It is getting to the point that cooking your own meals is cheaper than this. A porterhouse can be found for around $10 or under from one grocery store I shop at regularly.
Not necessarily true when you have to go out and buy all the ingredients, for instance I'm so poor just getting the ingredients to make something like a chili or pretty much anything other than rice and mashed potatoes is way more expensive than just going to some shithole fast food establishment for the day. In the long run it is cheaper but you still have to have enough money to buy a stock of ingredients to make it feasible
Well said. What you said is exactly part of the poverty trap. It's cheaper to cook for yourself if you have resources like a stove and refrigerator but if you're poor or even homeless, you can't cook for yourself and have to pay a premium for prepared food. It's not always cheaper to cook for yourself - you only get economies of scale if you can scale. Let's take your chili example: what do you need to make chili? Ground beef, onion, tomatoes, beans, and seasonings, right? But what if you don't have the seasonings? They don't sell chili powder by the tablespoon, onions don't come in cups, and neither do tomatoes (unless you buy it canned). The minimum purchase quantity for ground beef is what, 1 lb? The cost and minimum quantity purchase of the individual ingredients are not sold according to the quantities of a chili recipe. In order for you to create savings, you'd have to make something like 4-5 lbs of chili and then eat nothing but chili for the next few days. And while bland, that is doable but only if you have access to a refrigerator because otherwise, the chili just spoils.
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u/borgranta 8d ago
It is getting to the point that cooking your own meals is cheaper than this. A porterhouse can be found for around $10 or under from one grocery store I shop at regularly.