$25
Double Whopper with medium fries and drink is now $14 and change where I live.
I don’t usually eat fast food, but one night I was starving, and there happened to be a drive-thru right next to me. I saw only two cars ahead in line and thought it would be quick. I pulled in and waited. Fifteen minutes passed. Then nearly twenty. By that point, a long line had formed behind me, trapping my car.
At the thirty-minute mark, I started asking the cars around me if they could maneuver to let me out. After almost forty minutes, I finally managed to escape.
Frustrated and still hungry, I drove a little further to a local gyro joint. I walked inside, placed my order, and within five minutes, I was enjoying a fresh, delicious lamb platter.
If this had been an isolated incident, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. But the reality is, experiences like this are all too common. Fast food isn’t fast, and to make matters worse, it’s often not even cheap anymore. Unless you’re scraping the bottom of the so-called “value menu”—which has become scarce and filled with low-quality options—you’re likely paying the same, if not more, than you would at a local spot.
When you stack up the cost, the wait, and the disappointing quality, it’s hard to justify why anyone bothers with fast food at all.
America has too many drive thru’s. Cars waiting all the time because understaffed fast food places are squeezing labour. I’ve started just walking inside to no line up, but even then, drive thru gets priority.
I had that happen at a Taco Bell once.
I really wanted Taco Bell, so I waited 40 minutes in line while the person in front of me was arguing with the employees at the window. I’m not sure if it was someone arguing over expired coupons for 40 minutes, or if it was some annoying shithead trying to do a viral stunt or what the problem was, but I really wanted Taco Bell and I was going to get it.
Yeeeess! Gyro is my go to “fast food” too! My favorite gyro place loads plates up enough that I can get a large lamb plate for $15 and split it into two meals. I order on my way there, and it’s always ready within 10 minutes of ordering, without fail.
Same… And the food is so goddamn good.
It’s a real bummer that half of Americans seem to want to get rid of all of the fucking people willing to make all of these delicious varieties of food. What a boring fucking place that would be.
Right!? They have no idea what culture is, or what they’re missing out on. :/
Not cheap, not convenient, not fast, and, let’s be real: It’s barely food.
I’ll have a double corporate slop with extra gruel please
A while ago, I was charging at a highway stop, so I decided to quickly get something to drink at McDonald’s. I just asked ordered a drink, nothing more. One lady started preparing the drink and put it somewhere behind the counter. I was right there, but she didn’t hand it to me. I asked if she could give it, as it was the only thing I had ordered. She mentioned she was not allowed to hand over the order to customers, and she was waiting for someone else who was allowed to. It took roughly 10 minutes before I had my drink, it was very frustrating, especially for a “fast” food chain.
Sonic Boom predicted it with Meh Burger
When I was in high school, we’d split a gram of weed four ways and go to Wendy’s for the $4.20 meal. For less than ten bucks, you got stoned, a junior bacon cheese, four nuggets, small fry, and a small chocolate frosty. This was in the mid oughts so not that long ago!
The mid oughts was a different world, hundreds of years ago.
Y’all oughtta know the mid oughts were a lit time to behold.
If you have a Braum’s nearby you can get a bomb-ass burger with two quarter pound patties, crinkle cut fries, and drink or shake for about $9.
But you probably don’t have a Braum’s around unless you are in the US and in one of like two shithole states.
In my days, you got a week’s worth of calories for $3.50
In my days you could buy 420 chickens for $0.69.
It’s been a long time since fast food was any good. It’s addictive, maybe comfortable, but definitely not good. Break your addiction, especially now that you could save so much money
It’s comfortable, but also the salt they sprinkle on there must be a narcotic substance of some kind.
That said, McDonald’s vs an OK sit-down restaurant are roughly the same price here. The latter is going to have better food - generally - but Mickey D will be more consistent, have the ability to order without talking to anyone, has a drive-thru, can order home (SOME restaurants don’t do it here for some reason, most do luckily)… Basically, the fast food will win in all factors of convenience, but you won’t feel as satisfied after eating it.
but you won’t feel as satisfied after eating it.
Talk about an understatement… I cannot recall a time where I ate fast food and did not regret it almost immediately.
Looking at you five guys.
Story time. We t to five guys, go up to the country asked for a burger combo. Person behind counter says they don’t have combos so I have to say out loud: lemme get a burger fries and a coke.
Like I get it but a combo is a burger fries and a coke.
Aren’t combos usually discounted over everything getting billed individually? I would understand that as useful information that I’m not saving anything and might as well deviate if I like.
Yeah. I could see someone ordering a combo and then complain when instead of a combo they have to pay for burger, fries and drink. It’s stupid that 5 guys doesn’t have a combo option but the person behind the counter did what they’re supposed to do, take the order and make sure the person ordering also understands what they’re ordering.
In my industry, there’s a saying along the lines of “Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.”
I think the fast food industry version is “Good, fast, cheap? No, no. And believe it or not, also no.”
I don’t eat fast food very often, so this is entirely anecdotal. Of the fast food chains I’ve eaten at in recent history, Taco Bell is by far the worst. Against my better judgment, I even broke down and gave them a second chance at a different location thinking maybe my first terrible experience was a fluke. Didn’t work out. Makes me think it’s bad everywhere. Wendy’s has held up the best of the places I’ve eaten. It’s definitely not cheap anymore, fast depends on the location as well as other factors, and good is relative, but overall it hasn’t gone down hill as bad as the others.
Wendy’s is pretty decent, expensive but better if you use their app. I usually still see a code in there somewhere for $2 off or something, and their small frosty’s aren’t quite at fuck off levels of pricing yet.
Taco bell I feel like every restaurant is different. One near my house used to be bomb AF, then they had a changeover of all their staff and now it’s terrible. Even the drive thru is different now they now have an AI taking your order lmao. Another location down the road is better at the food quality, but they fuck up what is supposed to go with your order half the time so at that one I always have to check the bag in the parking lot before I leave.
The older I get the most I just feel like it isn’t worth it as much anymore. If I’m going to have to wait a half hour plus in the drive thru line, pay $15 for a meal now or $20+ if I wanted to get dessert or another side item too, and deal with people and the headaches of it, I’d rather just keep driving home and cook something there in about the same time. Plus I can usually get 3 or 4 meals out of that $20 worth if I make it at home so each leftover is faster to make.
Fast food industry is doing a great job making sure that I stay away as best I can and be inconvenient. The sole exception so far has been Little Ceasars, still $6 for a lunch combo and if you order in the app it’s great, get notified when it’s ready and I literally just park out front walk in grab my order out of the ready bin and off I go. I don’t understand why others haven’t pivoted that way as well.
their small frosty’s aren’t quite at fuck off levels of pricing yet.
My local Wendy’s did a promo where you bought a keychain tag for $3 and can get a Jr Frosty with any purchase until the end of 2025. That certainly helps the Frosty thing, at least.
Politics aside, Chik-Fil-A is consistently one of the better quality fast food places I’ve been to.
What is your industry? That saying is awesome.
I’ve heard it in engineering and software both
Pretty common saying in the business world.
Software development. I certainly didn’t coin the phrase, but it’s well-known and I agree, pretty fitting even outside of the IT industry.
taco bell definitely has one of the widest ranges in quality. one near my house is fucking awful and never gets the substitutions right, but the one 20 minutes away is great
The Tacos Bell near me are pretty decent… You just have to put it in its own, separate genre of food. I don’t eat at Taco Bell when I’m in the mood for Mexican food. I eat at Taco Bell when I’m in the mood for Taco Bell.
To me it’s McDonalds, how something using the exact same ingredients and prep can taste so different and have vastly different delivery times in everyone you go to boggles the mind
Which is wild when you realize the original idea behind McDonalds was to apply engineering and mass production ideas to food to maximize speed and consistency, and now a lot of the time they fail at both.
Honestly I don’t think I’ve ate at Mcdonald’s in the last six months now that I think about it. The enshittification of their app deals, price hikes, quality going down, the whole disease outbreak thing, just really turned me off of them. I know they had a bad quarter recently I hope they have another bad one 🤣
This sums up my experience as well. It’s never been healthy, but at least it used to be cheap and tasty. But nowadays mcdonalds is so expensive I almost consider it a luxury, and the plastic-looking sauces and mystery meat are in no way appetizing (tho that might just be me getting older and changing preferences as opposed to the actual food getting worse)
Honestly, it’s been a great help reducing take out. It’s such a gamble, I’d rather spent nothing on a sure thing (even if it’s boring) than nearly $40 for a meal I may not even finish.
I’m a spreadsheet nerd. Not a guru by any stretch, but I love to make spreadsheets. They help me plan and organize things in a way nothing else does. Despite all the websites and apps out there that make budgeting simple, I do ALL of my budgeting and spend tracking in an odt file. It’s been a rolling development for the last five years and I think I’ve got it to its ultimate stage. I’m really proud of my work.
I think what’s really helping me stay on top of it this year is the fact that in December, I spent about a week planning the year in painstaking detail. I built a whole paycheck estimation tool that automatically calculates tax withholding. I cross-referenced employee handbooks to determine pre-tax withholdings like retirement and insurance. I found the 2025 tax brackets and standard deduction. I understand now how our taxes are withheld for the state side. I actually determined my wife is taking out way too little for tax. January is an awesome time to make that catch. By the time I was done, I determined four paycheck numbers we might experience in the year based on various circumstances. I planned out how much I think each of our 26 paychecks will be, when they will occur, and how we will spend them with a high degree of confidence. I gave us a set amount of fun money each time. Most importantly, I found a way for us to make regular deposits into our savings account. I have a plan in place to save $2,000 and pay off a couple of credit cards this year. It ain’t much, but it’ll be a start. And if something goes wrong, having some money stashed away will be a huge help.
So far, I’ve squirrelled away 300 bucks. I feel really good about that.
I also track all of our spending in that file. I spend 5 minutes each night before bed reconciling it to the bank. That’s been a major step forward, too.
More to your point, eating out is hella expensive. I opened a second checking account to give us that kind of money. We buy books and music and games and makeup and food from out on that. If that card runs out of money, it ends. Full stop. At least, it should. I got lazy the last few months of last year and we spent way too much on takeout. But I’m motivated to be better this year. I make myself go grocery shopping. And then I make myself cook even when I don’t wanna. And I put the dishes away and clean the laundry, even when I don’t wanna.
I know that’s just regular adult shit, but I’ve been a hot mess for a while lol
I’m trying to get myself together too (though not nearly as impressive as your method). I’m writing down everything I spend, from a soda, or groceries, to rent. I quickly saw I was spending, like, to the penny of my check, and saw I wasted a good $200 on just bullshit. I’m trying to put on my big girl panties and get it together. Whenever I saw no to something, I’ve been putting it in a savings account. Like, “eh, I can make dinner at home.” Okay, then that $15 for the cheeseburger that you were okay with is now going into savings.
My goal is to end this year without debt. School, credit card, all of it. Tired of it lol
That’s an impressive level of financial responsibility, nice job
- Bump up your employer’s withholding by 5%
- Get that overpayment back from the IRS
- Immediately dump that into a retirement thing that reduces taxable income; like, same-day
- Next year you have another 5% windfall and a little more back from the retirement contribution. Put both back into same deal
- Repeat forever
- Slow win
Why would I give the IRS an interest free loan? Taking that same 5% from your paycheck directly and setting up an automatic transfer to a high-yield savings account or an IRA each month would give you better dividends over the same period of time.
When I can buy like a large 5 top pizza for as much as a single fast food combo, i know which I’ll choose.
Pizza is also ridiculously expensive where I live. For something that is comprised of almost entirely dough, cheese, and tomato sauce, it’s kind of criminal that some places are charging $20 or more for a large pie. It probably cost them $1.50 worth of ingredients to make when you factor in bulk pricing.
Yeah the rise in pizza prices has been disappointing in my area. Unless you’re getting just a plain pie, you’re gonna spend at least $20 for like a medium pizza.
There are so many goddamn places around here too, that there has to be like a pizza cartel or something, setting the price lol…
Where I’m at it’s definitely very restaurant dependent. Papa Racist’s (Papa John’s) and Pizza Butt (Pizza Hut) I avoid like the plague because their decisions have been jack up the price and nosedive the quality. Meanwhile Little Ceasar’s is doing a $6 lunch combo and most pies I get there are usually $6-10.
I get it it’s Little Ceasar’s, but I got one thing to say to the LC haters
lmao true, I think Little Ceasars is actually good for the value. The $5 hot and ready box was an almost unbeatable deal.
I really prefer Domino’s, but their prices are outrageous so I don’t go there anymore. If I’m going to pay a shitload of money for pizza, I get a whole New York Style pizza so I can really enjoy it. Might start making my own now though, tbh. How hard could it be?
I switched to mostly cooking for myself sometime last year, really just trying to save money, but I feel significantly less fatigued day to day and more focused and don’t wake up with random stomach pain anymore.
I lost 20lbs during lockdown because I stopped eating pre-prepared meals and ate more snacks between meals.
I was just lamenting the size of my belly (it’s back) this morning. The horror…
I’ve done that most of my adult life and yeah even just pasta with jarred sauce is so much cheaper, better, and healthier than fast food.
Your next big level up may be realizing that exercise doesn’t suck nearly as much as the feeling of being out of shape
Dude it’s insane. I don’t understand how the hell these places stay in business anymore when the quality still sucks ass and it’s all so expensive now. Like even taco bell, who used to be the king of cheap, costs a fuckton these days.
☁️🌈CORPORATE✨PROFITS🌈☁️
It’s an addiction for a lot of people.
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It’s become a habit for many people. Cooking is a really difficult habit to (re)learn. It’s possible though and good meal prep is very convenient on long days at work.
I just hate cooking. I cannot stand it. It takes so much effort and you have to clean all the mess you made (even cleaning as you go sucks). And then you end up with something that may or may not pan out. And if you’re trying to meal prep then you have to eat the same meal for the whole week which I hate also.
If this was the only thing you’d ever have to do, fine. But the majority of the rest of our time is spent at work or sleeping. We have few precious hours where these things aren’t the case. I hope this doesn’t make me sound too much like an asshole, but I’m fortunate enough to purchase things like pre-prepared foods and get takeout a couple of times per week. So I take advantage of that because I don’t want to spend my few moments of free time slaving away over a stove or cleaning the mess of pots and pans and cooking utensils.
Another this about cooking when you live alone…a lot of perishable foods can only be bought in somewhat larger quantities and then they go bad before you use them all up. I tried to make a recipe out of a cookbook several months ago and I was frustrated at how many things I had to buy a large thing of when I only needed a very small amount for the recipe. Ended up with a lot of food waste.
I’m gonna agree that cleaning sucks ass, as does the time of it.
I made do by usually having to have something stimulating my dopamine-addicted ADHD ass while I’m washing dishes. Youtube documentary video, podcast, whatever is at least 30 minutes so I can just grind thru. Upgrade the dish tools as well, I really like these ikea dish brushes so much more than a sponge because I feel like I can actually clean with it and not constantly go through sponges, and replaced the flip top dish soap with one of those squeeze bottle ones. Big secret is you can refill those with whatever you want, you don’t have to buy a new one when you run out.
Yes there is still the time factor with cooking, but I like to cook enough that I can make 2-4 servings so it’s more like cook once and minimal work for the reheating. Also as for the time, idk how it is in your area, but where I’m at ever since COVID drive thru and in store times suck ass now for ordering. If you’re on an hour lunch break or on the way home where I’m at it always takes them 30 minutes or even longer to get my order ready from ordering to out the lot. At that point, I might as well just go home and cook the damn thing myself, that’s what set it for me.
Lastly for food waste, a few things learning to change how much you make so that you “use up” the materials is helpful. Same with freezing things, turns out most things can be frozen and thawed with minimal change to the item. For example I now buy bacon in a bulk pack but split it up into bags of 4 slices, keep all in freezer except one. Now I would only have four slices going bad instead of the whole package. A few other things I do is sometimes dried herbs / seasonings in a shaker are better than fresh ones that will go bad, learn what you use less of so you buy less (like I only buy eggs in a six pack because I don’t go through enough), etc.
Stick with easy meals. I really want to make a cajun red beans and rice sometime, but I looked at the list of what I need and said fuuuuck that. I’ve got a few easy to make items that I like to rotate through: homemade pizza, mac and cheese and hot dogs, got frozen burger patties and a george foreman, burritos with ground beef beans and canned hatch green chile, etc. I also get my groceries delivered, it helps me time and money wise because I’m not shopping in the moment and only buying what I need, and now the whole process of grocery store shopping that I hate is gone. No more traffic to the store, no parking lot spot searching, no walking around the whole store and dodging slow people stopping in the middle of the aisle to have a conversation, no bullshit line for checkout or receipt checks and packing / leaving. Now it’s literally just order only what I need and it shows up at my door.
I do like the idea of “take home meals” though, sometimes that just hits the spot I get it. For me sometimes I’ll do that and just get some store made chips and queso and fuck it I’m eating that while being a couch potato that night. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough :)
None of these problems mean you have to resort to buying fast food though.
You can buy things like crumbed chicken tenders that last over a week in the packaging and take 15 mins to cook in an air fryer. Mix some mayo and hot sauce, steam some veg and you’ve got a cheaper, healthier meal than most fast food, in about the same time it takes to drive through and order.
That actually makes up a decent amount of what I eat already. The majority of my diet comes from the frozen food section at the grocery store. I get both the prepackaged dinners and also the precooked meats and “steam in bag” veggies you’re talking about. But on days where I don’t want that, I get takeout as a treat. Most often, I actually order food delivery instead of fast food, but I get fast food now and then too. I’ve actually got into the habit of going to the chick fil a near me because it’s literally a 5 minute walk and they have a good salad. McDonald’s seemed like they stopped selling salads some years back for whatever reason.
One of the points of my previous post is that I don’t care about the cost though because I’m fortunate enough to not be scraping by. I don’t get this takeout or fast food every day, but it doesn’t bother me financially to do it a couple times per week. Plus, sitting in your car listening to music and browsing your phone while someone prepares food for you is hardly a comparison to putting together something yourself. The time might be the same, but the effort is significantly lower which is the point.
Fair enough. I’m not scraping by either. I just choose to vote with my wallet because that’s capitalism.
Most times I buy fast food these days (few times a year) I just feel ripped off, because I know I’m paying extra just for shareholders; not for actual value.
Yes, I fully relate with this as if you spoke from my heart. Agreed on all points, haha.
I do cook, kind of have to when you have kids. But I definitely do not enjoy doing it. Especially because I’ll slave over a new dinner idea and my kids will just refuse to eat it.
My friend with kids also talks about this. She is like I work so hard to cook and even make it simple for them but they still refuse to eat it half the time lol
You can always ask the butcher to get you a smaller piece of meat. You can also separate pieces of meat and freeze part.
If produce is by weight, you can break the package to be smaller. Even things like squash can be cut in half (ask the produce people, places like Aldis will not do this).
Buy canned and frozen veggies as much as possible, they last longer. They won’t be as tasty, but will reduce your food waste.
Cook larger portions and freeze the leftovers and eat them in a week or two.
As far as spices, dishes, etc. look at them as “investments” cause you won’t be using them all on one meal…
Meat is actually the easiest one because you can just freeze it like you said. Powdered spices are also a complete non issue. It’s fresh produce that I struggle with.
But for example, the recipe I tried called for…
Jasmine rice - could only find it in a whopping 5 lb bag which was ridiculous for a solo person who rarely ears rice. I know rice keeps, but since I don’t at all like to cook, it was very excessive. Even if I were to have made a larger quantity of the meal or make it multiple times, I still would have an insane amount left over.
A clove of fresh garlic - I know you can get powdered garlic or garlic in a jar, but people seem to say that it doesn’t at all work the same, so I wanted to try it the way the recipe wanted you to. So I had a shitton of cut up garlic left over because I could only find whole garlic bulbs at that particular grocery store if I didn’t want to go canned or powdered. Can you even freeze a portion of garlic?
A portion of whole fresh ginger - again same issue as the above problem I had with fresh garlic. Only this one was even worse because ginger rarely present in any of the foods I eat
Etc. for a lot of the ingredients for that recipe.
Yes, I get that you can do some complex puzzles and math to figure out how to use all of these ingredients in different meals without wasting the excess, but that is absolutely NOT for me. That’s a whole additional ordeal and one of the many reasons I hate cooking. I don’t want to have to perform an elaborate game of ingredient/meal chess to avoid significant food waste when I’m grocery shopping. I do enough work at my job and there are still plenty of other annoying tasks to keep up with like cleaning and laundry.
The point is I don’t want to look at any of these as “investments”. That is is an insane amount of work to put into something I hate.
Where are you shopping? Only having a 5lb bag of jasmine rice is weird.
Just use powdered instead of the fresh herbs. I would consider doubling up on most spices if you are using powdered.
Garlic and ginger both can be frozen. They also last a good while, so you can keep them in your fridge
I don’t mind cooking, I just hate coming up with a dinner plan for the whole week. I’ve begun watching cooking videos on instagram to help motivate me. I do wish there was an alternative to instagram, but so far it’s the best.
Hey now, those poor businesses need to make up for their profit situation! Even though they have all made record profits year after year… After year…
We will be in a recession once they decide it’s time for one.The weird this is that generally the once with shit quality make a decent profit and a lot of the once with way better food make almost nothing.
Capitalism at work. Race to the bottom.
“What’s the deal with fast food? It isn’t fast, and it isn’t food!”
Get this person a ten-year sitcom deal!
Sorry, I’m more of a Michael Richards type myself
So a detective show that gets cancelled after eight episodes?
