Just two or three years ago, I discovered that a regular (tiny) burger at McDonald's without cheese was $1! This was before Dollar Tree went to $1.25, so I remember calculating that those little McDonald's burgers (without cheese) were the same price, and about the same size, as dollar store burgers (with "cheese").
I been eating at home since the start of lockdown. Mostly canned soups and such. Those have gone up a lot too. You used to be able to get a complete meal for 4 dollars, and depending on the brand it was quite good.
Nonsense, fast food was cheap to buy (but expensive considering long-term health consequences) prior to roughly 5 years ago. It used to be clearly cheaper than normal sit-down restaurants or even fast-casual places. Pandemic-era inflation is well known by now, but there was already some wage inflation happening before mid 2020. Especially in big cities on the West coast.
I get It's cheap like a dollar store product is "cheap". Low purchase price to obtain but that's the only sense it is "cheap". My implicit point is that the amount of meaningful material received for that price is still worse than a pound of grocery store beef, the cheapest buns from said store, and the vegetables that accompany the burger. I'd be spending a premium for a fraction of a pound of grain fed beef raised in crappy conditions.Nonsense, fast food was cheap to buy (but expensive considering long-term health consequences) prior to roughly 5 years ago. It used to be clearly cheaper than normal sit-down restaurants or even fast-casual places. Pandemic-era inflation is well known by now, but there was already some wage inflation happening before mid 2020. Especially in big cities on the West coast.
This is a bit of a contrived example but I can remember 3 decades ago in high school (yeah, I'm getting old), McDonald's had a prominent "2 for $2" campaign for Big Macs. Using an inflation calculator, cumulative inflation since 1993 is 108%. That burger for $1 would be equivalent to $2.08 today. Although that isn't available, the McDonald's mobile app often has promotional deals. BOGO Big Mac/Quarter Pounder is not uncommon in the app. So you can get 2 Big Macs for about $6 + tax. Tack on an order of large fries and you can still feed 2 people for about $10. Obesity and diabetes are free with sustained consumption.
Deals/coupons aside, fast food menu prices have indeed shot through the roof and don't represent good value.
If everyone used apps and coupons like us, the fast food corps would have to find a new business model. I don't mind being a cheap bastard but most consumers just pay menu prices.
It costs less to buy groceries and make your own meals at home. News at 11?
I see such things as privacy-destroyers and not even close to worth the alleged savings. If thats the only way to get reasonable prices then I am in deep crap.
I must have had extraordinary misfortune(maybe hacked?) or security really is/was an issue, because about four years back, my debit card, which I think was saved into the app, was charged for a McDonald's purchase in The Bronx, NY. Maybe they fixed the bug now, but I had to call my debit card company(it was for my paycheck money) to reverse the charge. I don't remember exactly how I caught it right away(maybe the app or email), but I must have received notice of an order somehow because I usually didn't check that debit card account.
Well pizza got overall cheaper because they all started chasing the lowest common denominator. Quality of ingredients and cooking went way down hill and the final price dropped. I actually like it better in the good old days when pizza was reasonably priced and tasty. Dominoes actually reversed their game plan and went back to more expensive ingredients and better overall product. But then the lockdown messed up everything and now pizza is both expensive and lousy. Even the local family pizzeria isnt great like it used to be.
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