I have had some fast food in the last year, but each time I regret it and it gets longer in between.
For the same price I can order from a real restaurant and have leftovers.
Wait until you learn about cooking at home.
It’s still expensive and you have to have time. I still do it, love to cook. But sometimes I have no choice but frozen or fast food. Saying you don’t eat fast food, to me I just see privilege. Not that you said that, but it’s in this thread.
It is interesting to see the American context where food is so cheap. In my country eating out, even fast food, is the privilege. For me there’s no cheaper option than cooking at home, by a wide margin. It does take some planing. But I would go broke in a week if I ate a whole work week straight of fast food. It would be over half of my monthly income. Just one week of lunch only. So for me there’s no option, I have to cook at home or I would starve.
I’m in Aus, and I basically never eat a proper home cooked meal. I can get a hotdog for $3.50 and outside of super basic food like just rice, or oats, I can’t match that.
We don’t need to talk about how much I waste on drinks though, thats an entirely different problem.
I’m an American but the $1 burgers from Maccas were a life saver down there. I used to get 2 a day while I hitchhiked. But y’all also have canned tuna with some great flavors!
I was told going down there that it was outrageously expensive. And I found that true when talking about non-essentials, headphones and quality clothes. But groceries were shockingly cheap the entire time I was down there. I could spend $30 on a burger and fries, or I could get a weeks worth of food from woolies or coles.
Even better, the corner store, the gas station really, was owned by coles and I could get milk and eggs (things I want fresh, in small batches) and a small selection of anything else I wanted for the exact same price as the larger stores! This freed me up to get veggies and fruit at the market and always have enough food unlike at home.
While in Australia, I had higher quality food for less money with more convenience. All while getting told by people back home how expensive it was when they visited. Maybe I had a different experience since I went for a year but I live in Seattle now and I miss having a corner store within a 5 minute walk that sold all my essentials.
Also Woolies has their mini stores in the big cities and those things are fire.
I ate at McDonald’s for the first time in a few years. The same meal I used to get on the go now costs over 100% more since before 2020. The only reason I went to McDonald’s was because it was cheap, not because it was good. I don’t think I’ll ever go again.
I literally don’t believe American fast food prices and second every point you’ve made.
It costs more than a sit down meal! My wife got Carl’s Junior a couple days ago and it was $22! So if I had got a meal it would have been $44. For fucking Carl’s Junior? Are you kidding me? Get the fuck outta here!
I was traveling for several years and when I visited the states again I thought it would be fun to go through a Wendy’s. I was charged 4.50 for a plain hamburger, and I was shocked and assumed she entered the order wrong, and asked the fast food worker why the price was so high and if it was that high all the time.
She was so bummed out and told me she couldn’t even eat fast food except for the fries she got on her shift because the prices were so crazy now. That’s about the last time I stopped by any fast food places in the states.
I’ve been traveling again and I’m in Taiwan right now, a stacked buffet plate is about 4 bucks and the vegetarian pay by the plate place I’m at now are 2 bucks a full plate.
I understand what you mean, however it would be a better data to compare fast food prices for the same country. Its normal that the prices in the US dont match yours. Its not the exact same economy… how was fast food in taiwan before vs now? That is more interesting information
My anecdote is about prices in a single country skyrocketing, I think you only find that particular country’s data less interesting because it’s a country you’re familiar with.
I do have more international data points for you, though.
All the American fast food joints keep their prices pretty consistent across countries I’ve been to in any year, within ten percent or so of conversion rates anyway.
As for local fare in Taiwan, inflation is blowing up here. prices in general here seem about 50% higher than 5 years ago.
China’s prices have all doubled since ten years ago, except for housing, which is slightly cheaper(evergrande). Not that they were ever expensive.
COVID forced me to stay in my house for an extended period of time. I never ventured back out. Businesses are certainly not incentivizing me to do so.
As a result, I’ve watched my bank account grow at a rate it never has. In a nearly identical upward trend on the graph so have grown my depression and loneliness.
The outside world has become hostile in addition to expensive.
I’m glad I’m old and this is not my whole life ahead of me stage.
There are still good people, friend, anywhere you go. Especially if you do try volunteering as the other commenter suggested, and there are tons and tons of various organizations always looking for good people depending on what your interests are.
If you just want to meet people and have no specific hobbies you can try volunteering at a hospital. Even a few hours once a week or every other week might really help with the loneliness.
Yes I saw some shit the other day about, “such and such reporting that sales are drastically down since blah blah blah. Where did it all go wrong?”
Or “Gen whatever is choosing to part ways with blah blah blah. Here’s our guesses as to why!”
And it’s just, NOBODY HAS FUCKING MONEY!!! That’s it. That’s all it is. There’s no preference. There’s no secret wokeness. There’s no underlying meaning. We are all just fucking broke!
They took all the money, they refuse to give it back in wages, they jacked up the price, and we are tapping out. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STILL A GODDAMN MYSTERY?!?!?!
The only way someone can still be confused about what’s going on is if they’re on purpose being ignorant about it because, “mah market indicators!”
We are all broke. That’s it, that’s the answer. Media needs to stop with the bullshit. The headline every day needs to be “The world is on fire by rich asshats and the rest of us are too fucking broke to do anything. We are all going to die painfully because of those rich asshats.” And that should be all that’s on the news every hour on the hour. The end.
The funniest headline I saw the other day was “millenials ditching the guest bedroom”. No asshole, they just can’t afford it, provided they could even afford a house at all.
The guest bedroom in our millennial home was my room until we got a kid now it’s the couch. Which we found on the side of the road
Media needs to stop with the bullshit. The headline every day needs to be “The world is on fire by rich asshats and the rest of us are too fucking broke to do anything.
Who do you think owns the media?
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STILL A GODDAMN MYSTERY?!?!?!
You need to understand that the media is not your friend. They aren’t legitimately curious, they aren’t truth seekers. They are the propaganda machine at its finest.
Hot take: every business that has a happy hour already has surge pricing and nobody minds because they promote it as offering a discount on the “normal” price.
But Happy Hour is literally the opposite of surge pricing.
The part people keep missing with all their “I don’t even eat there so I don’t care” and “fine, I’ll go somewhere else” comments is that every other large chain will be watching this little experiment very, very closely.
People are still going to go to Wendy’s. Any boycott is unlikely to make a dent. If this is profitable, watch this become commonplace. I don’t even live in the states and this concerns me.
Enshitification may well extend itself to the hospitality sector.
The part people keep missing with all their “I don’t even eat there so I don’t care” and “fine, I’ll go somewhere else” comments is that every other large chain will be watching this little experiment very, very closely.
So… locally owned businesses about to get a shot in the arm? That’s already what we’ve done. Why pay fifteen bucks for a burger fries and drink from McD when I can get a bigger burger with better beef (cooked FOR ME), better fries, and the same soda carryout from a local pub for about the same or even a little less? I can also go to the local steak sandwich place and get freshly made cheesesteak with fries and a drink for substantially less. And I’ve got many more options than that.
Biggest difference is 5 or 10 min in my car waiting for food or going in to pick it up. The moment fast food stopped being a consistently cheaper option, that stopped mattering.
They will usher in a new renaissance of local food places. Sounds like a win win.
I absolutely do fast food for the fast part. Between my 2 jobs I’m often moving from 4:30am to past 10:00 during the week, and I simply don’t have the extra 5 minutes to go inside.
I’m actually really enjoying that C-stores are getting better hot food options these days because they’re also super fast, and some of them have shockingly good tacos these days.
