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That said, a meal for 4 being over $100, we better be eating something fancier than fast food.
Exactly.
I’ve done the math over and over again - my average per-plate cost cooking at home is around $2.
Sometimes a buck, sometimes more.
I can knock out a better burger than 5 Guys or fast food with little effort and a lot lower cost. My burger is purchased as a volume, patties made while watching TV and frozen. Just gotta pull them out and cook. And I use my own burger spice that blows away anything from 5 Guys.
Planning is the key. I make meals that freeze well so I can split it up and then use as-needed, even for weekday lunches. When your daily lunch is $1-2 instead of $10+, it makes a big difference.
But just as important is I get to control the nutrition.
I’d rather spend an hour cooking than spend an extra hour working so someone else can cook it for me. Quality can apply to time as well as ingredients.
Do people count their own time as labour now? This sounds like Corporations tricking you into buying their stuff since it is “cheaper” than Free somehow.
Like my half hour bath coat me $25 in washing myself? Should I outsource my bathing?
in economics the general abstraction would be ‘all things equal next best option’
wage is just a simpler shorthand to quantize your time relative to other options, you could do just straight hours but personally I value my free time well above my pay even with overtime
but you are getting lost in specifics
the point was cooking for yourself has other costs than just food ingredients, those costs are factored into what you pay for an external meal, figure out your total costs (and benefits) for an internal one or it’s not fair to compare the two (an example i highlighted was controlling ingredient quality)
if you’d still rather cook at home but the math doesn’t line up, something is worth more than what’s listed there and there is use in identifying what that is
we do this naturally all the time without deeper thought but people often miss things that way and end up unhappy with decisions
things can turn out in unexpected ways that still fail but i rarely regret doing things otherwise
I get your meaning but at some point it is reasonable to take your own unpaid work into account.
My dad sometimes brags how he is able to save like 4€ on a grocery bag by going to a bunch of stores to compare prices and then going back to them to buy just the best deals. I mean that’s great but it takes several hours to do so, so if he had spent an hour working instead he would have made up for it. Chasing deals is like an extremely low-paying job.
If you have a job where you can slot in overtime anywhere and rather than be home you’d like to work, then sure pay somebody to prepare food or fix stuff for you, but otherwise there is no extra income and paying $25 for a meal out that costs $2 at home is just a waste in my opinion.
We had a car repair this week, dealer wanted $300 for parts and $220 per hour to fix. So minimum $520. I bought parts and did it myself saving the labour. I guess I could have watched a movie or read a book, but by the “paying your own labour” logic I’d be looking at a $220 movie cost if dealer fixed my car.
I understand about your dad, more so the gas driving between places. But I will go to two stores on same route and purposely get the cheaper one to drive pricing down.
The stores here have same soymilk one store is $3.99 on plays with pricing and was as high as $8.99. I won’t pay $9 because then they know that’s what they can charge, I drive to next block and pay $4
Some places are honestly getting crazy. Could probably run up a total like that at Five Guys. They’re death spiraling and prices are out of hand.
Five Guys has always been this expensive.
I haven’t eaten at one in 15 years, fuck those insane prices.
Let me preface this, unless it’s a kids’ birthday wish, I’m not willingly going there.
Youtube channel did an ingredient comparison, and while they are quite expensive, McDonalds if fucking you over way more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOmh9F4xcs
TL;DW, it comes down to meat. Using grocery store ingredients, they made faithful comparisons to fiveguys, in and out, and McD.
The hamburger is by far the most expensive part and fiveguys does actually use more than the rest.
McDonalds big mac had 107% markup.
In and out Double, had 44% markup
The 5 guys regular burger was 84% markup
It cost them over $8 to copycat Fiveguys.
That said, a meal for 4 being over $100, we better be eating something fancier than fast food.
Exactly.
I’ve done the math over and over again - my average per-plate cost cooking at home is around $2.
Sometimes a buck, sometimes more.
I can knock out a better burger than 5 Guys or fast food with little effort and a lot lower cost. My burger is purchased as a volume, patties made while watching TV and frozen. Just gotta pull them out and cook. And I use my own burger spice that blows away anything from 5 Guys.
Planning is the key. I make meals that freeze well so I can split it up and then use as-needed, even for weekday lunches. When your daily lunch is $1-2 instead of $10+, it makes a big difference.
But just as important is I get to control the nutrition.
you’re not counting your labor
lets say cooking + dishes takes an hour (maybe 2)
if you make 30$/hour even ignoring possibly time and a half if you work 40 already and assuming picking up more hours is possible
it starts to not really be cheaper, so quality has to be the real benefit and control
otherwise work more and arbitrage the difference
I’d rather spend an hour cooking than spend an extra hour working so someone else can cook it for me. Quality can apply to time as well as ingredients.
Do people count their own time as labour now? This sounds like Corporations tricking you into buying their stuff since it is “cheaper” than Free somehow.
Like my half hour bath coat me $25 in washing myself? Should I outsource my bathing?
everyone should because i assure you anyone with any possible control over your life surely does
also if your only take away is buy food from a corporation you missed the actual point of my comment
Nobody is paying you for the time though, unless you fit in overtime on purpose, to then go eat a paid meal, Or paid car repair, etc.
yes that was in the original comment
in economics the general abstraction would be ‘all things equal next best option’
wage is just a simpler shorthand to quantize your time relative to other options, you could do just straight hours but personally I value my free time well above my pay even with overtime
but you are getting lost in specifics
the point was cooking for yourself has other costs than just food ingredients, those costs are factored into what you pay for an external meal, figure out your total costs (and benefits) for an internal one or it’s not fair to compare the two (an example i highlighted was controlling ingredient quality)
if you’d still rather cook at home but the math doesn’t line up, something is worth more than what’s listed there and there is use in identifying what that is
we do this naturally all the time without deeper thought but people often miss things that way and end up unhappy with decisions
things can turn out in unexpected ways that still fail but i rarely regret doing things otherwise
I get your meaning but at some point it is reasonable to take your own unpaid work into account.
My dad sometimes brags how he is able to save like 4€ on a grocery bag by going to a bunch of stores to compare prices and then going back to them to buy just the best deals. I mean that’s great but it takes several hours to do so, so if he had spent an hour working instead he would have made up for it. Chasing deals is like an extremely low-paying job.
If you have a job where you can slot in overtime anywhere and rather than be home you’d like to work, then sure pay somebody to prepare food or fix stuff for you, but otherwise there is no extra income and paying $25 for a meal out that costs $2 at home is just a waste in my opinion.
We had a car repair this week, dealer wanted $300 for parts and $220 per hour to fix. So minimum $520. I bought parts and did it myself saving the labour. I guess I could have watched a movie or read a book, but by the “paying your own labour” logic I’d be looking at a $220 movie cost if dealer fixed my car.
I understand about your dad, more so the gas driving between places. But I will go to two stores on same route and purposely get the cheaper one to drive pricing down. The stores here have same soymilk one store is $3.99 on plays with pricing and was as high as $8.99. I won’t pay $9 because then they know that’s what they can charge, I drive to next block and pay $4
Spill it.
It started as a 5 dollar burger.