in a country with overabundance of highly caloric and cheap options everywhere.
If this hike is truly due to increasing labor costs: good. A decent living standard in the world's greatest economy shouldn't be a privilege.
If the hike is due to corporate greed, then that's shitty, but it's arguably good for the consumer who will now seek out healthier dietary options. Fast food being part of a regular diet is partially responsible for the abysmal health epidemic in the US, and other countries this has spread to. Restricting access to it by raising prices can only be a good thing.
While I make good money, I came from a very humble start, and eating/ordering out has gotten downright absurd to do so now out of principal. The prices are simply outrageous for what you get, the service has gotten typically worse with quality of people, and the food is generally subpar, particularly with increase costs. Every where I go, it's the same disappointment, and I've had enough to minimize restaurant spend.
The entire restaurant industry is in a tailspin, and driving away consumers is just adding dirt to their grave. I just feel sorry for the people that committed themselves to the industry that are having the carpet pulled out from underneath them.
Prices are high because consumers are willing to still spend at that prices. Restaurants are still making a big buck. Travel, entertainment - they’re all booming!
One of the bigger issues is the rich get richer and they want less competition.
There are fewer owners of 50th percentile of sales.
Spend less, save and invest is the lesson. However our domaine loving brain can be hard to reason with.
I live in a developing country. We stopped buying cakes/pastries long time ago, as they have become way too expensive for the quality. Home baked stuff is like 1/3 price for better quality.
Not an American, so I may have incomplete information here, but I've read about "food deserts"[1] in US cities, i.e. neighborhoods (usually poor) where there are no grocery stores in reasonable distance and the only affordable source of food for poor families are fast food places.
That's a problem in itself but it may mean that the headline "fast-food prices rising" may not be as ridiculous as it sounds.
It only really impacts people that don't own a vehicle, something like 10% of households. In urban areas, most housing is within a couple of miles of a real grocery store (so access with a vehicle is not an issue).
In my relatively rural county, the food deserts are mostly outside of the towns, where people, for the most part anyway, are living there by choice (they want the outdoor space/distance from neighbors).
I live in (barely) rural part of Texas. There's a Dollar General I could walk to if I needed. But the nearest full size grocery store is 15 minutes away by car -- doing 60mph for most of the way. It'd be a 5 or 6 hour round-trip to walk -- maybe 2 hours to get there, maybe 15 minutes to shop, and 3 hours to walk back laden with groceries.
Without the large volume that a vehicle could carry, that walk would need to occur quite often. With a car, I just stock up groceries about once every 4-6 weeks and it all fits in my trunk.
This is just a consequence of the inflation countermeasures working.
During the inflationary period, people were flush with cash, demand increased, there were shortages, everyone raised prices, profits surged, companies hired workers for higher wages, people got more money, etc.. Everyone was mad because they got big raises, which were obviously the result of all their hard work which corporations suddenly saw and appreciated for a large percentage of people all at once and _also_ "greedy corporations" suddenly en masse decided that they no longer wanted to be charitable enterprises and decided to raise prices to steal money from the pockets of hard working americans.
Or, you know, there was a bunch of inflation and wages and prices went up in parallel.
And now money is no longer flowing into the economy, some companies went too far raising prices anticipating more inflation, and now they're losing sales and that's hurting profits, and they're going to end up cutting prices to increase sales and maximize profits again.
Nature is healing.
I think a lot of people have the impression that inflation reduces how much stuff people can afford and generally it's fairly neutral in that respect. There's a certain amount of production and a certain amount of demand and in general it will balance out and no matter what's' going on with inflation people are gonna be able to afford the same amount of stuff. I think people had this idea that if we got inflation under control that suddenly everyone would be able to afford to buy all the stuff they wanted to buy, and they just can't.
The main reason inflation is bad for most people is instability and you have to keep getting raises to keep up with prices. You get a raise, you can suddenly buy some stuff you couldn't before -- prices go up and now you can't again. Then you get a raise, can afford to buy a bunch of stuff, and prices go up and now you can't again. (not to mention that toll it takes on saving, but even that isn't that bad if you own stock instead of holding cash, because asset prices inflate, also)
So when you abandon fast food and change to preparing your own, it will help but less than you might hope.
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