Back of the envelope, using prices from safeway.com (in Seattle) I get the cost of a quarter pound cheeseburger being about $2.60. Significant error bars on that, because it's hard to estimate how much onions and ketchup and mustard McDonald's uses, and I'm estimating on the lettuce and pickle slices.

But, in no case would I say it costs more than $3.50 to make a quarter pounder with cheese at home. I'm also assuming the ingredients McDonald's uses are not better than even the cheapest ingredients for sale at an okay grocery store, so I'm just giving them that advantage to make it possible to compare.

The current price of a quarter pounder with cheese at McDonald's looks to be $6.22[1]. So, let's call it twice as expensive.

I didn't even bother estimating the cost of making french fries after that, since there's no way they make up the difference.

[1]https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/

I do not, for the record, doubt that some menu items at McDonald's cost less for them to produce and sell than the equivalent would cost to make at home. I would be VERY surprised if it cost less in the long run to buy all your meals at McDonald's versus making food yourself at home. Even buying ingredients in bulk, McDonald's does have a lot of overhead to pay for and profit to make.

You must be the type to buy ingredients in units of 1 of each and then complain that its more expensive than buying the fast food meal.

It's hilarious reading these posters fully convinced fast food is cheaper than cooking at home. Actually no it's sad because it shows the culinary poverty mindset so many people live with.

Buy a big package of hamburger buns and put it in the freezer if you must; it'll be fine for a while there. Thaw as you go when you want a burger: bread thaws in no time. Buy a large package of ground beef, super cheap, and segment it, re-wrap it, freeze it in amounts you know you will use when it is thawed. Want a burg? Water-thaw the meat, air-thaw the bun. Pickles are pickles and are always ready. Pre-made condiments last forever. Pull from your evolving collection of veggies OR make sure you swiped some toms and lettuce or whatever on your way home along with other ingredients for further meals because that's called planning ahead.

There, cheapest burgers you can possibly have, and better than fankenfood. It's just... organization.

And if you're too lazy to do any of that, there are about a million complete meals you could decide on which are both easier and cheaper than making a burger, let alone buying fast food.

Even if you're lazy you can buy frozen Bubba Burgers and it still comes out way cheaper than McD's.

No. I never said I actually made that complaint, because I don't. I was just pointing out that contrary to resource_waste's assertion above, fast food can in fact be less expensive than grocery food. It is not a statement of error so egregious as to be worth writing off the content of an entire media organization.

It's a statement, that even if you "well acshually" it hard enough to make it work, is still useless.

Can a particular fast food meal be cheaper than some similar grocery store meal? Yes.

Is a fast food meal cheaper that the maximum cheapness calories per dollar than everything you can get at a grocery store? No.

Will people who hear it hear the second or the first?

> Will people who hear it hear the second or the first?

Definitely unambiguously the first unless they're the ones trying to "well acshually" it. At the point of the second you're not even talking about burgers - the maximum cheapness calories per dollar is a five gallon jug of corn syrup or something.

Have you literally ever been shopping before that wasn't a Trader Joes or a Whole foods?

It boggles my mind anyone can think that fast food is cheaper than grocery store food for the dollar. Its basically on the level of flat earthers to me.