I hate that everything we do now seems to involve yet another app. I try to minimize adding new ones to my phone.
I was on the run yesterday and went through the McDonald’s drive thru. I handed them a 10 and got change back. I don’t know where you are eating your luxury meals but mine cost a lot more than that.
Only if I become demented enough to actually believe so.
A McDonald’s meal for one person in my neck of the woods is between $10-15. Nothing supersized.
It’s about the same as the neighboring Chipotle.
The main issue is that it was much cheaper than that not too long ago. I don’t remember a time until now when I cringed at a fast food bill.
But we really only do fast food when we’re on the road these days.
Here’s my experience based on memory from places around my office. Comparing 2019 to now.
McDonald’s sandwich + small fries + small drink
Was $7-8
Now $9-11 without the app, can usually get it for $6.49 (one per day) in the app.
Very casual Thai restaurant. Basil fried rice with chicken or pork and bottle of Pepsi
Was $11
Now $16
Neither includes tip or tax
Little less casual Asian “fusion” restaurant. Bento box, no drink (variety of options for protein)
Was $12
Now $19
Neither includes tip or tax
Minimum wage in Massachusetts
Was $12
Now $15
Slice of pizza and a Coke at very casual pizzeria
Was $5
Now $6
There’s still about the same gap between fast food and casual dining around here.
I had to get McD’s for 4 people the other day. The total came to $52, which I thought was shockingly expensive. But I made the order on the app which gives me 30% off if I mobile order, which brought the total to $37 for 4 people. Not bad.
I do understand the hesitancy to use an app these days, to give away your data. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t agree but for me I find their discounts a fair tradeoff in exchange for whatever data they’re getting from my app. What’s the cost of my info? It’s a free sandwich every time I go to McD’s.
I’m most disappointed to find that McD’s has stopped with their “$1 any size pop” scheme, which was going on for YEARS. It really truly did lessen the cost of your meal and brought me specifically to McD’s from any other drive-thru. They’re still not up to BK prices ($1.49 for Lg I believe, from BK’s $3.09) but they’ve gone up. I think this was an absolute brilliant move on their part.
It has always been a luxury to eat out, even fast food, if you have very little money. I grew up with little money and we almost never went out for meals, not even McD’s. It was a huge treat for us to go there.
Now, something being a luxury if you don’t have much money is different from something being a “luxury meal”. A luxury meal, in my book, starts at, what, $50 per person? $75 pp?
I’m not sure how much of a difference that really is. When I was a kid, way back in the 60s and 70s , there was the occasional family that all sat in McDonald’s for dinner on Friday nights, the way they might order pizza or Chinese on Friday night. But even then, most McDonald’s (and other fast-food ) meals were more of the time-saver, quick grab and go , in-between-stops sort of meal. People traveling, on their lunch break , shopping and running errands, grabbing something quick between school and baseball practice or before or after a movie. I worked in a few fast food restaurants in the 70s and whole families making a special trip to the restaurant happened, but it wasn’t a common scenario.
Although the playgrounds almost certainly caused people to pick McDonald’s over Wendy’s or KFC.
Twice a year I go to Ruth’s Chris with my husband and that’s about a $140 bill.
He once ordered a plain baked potato and they charged us $11 for it.
That’s a luxury meal.
Agreed. My brother and I explained this to his kids a few weeks ago (they get McD’s 3-4 times a month) and they could not believe it was a very special treat for us in the 80s.
We would never, NEVER get to have a milkshake. They were too expensive and too caloric. It was like the golden ticket item for us and we got one maybe once a year. And never with fries - only fries OR milkshake.
My niece gets a milkshake and fries every time she gets McD’s now and when she was younger she’d most likely throw half of the shake away. I was absolutely appalled. SHOCKED AND APPALLED. My poor little poor girl heart couldn’t take it.
Same for me growing up. (Graduated high school in 1984, to give you an idea of when that was.) Eating out, anywhere, was a treat; virtually all meals were made at home, from scratch. So, yes, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, were all treats, or reserved for when we were traveling. Now many people eat out much of the time.
Circa 1966 (I was 8) we would ride bikes from Squirrel Hill to Oakland to go to Winky’s (similar to McDonald’s). They had a fixings bar. Hamburgers were 21 cents. We’d each get a burger, then go to the fixings bar where we’d make off with all the pickles.
We wore an onion on our belt, which was the style at the time.
Same!
A Big Mac cost 55 cents in 1968. (Guess how I know that.) That corresponds to $5 now.
A quick search says the current price ranges from $3.91 to $5.31 depending on location. (I suspect there are several places in higher cost places that are above that.) There’s an inflation index based on the BM. It seems to have kept pace with inflation for a while but now has diverged in the last couple years as inflation has fallen. A lot of companies in various product lines have done the same. in terms of raising prices with no real basis in their costs.
Yes compared to its original price it is just fine. Nothing to fret about. OTOH the push towards the app, weird deals, etc. concern me.
What would most of us do if a meal at McDonalds cost $100? We’d stop eating there. We can do the same at $7.00 per meal if we wish. It’s not like we’re going to miss out on anything amazing. Few of us on our deathbeds are going to lament, “I wish I had more meals at McDonalds”
I remember when McDonalds commercials advertised that you could buy a hamburger, fries and a Coke for a dollar and get change back, though I believe it was a regular hamburger and small fries. (Actually I wonder how many people buy just the regular hamburger nowadays, given how small it is.)
We have a single Long John Silver’s here in Little Rock and I rarely go because it’s in a part of town I rarely find myself in. I went the other week and got my typical order of a fish & shrimp platter with a medium Dr. Pepper and it was about $18. I balked at first, but then it dawned on my that this was only a few bucks more than my typical meal at other fast food establishments. Fast food prices seem to have gone up significantly more than the prices of sit down restaurants.
The last time I went to a McDonald’s I bought three plain (no condiments) hamburgers. This was a year ago on Simi’s gotcha day. We had a small celebration and each dog had a hamburger. We had leftovers.
So you only bought the hamburgers to feed to the dogs?
Yep. They like them. I haven’t bought food for human use at a McDonald’s in 4 or 5 years.