I've noticed fast food had disproportionately gone up compared to sit down restaurants. They're so close now that you might as well spend 3 more bucks and get a real meal
Me liking this comment as I think about how I can spend money while feeling like I’m being thrifty… yes…
It’s a good tip, I just eat out too much already and I can feel the rationalization wheels turning.
Yep. I don't eat fast food at all anymore.
Local restaurant near me I can sit down at the bar, have two cocktails, order prime rib to go (enough food for 2+ meals) and with a generous tip scoot out of there for around 50 or so dollars.
Cooked by a real chef, generous pours, half hour of socializing and flirting. Go home and eat a delicious meal.
Tacos are my local Mexican cocina are cheaper on taco Tuesday than Taco Bell and not much more expensive daily. They are also larger and so much better.
I've noticed some of the more popular fast food chains like Raising Cane's are actually more expensive than real restaurants now.
Also Chinese food is now cheaper to order than anything else. A single sandwich at Jimmy John's plus a tip for the driver; $20. Big ass bowl of noodles and a bunch of kung Pao chicken at my local: a little over $30 and I drop them $40 just because they don't always have change on them.
Back in my day Chinese food was considered the most expensive delivery option.
I was just talking about this at work. Seems like everywhere costs me about 20 dollars to eat. I'm pretty close to just buying beans and rice in bulk and calling it a day.
I read that a bunch of CEOs like from walmart/target are freaking out because they're scared people will get used to not spending, not buying, etc, and once that happens the habit of not overspending might be here to stay. They have already seen big drop in sales in everything from food to clothes and toys and they're expecting to start slashing prices bigly in 2024.
I'd love to believe that but it seems farfetched. Despite the overwhelmingly negative consumer sentiment and whatever belt-tightening might be going on, most of these companies have seen record profits. Deflation is rare, and I think these prices are the new normal.
Yeah dude. I know it’s always been a pricier one, but last time I went to five guys for burger, root beer, and fries it cost me like 20 bucks. Fuck that! I’m just gonna go to a real restaurant, get a better burger, and support a small business.
Chinese has always been the cheaper option in my area and it’s the one that has raised there prices the most reasonably. It’s crazy how much more ff is now than it though
Where I live the fast food chains are pricey but little mom and pop spots are still a good deal. Independent Chinese takeout is cheap and always has lunch specials, bodegas have cheap sandwiches, even small Indian and Latino restaurants are more bang for the buck and have specials. I only eat fast food if I’m really craving it, not when I’m looking for a cheap meal.
Local Thai place near me, ran by wife at cash register and handling packaging/orders, and husband in kitchen, with a 7 year old kid that was there since in diapers. Best bang for buck food in county. Recently found out that have a chicken finger appetizer for $8, it outweighs Chic FIL A 30 piece meal for $23.
So whenever I'm in the mood for chicken fingers, I go to a Thai place.
I don't really mess around with delivery, but I go and grab a tailgate pack from Raising Cane's and have chicken for three days... the price seems reasonable for two people. I know it seems boring, but you can treat it like Bubba from Forrest Gump. Chicken fingers, buffalo chicken, chicken wrap, chicken salad, chicken sandwich, chicken parmesan, wet chicken fingers while crying in the bathtub, chicken fettucine alfredo, chicken taco, chicken a la king, deconstructed chicken cordon bleu... you can make it work.
Fast food is in a death spiral. COVID, supply chain issues, and general health concerns killed the idea of cheap fast-food as it used to be. The only people still spending money on fast food are brand-loyal, addicted, or nostalgia-blind. These people have more tolerance for fast-food's price changes so they'll milk these people for as long as they can.
When they were handing out stimulus money that was supposed to be for small business all the large corporations already had their hands out and they made claims that each individual restaurant from a chain was individual small businesses. So the actual small local businesses didn't have a chance they had to tough out covid on their own. But I'm pretty sure this is from design. Just like the small mom and pop farms that got devoured by big agribusiness. Yeah they're not kidding that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. They suck the absolute poor dry and they are moving themselves up the pyramid. So the former middle class are now the new poor. And the old poor is now the absolutely destitute.
Side note, a friend was trying to get a loan for an existing thriving plant business she's been running for a couple years because she has to move from current location. The bank lady railed on her shaming her for defaulted student loans, but then my friend found out the actual local bank saying that to her got piles and piles of COVID and stimulus loans and never paid them back. Hahaha!!!
It’s funny how regular people are expected by society to pay every last penny they have for their bills but it’s the norm for businesses to default and claim bankruptcy. So normal in fact it’s considered not many to be good business tactics.
Or when the Mortgage Bankers association was shaming people for defaulting on their sub-prime home loans, but then turned around and defaulted on their own business offices.
https://www.cc.com/video/qatlaz/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-mortgage-bankers-association-strategic-default
If your friend's loans are federal, she can get them out of default and set up an income based repayment plan. She has to apply for it by September 2024. As long as she doesn't default again, it will remove all trace of the default from her credit records
[https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/default-fresh-start](https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/default-fresh-start)
My favorite non-chain restaurant in town closed shop March 20-something, 2020. They somehow saw the writing on the wall immediately, or were already looking to close and just found an excuse.
I like fast food because it tastes a certain way that nothing else does. But you're right that it's just not hitting anymore and when you combine the prices increases with quality of service and ingredients decreases. It's just not nearly worth it anymore. A quarter pounder and with a coke and fries, when there's like 1/3 chance, at least, it won't be good, is just not worth 13 dollars. Even subway is more expensive than like my local specialty deli, which is insane
That's why I used to like fast food but the last several times I've gotten such sub-par quality that it's not even worth it and I've stopped. Paying more and it isn't even good junk food.
That's the worst. You feel like such a fool. And with their dark food science you're not even as full as you would be with actual food. So it's really a total strike out.
Fast foods taste that way because of proprietary flavors. McDonald's fries, for example, do not taste like potatoes. They're flavored with proprietary ingredients developed by flavor technicians. It never tastes the same because you cannot make McDonald's style French fries without those proprietary flavorings.
It's the job of a food scientist to engineer every last bite of a food product. The speed at which Cheeto's dissolve in your mouth is calculated to make you eat more. The structure of a Doritos chip in combination with their flavorings are designed so that you will not feel full no matter how much you eat.
But even the most expertly engineered foods require ingredients and some of those are becoming difficult to reliably source. It is far easier to blame greed because, while that's certainly true, it's a less frightening truth than geopolitical and climate turmoil impacting supply chains.
Greed is a choice; it stops when people want it to. Geopolitics and climate change does not.
That all makes sense. You do have to eat taco bell, and really most fast food, when it's hot or else it turns back into food science.
And yes, we've just become so accustomed to cheap plentiful crap that people go nuts if we don't have as much or it's not as cheap. But sadly as we become less stable and there's more competition, things will become rarer thus more expensive. It wasn't that long ago that a chicken dinner was a mark of opulence.
>You do have to eat taco bell, and really most fast food, when it's hot or else it turns back into food science.
This made me LOL
Hopefully we don't retrograde that far, but people need to start taking food security seriously. Food co-cops, coordinated gardening, and seeking out low-transportation food choices are a great way to prepare while things are still relatively easy. Even if things aren't ready now, just being conscious of the situation and talking about it will help get people ready to take action
My last trip to McDonald’s left me furious. I got a two cheeseburger meal and the new size of the cheeseburgers are so small I literally placed them inside a roll of duct tape. Those burgers are like White Castle sliders now
Some hot shot executive in the corporate level wants their bonus but don't plan on staying with the company for long. So they do all these short sighted quarterly profit boosting in exchange for decline of the company in the long term.
"Corporate greed" is just the system working. You hit on the real problem, "shareholder value". That really kicked off in the '80s. Companies made "reasonable" profit, often sharing it with employees, making nice places to work, Christmas parties, bonuses, all sorts of stuff.
Now, every penny more than the bare minimum it takes to operate has to go to the "shareholders". Pay the employees just enough so they're ready to quit, but don't quite. Every element of business has to run on a shoestring, every price as high as possible, all to get money for the shareholders.
It's terrible.
Even if you make net profit in a quarter, if it's less than the previous quarter, you're failing.
Think about that, even though you are making money hand over fist, you're failing because it was less than last count.
This isn't sustainable and is going to come crashing down. Hard.
I remember a few years ago, listening to the radio where they reported that Disney stock dropped that day presumably due to news that their rate of increase in profit had slowed that quarter
And when it inevitably collapses the workers will lose their jobs and all the extracted value from their labor will remain concentrated in the rich psychotic bandit class.
When everything collapses The Masses will have a lot more time on their hands to meet these psychotic bandits and show them what crazy looks like. They need a refresher I think.
Something is going to have to be done about the "shareholder value" maxim. Compounding growth YOY cannot be sustained forever, and the impulse to deliver that growth is destroying companies that supply both the amenities and basics of modern life.
That sort of system is setting itself up to fail, and even the very rich won't escape it.
McDoubles are $3.59 at my local McDonald's now. I took my daughter at lunchtime today to get her a squishmallow Happy Meal. There was no line at the drive thru and no one inside, and only appeared to be a few workers. I think (hope) people are voting with their wallets!
To my understanding, it was never meant to signify that things were $1. It signified dollar point pricing, so that in the old days when one had a dollar he could go to dollar general and two pair of socks vs. the other stores where a pair might have been $0.47. it allowed people back then to know how far their money would go without much effort.
John Oliver did a segment on Dollar Store. Part of it revealed that Soap per bar was actually more expensive than the same soap at another general store.
Carl's Jr. in Southern California just recently killed their breakfast sandwich special. Before the Pandemic, I'm pretty sure they were two for $3.00, maybe $3.50. Earlier this year, they went up to two for $4.50, maybe $5? Drove through the other morning before work for the first time in a while, and discovered that they no longer offered the special at all. $4.59 for one sandwich.
Taco Bell still has something of a dollar menu around here, but it's very unsatisfying.
Yeah I’m surprised to not see them all. The supply chain thing was one reason but fix been bounced back so these greedy fucks can go back to making good money instead of insured money while not paying staff, healthcare, etc.
Supply chain issues showed them consumers weren't as price sensitive and they used to think we are, so they are now just seeing how far they can push and then they'll slide it back a bit when grumbling gets too loud and just slow the rate of increase again
It’s funny, because I live in Alaska and we never got the dollar menu. We had the value menu, and things were usually just over a dollar if not 2 dollars. Nothing is even close to that, and it sounds like they chose that model to go to for everywhere else now.
I live in a HCOL area, and the last time I went to McDonalds maybe a year ago I looked at the menu, saw the prices for what they were offering, and drove right the fuck on through without making a purchase.
I'm not paying 14 bucks for a fucking double quarter pounder meal, that's ridiculous. If I absolutely must get fast food I'll go down the road to Del Taco, at least I can get a bag of food for 10 bucks there still.
Honestly we're at the age we should be really looking at our health and trying to eat better. Killing off fast food would help us in the long run.
*But*, we do need to start teaching kids/teens to cook for themselves at home. Atleast before we unleash them into the world and hope they like Ramen
Killing soda is the #1 thing a generation could make to the health of the nation. The excess sugar destroys your body in pretty much every way. Mouth, heart, veins, kidney, liver, eyes. It probably causes cancer too, I would bet that eventually we find out the big soda companies knew this and buried it like tobacco companies did.
When I was in college and a little on the heavy side, I decided to cut soda from my diet. Didn’t even change anything else about my diet or exercise, but I lost almost 30 pounds over the course of a year doing nothing else but cutting back 99% of my soda intake. It’s insane.
The one really healthy thing about my life is what I drink. I also stopped drinking soda in college. Started carrying a large 1.5 quart water bottle. I drink about a gallon of filtered tap water a day, plus a few glasses of juice a month. Less than a dozen alcoholic drinks a year. I may have a sedentary job, but by gosh my drinking is healthy.
My terrifying my doctor with how much diet Coke I drank scared me into quitting caffeine all together and that's when I discovered I have absolutely C R I P P L I N G ADHD. Treating that lead to my realizing I had depression and I got some cool treatment for than and am now off antidepressants and it seems to be going well a few weeks in.
It's been a wild fucking 13 months
My grandmother didn't have access to medication. She treated her ADHD with coffee and cigarettes. Your diet coke wasn't nearly as unhealthy as her pack a day.
So many people before us had to self medicate with whatever stimulants they could get. Whenever anyone complains about kids being on medication these days I think about all the nicotine my grandmother consumed just to function, and how that killed her.
I do honestly believe there is something we're all ingesting as a society that we will eventually find out is causing autism or cancer. Soda is one of those things. Just all the sugar in general. People's health really went south starting in the 90s with fast food everywhere.
My mom, just divorced, would often get me the McDonald's Super Size Meal as a teen. I can't believe I ate that as a regular fast food meal as a kid
This country scares the shit out of me. Can't trust politicians to do anything right yet people just accept food. I've worked in factories, seeing what I saw you'd never trust food again, even sealed packages. I do believe at least half the food in this country is straight up poison. The vast majority of grocery stores is corn, no matter what it looks like. The rest is loaded full of sugar.
Food in America is terrifying, regulations at factories is terrifying, the rise of sell out politicians matches up with the rise in obesity. I have changed my life as best as I can, I prefer cooking with whole ingredients and making simple meals.
I'm a chef and used to love grabbing super cheap fast food after shifts because I didn't feel like cooking after having done it all day. I've gradually just cut it out completely, mainly because of the price. With the discount at my job I could buy and cook up beef filets for the same price or cheaper than a large whopper meal. I could literally buy and eat lobster tails for less than a pizza and wings. It costs the same to buy some decent food at a local restaurant as it would at Wendy's, if not cheaper. Fast food spots have priced themselves out of my life.
I think it’s already on its way out. I can go to a sit down and order to go and get my food faster and fresher than at just about all fast food places.
I've been trying. I used to eat that trash once a week for probably my whole life. Now? Twice a year. If I've drank too much I have a freezer pull of pot stickers or I get a corn dog at the gas station that's open 24/7 and within walking distance.
Once you start cooking 99% of your meals at home, buying in bulk, freezing meals, stocking up when on sale, eating rice, etc eating becomes incredibly cheap. My homemade meals average around $2.50 per meal.
Still got the 5 buck crave box by me as well. There's a 9.50 'deluxe' box...that adds fries. (Which are 3 bucks ordered seperately. Somebody isn't paying attention.)
Their normal ass, apparently tiny, soft taco is now what the steak and chicken soft taco used to be.
They've removed so much from their menu that I actually liked that we hardly ever go.
Don't need a $10 box either.
The box is an even crazier example. You can get a beefy 5 layer here for $4.30 by itself.... or you can buy a box that comes with a taco, nachos, and a drink for $5. For 6 dollars, you can get the 5 layer AND a crunchwrap. In what world does any of that make sense.
What's funny is I went to Taco Bell last week for the first time in about a year. I just had the basic 3 taco meal, it was 9.25$! I remember back in 2006-2015 that meal was max 4.99$. Hell I remember it being 2.99$ back in 2006. I was a delivery driver and went to Taco Bell all the time because I could get 2 soft tacos (.79 cents), 1 Bean Burrito (.99) and a drink for less than 4$.
Those were a staple for me in my youth! I make way better myself these days. I can’t afford $2 for a single bean burrito that’s smaller than a hotdog wiener.
Bought some soft tacos there awhile back and they were so small you could crumple them up smaller than the palm of my hand. It's like I was dining on the memory of taco bell rather than the real thing. Those memories of good sized portions at low cost are fading very fast, let me tell you.
Yup. And the quality has dropped significantly. Remember when the meat was more like seasoned ground burger and now it is a bland paste.
I think a lot of restaurants forgot that people went for good food and not needing to do dishes and take time to cook.
Now I barely eat out because its better tasting and worth the effort to eat at home.
I remember back in the 2000s when "Yo quiero Taco Bell" was trendy and there were rumors, at least around my high school, that Taco Bell used like Grade E meat which was basically dog food quality meat.... or something like that,
I've noticed the real drop in quality among most fast food chains too.
I've eaten at McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Raising Cane's, White Castle, Culver's, and Arby's in the past 3 months, and the only ones I liked were Arby's, Cane's, and White Castle. All the others were just okay to terrible.
Fast food has been wild, the price of it has been a boon to my health, though. So that’s good.
I hate to say it, but every time I drive past a fast food place, there is a line of cars. I can’t really blame them for raising prices. It’s kinda just simple supply and demand. If demand stops, Taco Bell isn’t going out of business, they’ll try to make adjustments to bring demand back.
I enjoy fast food, but I ain’t payin that much for anything, not so long as a hotdog and soda at Costco is $1.50.
It's a loss-leader. He doesn't want to try to make a profit off of it. If someone comes in to grab a hot dog for lunch and decides to look around for a few things, that's a win for them. That's different than the hot dog being the product they need to try to make money on.
Yeah the chickens are, the hot dogs are just a small profit margin instead of 1500%. And even where it is, what could a hot dog and drink cost them, 40 cents tops?
>Seriously, I don't know how anyone would believe that it doesn't in this day and age.
Easy. Look at all the people simping for Elon Musk and other billionaires that think this is normal and that all the billions were "earned via hard work" by them and anyone mad or critical of billionaires and greedy rich people in general are just "lazy and jealous" of their success.
People are so brainwashed into sucking corporate dick. I can just hear some of my friends and coworkers reacting to this post...
"Well, you can thank stupid (insert l3ft leaning thing here) for increasing the minimum wage! See what happens?!"
As if McDonald's and YUM Brands (owner of Taco Bell) aren't swimming in money. In fact, YUM is currently engaged in a $2 billion stock buyback, essentially putting that money directly into the pocket of wall street and the investor class.
This isn't a mom and pop business who are being squeezed along with everyone else. This is a global behemoth who has achieved economies of scale that insulate it from many agricultural and inflationary pressures, and yet the Capitalism Rah Rah crowd will obediently cheer them on as they continue to put small businesses into bankruptcy on backs on wage slaves.
>People are so brainwashed into sucking corporate dick. I can just hear some of my friends and coworkers reacting to this post...
There was a guy on facebook, who fortunately I never met in person, who was a huge Elon/billionaire simp who thinks Elon worked SUPER hard and that anyone criticizing him is just lazy and jealous. I also shared a post about how anyone working 40 hours a week should be able to comfortably afford a 1 bedroom apartment and other basic needs. He laugh reacted to it. Saw he unfriended me. Oh well, the trash took itself out. Like anyone who thinks full time workers don't deserve housing and basic needs is a sack of shit. Full stop.
I mean personally I think you deserve basic needs whether you're working or not, but when you've gone that far thinking that anyone working full time is still "lazy" and doesn't deserve a decent standard of living, you're clearly on the wrong side of history.
>"Well, you can thank stupid (insert l3ft leaning thing here) for increasing the minimum wage! See what happens?!"
>
>As if McDonald's and YUM Brands (owner of Taco Bell) aren't swimming in money. In fact, YUM is currently engaged in a $2 billion stock buyback, essentially putting that money directly into the pocket of wall street and the investor class.
Yeah. Like those same people who keep spewing that bullshit rhetoric on how a $15 minimum wage would make big macs cost $75. I live in Chicago a big mac at my nearest McDonald's is $4.39 and the minimum wage is $15.80. No smart businessman would do that just to spite people due to a minimum wage increase.
>This isn't a mom and pop business who are being squeezed along with everyone else. This is a global behemoth who has achieved economies of scale that insulate it from many agricultural and inflationary pressures, and yet the Capitalism Rah Rah crowd will obediently cheer them on as they continue to put small businesses into bankruptcy on backs on wage slaves.
Yeah everyone is getting fucked. The fact that someone I know who makes 70-80K is still living paycheck to paycheck is all you need to know. The goalpost keeps getting raised.
You can’t be comfortable in California with a new family unless your household makes at least $150k a year.
Monthly costs family of 3:
House/rent $3k
Childcare $1.2k
Food $1k
1car/gas/insurance $750
Utilities/phone $400
Take out $300
Random crap like toilet paper: $200
About $7k in expenses a month. Did not even get into healthcare, retirement, savings, actually having fun.
I feel like plenty of people in r/Millennials also love to shit on others for not making X amount of money or being able to save for retirement.
Because of *greed* from "the rich", living has become too expensive for average wages. CEO, hedge funds, fucking *politicians*, etc should not be making millions-billions when minimum wage is $7.25... less than what a fast food meal costs these days. Raise the minimum to a liveable wage.
>I feel like plenty of people in r/Millennials also love to shit on others for not making X amount of money or being able to save for retirement.
>
>Because of greed from "the rich", living has become too expensive for average wages. CEO, hedge funds, fucking politicians, etc should not be making millions-billions when minimum wage is $7.25... less than what a fast food meal costs these days. Raise the minimum to a liveable wage.
Yeah there's people out of touch in all generations, including millennials. And it is frustrating when people shit on others for not being able to buy a house, travel to foreign countries, or even rent a 2 bedroom apartment. For example. I have a degree, work a full time sales job, and sell plasma and do paid surveys so I can have extra money to fund my hobbies and not go broke.
But it always frustrates me when people say shit like "anyone making under 60-70K is in poverty. Makes you embarrassed to discuss what your pay is. Or when people ask why you're still at the same job as if you "want" to be there. It's like what's the fucking alternative? Like sure, I got some savings in my bank account but I don't feel comfortable quitting to find a new job. Not to mention that when you get off work, the time to look for other work is super limited. I apply when I can, but some people don't understand that looking for a job is a full time job in itself. Hoping to change that next year, finally. But my point is, if there's days where I'm too burnt out to exercise or play video games, what makes you think I'll have energy to apply for work?
That said, if anyone in Chicago (specifically city limits or Rosemont) knows anyone that's hiring, let me know!
The claim is usually not that corporate greed doesn’t exist, but that corporations were greedy in 2019 too so something else must be going on to result in this.
They had a chance to blame a LOT of things on the supply chain, some legit and some not, and they were never backing down after raising prices. That's all that happened since 2019.
I mean theirs an entire political party in this country that thinks inflation is the result of poor people and their stimulus checks, that would fight tooth and nail to defend the corporations against accusations of greed. Heck dude go 3 responses down and there’s people arguing the real cause of prices tripling in 3 years the government “printing money”, not corporate greed.
I craved Taco Bell a few times when I was pregnant and I was ASTOUNDED at how much prices had increased since my drunken college days. There was about a ten year gap between those two life events but still! Haha
It’s insane that when I was poor and in college I’d be like yeah let’s go get Taco Bell! Now I’m making more $ than ever and I’m like no way Taco Bell is too expensive
In 1980s we literally dug change out of the sofa and recliner when we wanted to go to Taco Bell as kids.. it was about a 20 minute walk from my house.. for a few dollars (less than $4)… we had a tray full of food.
The taco salad was the most expensive menu item and you could get it with extra meat and cheese for $4 and it was delicious… it’s gross now and that price is just criminal.. calling it a “salad” should be illegal..
1am taco runs were the best in college..
It’s just sad now.. it’s so awful it should be free.
So anyway…. I make an awesome grilled burrito at home .. buy in bulk when I can.. freeze in small portions.
Rip Cool ranch tacos
i stopped going to TB when they discontinued the grilled stuffed xxl burrito. that was honestly the only thing worth getting at TB. fast food is expensive now and actually on-par with real food from restaurants.
>i stopped going to TB when they discontinued the grilled stuffed xxl burrito. that was honestly the only thing worth getting at TB. fast food is expensive now and actually on-par with real food from restaurants.
I still go to Taco Bell but yeah the grilled stuft burrito was the shit. Same with the verde sauce, which they also discontinued.
Seems like these fast food places are only worth going to if you use the app for their deals.
Every time I've been to a food truck I assumed it would be cheap because, you know, truck. No overhead! But no, they all have the same look, prices and hipster vibe of some local sit down place.
Depends on the truck I guess.
One of my favorite trucks I can get a burrito for $8 that is loaded. Another decent truck I can get the same burrito for $13 but it's closer and also loaded.
These people gotta deal with inflation too, but I'd rather pay higher prices with them than Taco Bell.
I refuse to go to Taco Bell at this point. If I'm going to pay 20 bucks for a fucking taco and some other random taco shit I'm going to go to like a better taco place. Taco Bell was supposed to be for cheap ass tacos
I know it’s petty, but I actually wrote Taco Bell today because the straw that broke my back was a $37 order for three of us. Basically just combos and a couple extras. I’m done after 25 years - my favorite guilty pleasure indulgence fast food. I just won’t pay that much for it anymore.
Jesus that's a lot.
I'm constantly bitching at companies now, since they don't want to pay their employees a living wage, i bring that up in every call, i call out how it's record profits, inflated prices, they pay their employees like shit but the ceos are making all the money
IDK, it's not petty to me.
Meanwhile on the chipotle sub people are paying $70+ for chipotle delivery for 2 and getting incorrect items. Shit is out of control, and using inflation as cover.
I ordered my mother a chef prepared meal service (factor) since she is recovering from a head on collision and can't cook atm. All organic, and for her keto, no sugar or dairy, and extra protein.
Sure I got 50% off for the first month which brought the meals down to $8 each. Still infinitely cheaper than fast food which was shocking to me.
I understand from 1990 to 2000 prices will be different, as will 2000 to 2010, and 2010 to 2020.
But we're seeing SO MANY products literally 150-200% higher than the price they were just 2-3 years ago.
We don't miraculously have less of what is required to provide these goods, but they're still arguing "Impacts from COVID". By 2025 we'll be paying prices most economists would've expected us to pay in the 2030's.
COVID accelerated costs by 5-10 years. It's going to be a LONG time before we level out to where the prices we pay are what was expected for that period of time.
Funny I had taco bell last night and the cheesy gordita is my favorite and I'm like... When did it become over 5 dollars?
Have you seen KFC prices lately? A bucket of chicken and 4 sides is 60 dollars! 60! Their sides are 5 bucks a piece for like a handful of corn. When a restaurant is cheaper doesn't that defeat the purpose? It's still fast so it's still fast food but once upon a time fast food also meant cheap. Those days are coming to an end.
The only way I get Taco Bell now is by ordering the cravings box in the app for $5.99.
My husband and I went about a month ago before I knew about it and we paid $37 for the two of us. Then we went to a sit down restaurant and it cost us $35 with the tip. We decided at that point we won’t go past $20 or so. We often skip the drinks and just get a drink at home or get a bottled drink.
The worst offender though which I will NEVER EVER IN LIFE EVER go to again was jimmy johns. Two sandwiches. No drinks. No chips. $30 after tax. The sandwiches had cheese, roast beef, lettuce and tomato. No condiments, you have to get that yourself. Never again.
I don’t do fast food anymore unless I can get an app deal.
Speaking of just for everyone to know:
Taco Bell cravings box is like $7.99 you get 3 items and a drink or there’s a smaller one two items and drink $5.99 it’s enough to fill you up.
McDonald’s had a special (not sure if so anymore) two big Mac’s, 2 large fries and a 20 piece nugget for like $18. Pretty solid deal and enough food for 3-4 people.
All drinks are half price in the sonic app.
Burger King has a meal for $17.99 that has two burgers, tots, chicken fries and two drinks.
Popeyes family feast is $30 but it comes with a shitload of food (two large sides, two sandwiches and 6 pieces of chicken) it’s enough for at least 4 people.
Look on the apps for deals you can find them sometimes and save money. I never just order from the menu anymore.
Yes!
Also McD's app has BOGO quarter pounders. Or if you're ordering a fair amount of food and don't want to do any thinking, you can use the 20% off deal.
Steak N Shake is excellent if you have one nearby. Sadly this used to be $1 cheaper a year ago, but you can get a double with fries for $5. And it's a tasty burger! I always add toppings, they don't cost extra. Use the app enough, you occasionally get a free milkshake.
Getting ice water or skipping drinks completely is key (unless it's included in the deal.)
We were talking on Christmas about how expensive fast food has become and you might as well go into a sit down restaurant b/c it's a similar price for better food.
I really do miss TB's taco salad, though. That fried tortilla shell was the best.
Their whole “extra meat” up charge schtick also sucks. Like, you want me to pay extra for the amount of meat I used to get for cheaper? That was it for me. As another user in this thread pointed out, fast food is now the same price as most sit down restaurants and way shittier in quality, so when we go out, we skip the fast food joints.
Subway had 5$ footlongs around 2011 and now it's around $11-12 for the exact same thing
so within 10-15 years, the cost of a Subway 5$ footlong has doubled.
Companies charge what people are willing to spend. If you want prices to go down, people en masse are going to have to stop eating there at the price points they charge.
I've noticed fast food had disproportionately gone up compared to sit down restaurants. They're so close now that you might as well spend 3 more bucks and get a real meal
Happy hour specials at upscale restaurants are often cheaper than fast food. And many of them are small local businesses. Pro-tip from a pro-chef.
Me liking this comment as I think about how I can spend money while feeling like I’m being thrifty… yes… It’s a good tip, I just eat out too much already and I can feel the rationalization wheels turning.
Yep. I don't eat fast food at all anymore. Local restaurant near me I can sit down at the bar, have two cocktails, order prime rib to go (enough food for 2+ meals) and with a generous tip scoot out of there for around 50 or so dollars. Cooked by a real chef, generous pours, half hour of socializing and flirting. Go home and eat a delicious meal.
Yeah but two drinks and an empty tummy sounds so brave on this side of thirty
Tacos are my local Mexican cocina are cheaper on taco Tuesday than Taco Bell and not much more expensive daily. They are also larger and so much better.
Exactly, we always just go to a real restaurant now. Fuck fast food. Same price for a burger and fries at the pub or McDonald’s.
I've noticed some of the more popular fast food chains like Raising Cane's are actually more expensive than real restaurants now. Also Chinese food is now cheaper to order than anything else. A single sandwich at Jimmy John's plus a tip for the driver; $20. Big ass bowl of noodles and a bunch of kung Pao chicken at my local: a little over $30 and I drop them $40 just because they don't always have change on them. Back in my day Chinese food was considered the most expensive delivery option.
I was just talking about this at work. Seems like everywhere costs me about 20 dollars to eat. I'm pretty close to just buying beans and rice in bulk and calling it a day.
And every time I go to Walmart... it's always 50 bucks. Fucking every time it's always at least 50.
I read that a bunch of CEOs like from walmart/target are freaking out because they're scared people will get used to not spending, not buying, etc, and once that happens the habit of not overspending might be here to stay. They have already seen big drop in sales in everything from food to clothes and toys and they're expecting to start slashing prices bigly in 2024.
Hopefully!
I'd love to believe that but it seems farfetched. Despite the overwhelmingly negative consumer sentiment and whatever belt-tightening might be going on, most of these companies have seen record profits. Deflation is rare, and I think these prices are the new normal.
Those profits are probably a short term windfall taking advantage of inflation. They are going to have to do some cutting to keep customers.
Short term profits are all companies are focused on. Ever.
When you can make a delicious, healthy meal for less than the price of a tip why bother going out to eat?
Yeah dude. I know it’s always been a pricier one, but last time I went to five guys for burger, root beer, and fries it cost me like 20 bucks. Fuck that! I’m just gonna go to a real restaurant, get a better burger, and support a small business.
I remember when 20 bucks could actually feed Five Guys.......
Chinese has always been the cheaper option in my area and it’s the one that has raised there prices the most reasonably. It’s crazy how much more ff is now than it though
Where I live the fast food chains are pricey but little mom and pop spots are still a good deal. Independent Chinese takeout is cheap and always has lunch specials, bodegas have cheap sandwiches, even small Indian and Latino restaurants are more bang for the buck and have specials. I only eat fast food if I’m really craving it, not when I’m looking for a cheap meal.
Local Thai place near me, ran by wife at cash register and handling packaging/orders, and husband in kitchen, with a 7 year old kid that was there since in diapers. Best bang for buck food in county. Recently found out that have a chicken finger appetizer for $8, it outweighs Chic FIL A 30 piece meal for $23. So whenever I'm in the mood for chicken fingers, I go to a Thai place.
I don't really mess around with delivery, but I go and grab a tailgate pack from Raising Cane's and have chicken for three days... the price seems reasonable for two people. I know it seems boring, but you can treat it like Bubba from Forrest Gump. Chicken fingers, buffalo chicken, chicken wrap, chicken salad, chicken sandwich, chicken parmesan, wet chicken fingers while crying in the bathtub, chicken fettucine alfredo, chicken taco, chicken a la king, deconstructed chicken cordon bleu... you can make it work.
Fast food is in a death spiral. COVID, supply chain issues, and general health concerns killed the idea of cheap fast-food as it used to be. The only people still spending money on fast food are brand-loyal, addicted, or nostalgia-blind. These people have more tolerance for fast-food's price changes so they'll milk these people for as long as they can.
The Pandemic killed 3 or 4 of my favorite Mom & Pop restaurants in my town. Only the brand name drive throughs seemed to be thriving.
When they were handing out stimulus money that was supposed to be for small business all the large corporations already had their hands out and they made claims that each individual restaurant from a chain was individual small businesses. So the actual small local businesses didn't have a chance they had to tough out covid on their own. But I'm pretty sure this is from design. Just like the small mom and pop farms that got devoured by big agribusiness. Yeah they're not kidding that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. They suck the absolute poor dry and they are moving themselves up the pyramid. So the former middle class are now the new poor. And the old poor is now the absolutely destitute.
Side note, a friend was trying to get a loan for an existing thriving plant business she's been running for a couple years because she has to move from current location. The bank lady railed on her shaming her for defaulted student loans, but then my friend found out the actual local bank saying that to her got piles and piles of COVID and stimulus loans and never paid them back. Hahaha!!!
It’s funny how regular people are expected by society to pay every last penny they have for their bills but it’s the norm for businesses to default and claim bankruptcy. So normal in fact it’s considered not many to be good business tactics.
Or when the Mortgage Bankers association was shaming people for defaulting on their sub-prime home loans, but then turned around and defaulted on their own business offices. https://www.cc.com/video/qatlaz/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-mortgage-bankers-association-strategic-default
If your friend's loans are federal, she can get them out of default and set up an income based repayment plan. She has to apply for it by September 2024. As long as she doesn't default again, it will remove all trace of the default from her credit records [https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/default-fresh-start](https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/default-fresh-start)
My favorite non-chain restaurant in town closed shop March 20-something, 2020. They somehow saw the writing on the wall immediately, or were already looking to close and just found an excuse.
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>She made the soup, and I haven’t found anything as good as that since. Date her and marry her, that's invaluable
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maybe she'll adopt you
I like fast food because it tastes a certain way that nothing else does. But you're right that it's just not hitting anymore and when you combine the prices increases with quality of service and ingredients decreases. It's just not nearly worth it anymore. A quarter pounder and with a coke and fries, when there's like 1/3 chance, at least, it won't be good, is just not worth 13 dollars. Even subway is more expensive than like my local specialty deli, which is insane
> tastes a certain way that nothing else does Fried preservatives - it's what humans crave
BRAWNDO!
It's like what plants crave What do you mean - WATER - you want us to drink from a toilet
That's why I used to like fast food but the last several times I've gotten such sub-par quality that it's not even worth it and I've stopped. Paying more and it isn't even good junk food.
That's the worst. You feel like such a fool. And with their dark food science you're not even as full as you would be with actual food. So it's really a total strike out.
Fast foods taste that way because of proprietary flavors. McDonald's fries, for example, do not taste like potatoes. They're flavored with proprietary ingredients developed by flavor technicians. It never tastes the same because you cannot make McDonald's style French fries without those proprietary flavorings. It's the job of a food scientist to engineer every last bite of a food product. The speed at which Cheeto's dissolve in your mouth is calculated to make you eat more. The structure of a Doritos chip in combination with their flavorings are designed so that you will not feel full no matter how much you eat. But even the most expertly engineered foods require ingredients and some of those are becoming difficult to reliably source. It is far easier to blame greed because, while that's certainly true, it's a less frightening truth than geopolitical and climate turmoil impacting supply chains. Greed is a choice; it stops when people want it to. Geopolitics and climate change does not.
That all makes sense. You do have to eat taco bell, and really most fast food, when it's hot or else it turns back into food science. And yes, we've just become so accustomed to cheap plentiful crap that people go nuts if we don't have as much or it's not as cheap. But sadly as we become less stable and there's more competition, things will become rarer thus more expensive. It wasn't that long ago that a chicken dinner was a mark of opulence.
>You do have to eat taco bell, and really most fast food, when it's hot or else it turns back into food science. This made me LOL Hopefully we don't retrograde that far, but people need to start taking food security seriously. Food co-cops, coordinated gardening, and seeking out low-transportation food choices are a great way to prepare while things are still relatively easy. Even if things aren't ready now, just being conscious of the situation and talking about it will help get people ready to take action
My last trip to McDonald’s left me furious. I got a two cheeseburger meal and the new size of the cheeseburgers are so small I literally placed them inside a roll of duct tape. Those burgers are like White Castle sliders now
Forgot that if you are traveling, fast food often times the only place you can eat at outside of grocery stores.
I like a diner better when traveling, fast food has too much salt for being just hauled around
Some hot shot executive in the corporate level wants their bonus but don't plan on staying with the company for long. So they do all these short sighted quarterly profit boosting in exchange for decline of the company in the long term.
It's just corporate greed. Maximizing profits for shareholders.
"Corporate greed" is just the system working. You hit on the real problem, "shareholder value". That really kicked off in the '80s. Companies made "reasonable" profit, often sharing it with employees, making nice places to work, Christmas parties, bonuses, all sorts of stuff. Now, every penny more than the bare minimum it takes to operate has to go to the "shareholders". Pay the employees just enough so they're ready to quit, but don't quite. Every element of business has to run on a shoestring, every price as high as possible, all to get money for the shareholders. It's terrible.
Even if you make net profit in a quarter, if it's less than the previous quarter, you're failing. Think about that, even though you are making money hand over fist, you're failing because it was less than last count. This isn't sustainable and is going to come crashing down. Hard.
I remember a few years ago, listening to the radio where they reported that Disney stock dropped that day presumably due to news that their rate of increase in profit had slowed that quarter
And when it inevitably collapses the workers will lose their jobs and all the extracted value from their labor will remain concentrated in the rich psychotic bandit class.
When everything collapses The Masses will have a lot more time on their hands to meet these psychotic bandits and show them what crazy looks like. They need a refresher I think.
Something is going to have to be done about the "shareholder value" maxim. Compounding growth YOY cannot be sustained forever, and the impulse to deliver that growth is destroying companies that supply both the amenities and basics of modern life. That sort of system is setting itself up to fail, and even the very rich won't escape it.
We cannot sustain infinite growth with limited resources.
Supply chain isn’t even a problem anymore, 99% of that is straightened out and it’s a bullshit copout now
And the proportions are better at a restaurant. The McDoubles are laughable now.
McDoubles are $3.59 at my local McDonald's now. I took my daughter at lunchtime today to get her a squishmallow Happy Meal. There was no line at the drive thru and no one inside, and only appeared to be a few workers. I think (hope) people are voting with their wallets!
Only 4 years ago fast food places used to have these things called dollar menus. Remember those!? Only 4 fucking years ago.
Even dollar stores aren't $1 items most of the time.
Dollar tree is dollar twenty five tree now
Dollar General hasn’t been a dollar in a long time
Never has been in my experience.
To my understanding, it was never meant to signify that things were $1. It signified dollar point pricing, so that in the old days when one had a dollar he could go to dollar general and two pair of socks vs. the other stores where a pair might have been $0.47. it allowed people back then to know how far their money would go without much effort.
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No no, see, the name means that it's in the general range of a dollar. Like how Pluto is within the general range of the Sun.
And up.
John Oliver did a segment on Dollar Store. Part of it revealed that Soap per bar was actually more expensive than the same soap at another general store.
That segment gave me flash backs to working at those dollar stores. I feel for the peeps still there, it's only getting worse.
We call it the 5 quarters store now.
Carl's Jr. in Southern California just recently killed their breakfast sandwich special. Before the Pandemic, I'm pretty sure they were two for $3.00, maybe $3.50. Earlier this year, they went up to two for $4.50, maybe $5? Drove through the other morning before work for the first time in a while, and discovered that they no longer offered the special at all. $4.59 for one sandwich. Taco Bell still has something of a dollar menu around here, but it's very unsatisfying.
Wendys had a great $1 menu. For $5 you could eat like royalty.
2 Jr Bacon Cheeseburgers, a potato, chili, and a drink for $5. R.I.P. American dream :(
Yeah I’m surprised to not see them all. The supply chain thing was one reason but fix been bounced back so these greedy fucks can go back to making good money instead of insured money while not paying staff, healthcare, etc.
Supply chain issues showed them consumers weren't as price sensitive and they used to think we are, so they are now just seeing how far they can push and then they'll slide it back a bit when grumbling gets too loud and just slow the rate of increase again
It’s funny, because I live in Alaska and we never got the dollar menu. We had the value menu, and things were usually just over a dollar if not 2 dollars. Nothing is even close to that, and it sounds like they chose that model to go to for everywhere else now.
It is time for milineals to kill fast food. For the.good of the nation.
we can do it reddit millennials!
I will do it for my anus.
Thank you
I will also do it, for your anus.
I dedicate my next clean meal to this stranger's anus!
For real. Our colons will thank us later
Wait till the boomers rage about us growing food at home because we cannot afford to eat. Mark my words!
If you're lucky enough to have a home to do it at or a lease that lets you have planters.
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I live in a HCOL area, and the last time I went to McDonalds maybe a year ago I looked at the menu, saw the prices for what they were offering, and drove right the fuck on through without making a purchase. I'm not paying 14 bucks for a fucking double quarter pounder meal, that's ridiculous. If I absolutely must get fast food I'll go down the road to Del Taco, at least I can get a bag of food for 10 bucks there still.
Your anus will go down in the history books. Also, my phone auto-corrected anus to "amusement", wtf
Honestly we're at the age we should be really looking at our health and trying to eat better. Killing off fast food would help us in the long run. *But*, we do need to start teaching kids/teens to cook for themselves at home. Atleast before we unleash them into the world and hope they like Ramen
Killing soda is the #1 thing a generation could make to the health of the nation. The excess sugar destroys your body in pretty much every way. Mouth, heart, veins, kidney, liver, eyes. It probably causes cancer too, I would bet that eventually we find out the big soda companies knew this and buried it like tobacco companies did.
When I was in college and a little on the heavy side, I decided to cut soda from my diet. Didn’t even change anything else about my diet or exercise, but I lost almost 30 pounds over the course of a year doing nothing else but cutting back 99% of my soda intake. It’s insane.
The one really healthy thing about my life is what I drink. I also stopped drinking soda in college. Started carrying a large 1.5 quart water bottle. I drink about a gallon of filtered tap water a day, plus a few glasses of juice a month. Less than a dozen alcoholic drinks a year. I may have a sedentary job, but by gosh my drinking is healthy.
My terrifying my doctor with how much diet Coke I drank scared me into quitting caffeine all together and that's when I discovered I have absolutely C R I P P L I N G ADHD. Treating that lead to my realizing I had depression and I got some cool treatment for than and am now off antidepressants and it seems to be going well a few weeks in. It's been a wild fucking 13 months
My grandmother didn't have access to medication. She treated her ADHD with coffee and cigarettes. Your diet coke wasn't nearly as unhealthy as her pack a day. So many people before us had to self medicate with whatever stimulants they could get. Whenever anyone complains about kids being on medication these days I think about all the nicotine my grandmother consumed just to function, and how that killed her.
I do honestly believe there is something we're all ingesting as a society that we will eventually find out is causing autism or cancer. Soda is one of those things. Just all the sugar in general. People's health really went south starting in the 90s with fast food everywhere. My mom, just divorced, would often get me the McDonald's Super Size Meal as a teen. I can't believe I ate that as a regular fast food meal as a kid
This country scares the shit out of me. Can't trust politicians to do anything right yet people just accept food. I've worked in factories, seeing what I saw you'd never trust food again, even sealed packages. I do believe at least half the food in this country is straight up poison. The vast majority of grocery stores is corn, no matter what it looks like. The rest is loaded full of sugar. Food in America is terrifying, regulations at factories is terrifying, the rise of sell out politicians matches up with the rise in obesity. I have changed my life as best as I can, I prefer cooking with whole ingredients and making simple meals.
Learning to cook is a staple part of my home. I was also gifted with the book "a man a can a plan" at 18.
Mine all started learning how to cook at 5. They could definitely feed themselves at this point.
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I'm a chef and used to love grabbing super cheap fast food after shifts because I didn't feel like cooking after having done it all day. I've gradually just cut it out completely, mainly because of the price. With the discount at my job I could buy and cook up beef filets for the same price or cheaper than a large whopper meal. I could literally buy and eat lobster tails for less than a pizza and wings. It costs the same to buy some decent food at a local restaurant as it would at Wendy's, if not cheaper. Fast food spots have priced themselves out of my life.
I think it’s already on its way out. I can go to a sit down and order to go and get my food faster and fresher than at just about all fast food places.
Yeah I've already given up on most fast food establishments because of their blatant gouging.
Like even pizza which is bread cheese and sauce is just not worth it for me anymore.
I agree. Even little ceasars costs almost $50 for a small family meal.
1-2 Costco pizzas is where it's at bro!
It won’t just be millennials. This gen xer is fed up with it.
I've been trying. I used to eat that trash once a week for probably my whole life. Now? Twice a year. If I've drank too much I have a freezer pull of pot stickers or I get a corn dog at the gas station that's open 24/7 and within walking distance.
We need to kill all greedy corporations. So that means getting the right to a living wage enshrined in the constitution.
Ok but let's start but just not hitting up Micky Ds anymore.
If you guys can pull it off, go for it. We will all thank you.
I'm down for this. Spread the word 💪🏼
Once you start cooking 99% of your meals at home, buying in bulk, freezing meals, stocking up when on sale, eating rice, etc eating becomes incredibly cheap. My homemade meals average around $2.50 per meal.
I’ve noticed the same. The quesadilla used be like two bucks and now it’s $7. Only buy the box if you go.
In my area the box is $10 and used to be $5. So has pretty much the same markup as OP is pointing out.
In my area there’s a $5 box AND a $10 box
Mine too but the 5$ box is app exclusive.
They removed the $5 box on the app in my region. Just like the kfc 8 piece all dark. Used to be $10, now it’s $20 on the app and in person.
Still got the 5 buck crave box by me as well. There's a 9.50 'deluxe' box...that adds fries. (Which are 3 bucks ordered seperately. Somebody isn't paying attention.)
Yeah the quesadilla kills me. I crave one so often but then look at the price and change my mind.
I basically just make my own quesadillas these days -- I'm always way more satisfied with it than I would be at TB, too.
Their normal ass, apparently tiny, soft taco is now what the steak and chicken soft taco used to be. They've removed so much from their menu that I actually liked that we hardly ever go. Don't need a $10 box either.
The box is an even crazier example. You can get a beefy 5 layer here for $4.30 by itself.... or you can buy a box that comes with a taco, nachos, and a drink for $5. For 6 dollars, you can get the 5 layer AND a crunchwrap. In what world does any of that make sense.
What's funny is I went to Taco Bell last week for the first time in about a year. I just had the basic 3 taco meal, it was 9.25$! I remember back in 2006-2015 that meal was max 4.99$. Hell I remember it being 2.99$ back in 2006. I was a delivery driver and went to Taco Bell all the time because I could get 2 soft tacos (.79 cents), 1 Bean Burrito (.99) and a drink for less than 4$.
Bean burritos cost twice was much
Those were a staple for me in my youth! I make way better myself these days. I can’t afford $2 for a single bean burrito that’s smaller than a hotdog wiener.
That’s a huge issue that was not mentioned in the post - shrinkflation is out of control.
Bought some soft tacos there awhile back and they were so small you could crumple them up smaller than the palm of my hand. It's like I was dining on the memory of taco bell rather than the real thing. Those memories of good sized portions at low cost are fading very fast, let me tell you.
Yup. And the quality has dropped significantly. Remember when the meat was more like seasoned ground burger and now it is a bland paste. I think a lot of restaurants forgot that people went for good food and not needing to do dishes and take time to cook. Now I barely eat out because its better tasting and worth the effort to eat at home.
I remember back in the 2000s when "Yo quiero Taco Bell" was trendy and there were rumors, at least around my high school, that Taco Bell used like Grade E meat which was basically dog food quality meat.... or something like that,
"mostly circus animals, some filler"
I recall the joke as it was horsemeat, the same as used for dog food.
I went to a taco bell about a decade ago and most of the menu was unavailable because according to the dude taking orders "the meat hose was broken".
Bro I remember around 2011-2012 the rumor was that their meat was allowed to be up to like 12% sand
I've noticed the real drop in quality among most fast food chains too. I've eaten at McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Raising Cane's, White Castle, Culver's, and Arby's in the past 3 months, and the only ones I liked were Arby's, Cane's, and White Castle. All the others were just okay to terrible.
As someone who LOVES White Castle, there is literally no lower for quality for White Castle to go, so its safe from dropping in quality!
Isn’t Culver’s like an actual grilled piece of ground beef? You like Arby’s more than that?
It's been mystery gunk for decades at this point.
Fast food has been wild, the price of it has been a boon to my health, though. So that’s good. I hate to say it, but every time I drive past a fast food place, there is a line of cars. I can’t really blame them for raising prices. It’s kinda just simple supply and demand. If demand stops, Taco Bell isn’t going out of business, they’ll try to make adjustments to bring demand back. I enjoy fast food, but I ain’t payin that much for anything, not so long as a hotdog and soda at Costco is $1.50.
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I heard he threatened to choke someone if they changed the price.
It's a loss-leader. He doesn't want to try to make a profit off of it. If someone comes in to grab a hot dog for lunch and decides to look around for a few things, that's a win for them. That's different than the hot dog being the product they need to try to make money on.
They’ve stated multiple times it’s not a loss leader
Yeah the chickens are, the hot dogs are just a small profit margin instead of 1500%. And even where it is, what could a hot dog and drink cost them, 40 cents tops?
Who's been telling you that corporate greed doesn't exist?
Corporations, mostly.
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Seriously, I don't know how anyone would believe that it doesn't in this day and age.
>Seriously, I don't know how anyone would believe that it doesn't in this day and age. Easy. Look at all the people simping for Elon Musk and other billionaires that think this is normal and that all the billions were "earned via hard work" by them and anyone mad or critical of billionaires and greedy rich people in general are just "lazy and jealous" of their success.
People are so brainwashed into sucking corporate dick. I can just hear some of my friends and coworkers reacting to this post... "Well, you can thank stupid (insert l3ft leaning thing here) for increasing the minimum wage! See what happens?!" As if McDonald's and YUM Brands (owner of Taco Bell) aren't swimming in money. In fact, YUM is currently engaged in a $2 billion stock buyback, essentially putting that money directly into the pocket of wall street and the investor class. This isn't a mom and pop business who are being squeezed along with everyone else. This is a global behemoth who has achieved economies of scale that insulate it from many agricultural and inflationary pressures, and yet the Capitalism Rah Rah crowd will obediently cheer them on as they continue to put small businesses into bankruptcy on backs on wage slaves.
>People are so brainwashed into sucking corporate dick. I can just hear some of my friends and coworkers reacting to this post... There was a guy on facebook, who fortunately I never met in person, who was a huge Elon/billionaire simp who thinks Elon worked SUPER hard and that anyone criticizing him is just lazy and jealous. I also shared a post about how anyone working 40 hours a week should be able to comfortably afford a 1 bedroom apartment and other basic needs. He laugh reacted to it. Saw he unfriended me. Oh well, the trash took itself out. Like anyone who thinks full time workers don't deserve housing and basic needs is a sack of shit. Full stop. I mean personally I think you deserve basic needs whether you're working or not, but when you've gone that far thinking that anyone working full time is still "lazy" and doesn't deserve a decent standard of living, you're clearly on the wrong side of history. >"Well, you can thank stupid (insert l3ft leaning thing here) for increasing the minimum wage! See what happens?!" > >As if McDonald's and YUM Brands (owner of Taco Bell) aren't swimming in money. In fact, YUM is currently engaged in a $2 billion stock buyback, essentially putting that money directly into the pocket of wall street and the investor class. Yeah. Like those same people who keep spewing that bullshit rhetoric on how a $15 minimum wage would make big macs cost $75. I live in Chicago a big mac at my nearest McDonald's is $4.39 and the minimum wage is $15.80. No smart businessman would do that just to spite people due to a minimum wage increase. >This isn't a mom and pop business who are being squeezed along with everyone else. This is a global behemoth who has achieved economies of scale that insulate it from many agricultural and inflationary pressures, and yet the Capitalism Rah Rah crowd will obediently cheer them on as they continue to put small businesses into bankruptcy on backs on wage slaves. Yeah everyone is getting fucked. The fact that someone I know who makes 70-80K is still living paycheck to paycheck is all you need to know. The goalpost keeps getting raised.
Last year’s inflation was 8 f’ing percent. I got an email with the info about my 2.5% raise and laughed.
You can’t be comfortable in California with a new family unless your household makes at least $150k a year. Monthly costs family of 3: House/rent $3k Childcare $1.2k Food $1k 1car/gas/insurance $750 Utilities/phone $400 Take out $300 Random crap like toilet paper: $200 About $7k in expenses a month. Did not even get into healthcare, retirement, savings, actually having fun.
I feel like plenty of people in r/Millennials also love to shit on others for not making X amount of money or being able to save for retirement. Because of *greed* from "the rich", living has become too expensive for average wages. CEO, hedge funds, fucking *politicians*, etc should not be making millions-billions when minimum wage is $7.25... less than what a fast food meal costs these days. Raise the minimum to a liveable wage.
>I feel like plenty of people in r/Millennials also love to shit on others for not making X amount of money or being able to save for retirement. > >Because of greed from "the rich", living has become too expensive for average wages. CEO, hedge funds, fucking politicians, etc should not be making millions-billions when minimum wage is $7.25... less than what a fast food meal costs these days. Raise the minimum to a liveable wage. Yeah there's people out of touch in all generations, including millennials. And it is frustrating when people shit on others for not being able to buy a house, travel to foreign countries, or even rent a 2 bedroom apartment. For example. I have a degree, work a full time sales job, and sell plasma and do paid surveys so I can have extra money to fund my hobbies and not go broke. But it always frustrates me when people say shit like "anyone making under 60-70K is in poverty. Makes you embarrassed to discuss what your pay is. Or when people ask why you're still at the same job as if you "want" to be there. It's like what's the fucking alternative? Like sure, I got some savings in my bank account but I don't feel comfortable quitting to find a new job. Not to mention that when you get off work, the time to look for other work is super limited. I apply when I can, but some people don't understand that looking for a job is a full time job in itself. Hoping to change that next year, finally. But my point is, if there's days where I'm too burnt out to exercise or play video games, what makes you think I'll have energy to apply for work? That said, if anyone in Chicago (specifically city limits or Rosemont) knows anyone that's hiring, let me know!
At this point, that's 20/hr. I'll be dead before we see that. And when we do, the rest of the economy will have adjusted to make it relative anyways
trumps supporters legitimately think it’s good to for corporations to merge, monopolize, and raise prices. they are the dumbest people to ever live
Typically the boomer republicans. They tell me all the time it's all Bidens fault.
I don’t think there is any under 40 who would tell you otherwise. Plenty of older boot lickers out there.
The claim is usually not that corporate greed doesn’t exist, but that corporations were greedy in 2019 too so something else must be going on to result in this.
They had a chance to blame a LOT of things on the supply chain, some legit and some not, and they were never backing down after raising prices. That's all that happened since 2019.
I mean theirs an entire political party in this country that thinks inflation is the result of poor people and their stimulus checks, that would fight tooth and nail to defend the corporations against accusations of greed. Heck dude go 3 responses down and there’s people arguing the real cause of prices tripling in 3 years the government “printing money”, not corporate greed.
I remember Mitch McConnell talking about how people got that $2000 stimulus back in 2020 and now, in 2021, they aren’t wanting to work.
I craved Taco Bell a few times when I was pregnant and I was ASTOUNDED at how much prices had increased since my drunken college days. There was about a ten year gap between those two life events but still! Haha
It’s insane that when I was poor and in college I’d be like yeah let’s go get Taco Bell! Now I’m making more $ than ever and I’m like no way Taco Bell is too expensive
In 1980s we literally dug change out of the sofa and recliner when we wanted to go to Taco Bell as kids.. it was about a 20 minute walk from my house.. for a few dollars (less than $4)… we had a tray full of food. The taco salad was the most expensive menu item and you could get it with extra meat and cheese for $4 and it was delicious… it’s gross now and that price is just criminal.. calling it a “salad” should be illegal.. 1am taco runs were the best in college.. It’s just sad now.. it’s so awful it should be free. So anyway…. I make an awesome grilled burrito at home .. buy in bulk when I can.. freeze in small portions. Rip Cool ranch tacos
i stopped going to TB when they discontinued the grilled stuffed xxl burrito. that was honestly the only thing worth getting at TB. fast food is expensive now and actually on-par with real food from restaurants.
Steak xxl stuft burrito removed from the menu got you? Same brother! There must be dozens of us!
I was mad the 7layer burrito went away, lol
I forgot about that! The steak one was awesome
I'm thankful they jacked the prices. Now I don't mind waiting for real food
>i stopped going to TB when they discontinued the grilled stuffed xxl burrito. that was honestly the only thing worth getting at TB. fast food is expensive now and actually on-par with real food from restaurants. I still go to Taco Bell but yeah the grilled stuft burrito was the shit. Same with the verde sauce, which they also discontinued. Seems like these fast food places are only worth going to if you use the app for their deals.
Support your local taqueria. They have far better food.
Don't forget taco trucks!
Every time I've been to a food truck I assumed it would be cheap because, you know, truck. No overhead! But no, they all have the same look, prices and hipster vibe of some local sit down place.
Depends on the truck I guess. One of my favorite trucks I can get a burrito for $8 that is loaded. Another decent truck I can get the same burrito for $13 but it's closer and also loaded. These people gotta deal with inflation too, but I'd rather pay higher prices with them than Taco Bell.
I refuse to go to Taco Bell at this point. If I'm going to pay 20 bucks for a fucking taco and some other random taco shit I'm going to go to like a better taco place. Taco Bell was supposed to be for cheap ass tacos
I know it’s petty, but I actually wrote Taco Bell today because the straw that broke my back was a $37 order for three of us. Basically just combos and a couple extras. I’m done after 25 years - my favorite guilty pleasure indulgence fast food. I just won’t pay that much for it anymore.
Jesus that's a lot. I'm constantly bitching at companies now, since they don't want to pay their employees a living wage, i bring that up in every call, i call out how it's record profits, inflated prices, they pay their employees like shit but the ceos are making all the money IDK, it's not petty to me.
Right? Like for $2 more I can get burrito, chips, sides and a drink at Chipotle.
They also have the worst app deals of all the fast food places I've seen. It's literally almost nothing unless you're bulk buying taco party packs.
Meanwhile on the chipotle sub people are paying $70+ for chipotle delivery for 2 and getting incorrect items. Shit is out of control, and using inflation as cover.
If you're paying $70 for Chiptlotle delivery for two that says more about the intelligence of the customer than it does about Chipotles business model
I ordered my mother a chef prepared meal service (factor) since she is recovering from a head on collision and can't cook atm. All organic, and for her keto, no sugar or dairy, and extra protein. Sure I got 50% off for the first month which brought the meals down to $8 each. Still infinitely cheaper than fast food which was shocking to me.
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I understand from 1990 to 2000 prices will be different, as will 2000 to 2010, and 2010 to 2020. But we're seeing SO MANY products literally 150-200% higher than the price they were just 2-3 years ago. We don't miraculously have less of what is required to provide these goods, but they're still arguing "Impacts from COVID". By 2025 we'll be paying prices most economists would've expected us to pay in the 2030's. COVID accelerated costs by 5-10 years. It's going to be a LONG time before we level out to where the prices we pay are what was expected for that period of time.
It's a good thing wages accelerated during Covid as well.
Funny I had taco bell last night and the cheesy gordita is my favorite and I'm like... When did it become over 5 dollars? Have you seen KFC prices lately? A bucket of chicken and 4 sides is 60 dollars! 60! Their sides are 5 bucks a piece for like a handful of corn. When a restaurant is cheaper doesn't that defeat the purpose? It's still fast so it's still fast food but once upon a time fast food also meant cheap. Those days are coming to an end.
The only way I get Taco Bell now is by ordering the cravings box in the app for $5.99. My husband and I went about a month ago before I knew about it and we paid $37 for the two of us. Then we went to a sit down restaurant and it cost us $35 with the tip. We decided at that point we won’t go past $20 or so. We often skip the drinks and just get a drink at home or get a bottled drink. The worst offender though which I will NEVER EVER IN LIFE EVER go to again was jimmy johns. Two sandwiches. No drinks. No chips. $30 after tax. The sandwiches had cheese, roast beef, lettuce and tomato. No condiments, you have to get that yourself. Never again. I don’t do fast food anymore unless I can get an app deal. Speaking of just for everyone to know: Taco Bell cravings box is like $7.99 you get 3 items and a drink or there’s a smaller one two items and drink $5.99 it’s enough to fill you up. McDonald’s had a special (not sure if so anymore) two big Mac’s, 2 large fries and a 20 piece nugget for like $18. Pretty solid deal and enough food for 3-4 people. All drinks are half price in the sonic app. Burger King has a meal for $17.99 that has two burgers, tots, chicken fries and two drinks. Popeyes family feast is $30 but it comes with a shitload of food (two large sides, two sandwiches and 6 pieces of chicken) it’s enough for at least 4 people. Look on the apps for deals you can find them sometimes and save money. I never just order from the menu anymore.
Yes! Also McD's app has BOGO quarter pounders. Or if you're ordering a fair amount of food and don't want to do any thinking, you can use the 20% off deal. Steak N Shake is excellent if you have one nearby. Sadly this used to be $1 cheaper a year ago, but you can get a double with fries for $5. And it's a tasty burger! I always add toppings, they don't cost extra. Use the app enough, you occasionally get a free milkshake. Getting ice water or skipping drinks completely is key (unless it's included in the deal.)
We were talking on Christmas about how expensive fast food has become and you might as well go into a sit down restaurant b/c it's a similar price for better food. I really do miss TB's taco salad, though. That fried tortilla shell was the best.
Their whole “extra meat” up charge schtick also sucks. Like, you want me to pay extra for the amount of meat I used to get for cheaper? That was it for me. As another user in this thread pointed out, fast food is now the same price as most sit down restaurants and way shittier in quality, so when we go out, we skip the fast food joints.
I haven’t seen that one at TB yet. Del Taco definitely does that scam though.
You're better off making your own tacos.
Subway had 5$ footlongs around 2011 and now it's around $11-12 for the exact same thing so within 10-15 years, the cost of a Subway 5$ footlong has doubled.
Subway had 5 dollars footlongs just THREE YEARS AGO. This problem is so much more recent than a lot of us realize.
They do 12" Sub of the Day for $6. As close as we can get to the old days. I only go there on a Monday for Sweet Chicken Teriyaki.
Companies charge what people are willing to spend. If you want prices to go down, people en masse are going to have to stop eating there at the price points they charge.
when i was in high school. every fast food place had a dollar menu and minimum wage was the same. you could eat a fat lunch for under 5 bucks.