Can Anybody Even Afford to Go Out to Eat Anymore?
Once upon a time, it seemed like pizza was relatively inexpensive food. Or at least affordable food. If you wanted to go out and have dinner and eat pretty well and have a couple of beers you could go to a pizza place and enjoy yourself and get home without breaking the bank.
Times Change...
I guess we have to just resign ourselves to the fact that those days are gone. Nowadays, going out and having two people share a pizza at a not particularly fancy place — and having a beer each — after taxes and tip you're out close to $80.
When did that happen?
Whereas I'm not debating the inflationary reality of these times, what I am debating is the suddenness with which it seems like the cost of doing even fairly simple things have doubled.
I was sorting through some old paperwork and came across a receipt from 2019 from one of our local pizza places. Evidently Mrs. Denmarkguy and I went out and had pizza for dinner and we split a pizza (and presumably had a little left over to take home), each had a beer, and after taxes and tip and everything it was $43.20.
In a more more recent eye opener that happened just a few months back, our son was visiting from Seattle, and the three of us went to the movies. Movie tickets for three, plus soft drinks and assorted popcorn, snacks etc. came to slightly over $100.00.
I'm not sure what exactly is happening to the so-called "age of prosperity" we are allegedly moving into, where — thanks to automation and AI — everything is supposed to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. I just don't see that happening.
But to get back to the rising cost of eating out, we've reached a point where we basically don't eat out anymore.
As a Danish national, that actually doesn't feel so unusual because growing up in Denmark "eating out" was something you almost never did, largely because of the cost. However to Mrs. Denmarkguy — being a US citizen — eating out is part and parcel of the culture here... but I just don't see how that can continue given how expensive it has become.
To be perfectly honest, I've always preferred eating at home anyway because our home cooked food tends to taste better than 90% of food you eat out!
Which, of course, brings us into a whole new area of discussion... namely that many people in the US of A actually don't eat out because it tastes better, they eat out because of convenience and time savings.
Saving Time... for WHAT?
As I have mentioned on a number of occasions before, I'm not sure how psychologically healthy a society is if everything it does revolves around trying to save time. What exactly are we saving time for? Seems to me that people are saving time in order to cram more stuff into that precious time they have allegedly "saved."
Reminds me a bit of an article I read during the early days of DVRs, commenting on people being so excited that their DVR could actually record two different programs simultaneously and they weren't tied to the tv in order to record those! What a convenience and time savings!
And yet here they were recording two programs with the consequence that they now had to spend twice as much time in front of the TV watching those recorded programs, necessitating even more time savings so they would have time to do more stuff...
Sounds a bit too cart before the horse to me.
Of course, this is only loosely related to the original train of thought... about eating out as a time saver.
In this case, all I see is an "infinite loop" of sorts: You "save time" by eating out so you have time to work more, so you can afford to eat out in order to save time to work more...
Although the context was a little different, yesterday @jongolson had this poignant observation in his post: "We all have 1440 minutes in a day."
There's no "saving" time. There's only allocating it. Personally, I'm quite content to work a little less, as the consequence of no being able to afford to eat out anymore. Because I've run out of minutes to work "more!"
Thanks for reading, and have a great Sunday!
What do YOU think? Have you noticed the cost of eating out inflating disproportionately quickly? Like the hamburger that cost $10 two years ago suddenly being $17? Any other examples? Are you eating out less than you used to? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
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Created at 2023-08-05 23:05 PDT
0910/2165
In the US? Probably fast food. I find restaurants too expensive.
I was in Taiwan recently and good, cheap, food are still about, if you stay away from the tourist areas.
We pretty much avoid fast food, mostly for quality reasons... some of that stuff barely qualifies for even being called food...
Sadly, the US doesn't seem to have as much "street food culture" as many other places. It's good to know reasonably priced food still exists in places!
"Street food culture" in the US is usually fairs, art shows or some other vendor provided service to an event and are expensive themselves. Leaves out a lot of chances for experiencing different cultural foods.
I had been frequenting "fast casual" restaurants in the United States.
Fast casual refers to restaurants that serve food that is slightly better than fast food.
Prices haven't risen that much. Unfortunately most of these restaurants now demand a tip when i pay the bill; so I am pretty much giving up on them.
At least we can still enjoy cyber pizzas on HIVE.
!PIZZA
Some places/genres do seem to have gone up slightly less, like Chipotle, Panera Bread and the like. Still trying to adjust to the idea of a hamburger and fries being $15. Even our local hot dog stand now charges $8 for some of their dogs. $8.00 for a hot dog? Really?
I have noticed the tipping thing, too... even tips for non-service items.
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@yintercept(1/5) tipped @denmarkguy
We're a family of 5. We barely eat out coz yeah, it's like you almost can't enjoy the food anymore because of the tore my purse apart. 😵💫 The same is true with the cinema. Since there's online streami g already, we don't need to break the bank just to be able to watch a great movie.
Yeah, with a family the price of life runs up in a hurry!
We're really grateful for streaming services, although some of the rentals for recent movies are getting pretty stout.
Well, even before the situation of our economy became worse, we don't eat out in my family. Well, there are times when I choose to eat out especially to fancy restaurants but not anymore. I still do that but not like before. The economy is very bad so I'm just trying to manage as much as I can so that I won't spend money recklessly
Well, yes... Nigeria has had more than its shares of economic difficulties, particularly lately. Not so much now that we live in the US, but in Denmark eating out was definitely a "luxury" that only happened for events like 50th birthdays or silver wedding anniversaries.
Yay! 🤗
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The UK has always been more expensive that the US for eating out. I did notice that they fast food places are not fast food anymore and are bloody expensive!
I love to cook and the only time we go out is when I can't be bothered cooking like this morning!
Yes, the UK was always expensive for "real" eating out, I remember that. But how about things like going down to your local chippy, or getting Chinese/Indian takeaway? That used to be reasonable eats in the UK... granted, it has been decades since I lived there.
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I don't have cable anymore but most shows I recorded I'd probably never watched during their scheduled times. I'd save them for a wintery day, rainy day or just plain bored of everything else. You could save time by fast forwarding the commercials, if it was a show done in different topic segments you could skip through the parts you didn't want to watch. Dateline is probably the only show I miss not having access to at any given time, I've always been crime drama type person, could speed through it in no time skipping the commercials.
I know what you mean about eating out. Stopped to get a burger a few months back and realized the price had risen to eight to nine bucks. I am usually not big on fries, have to have a urge for fries to eat them and soft drinks from fast food places usually are horrible. Now I go buy a rotisserie chicken and a small container of potato salad, depending upon where I stop to get it it runs slightly under ten bucks for both. I can eat out two days in a roll in a park with that and still have leftovers.