What is the point of fast food anymore

2ugly2live

Honestly, it's been a great help reducing take out. It's such a gamble, I'd rather spent nothing on a sure thing (even if it's boring) than nearly $40 for a meal I may not even finish.

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You can always ask the butcher to get you a smaller piece of meat. You can also separate pieces of meat and freeze part.

If produce is by weight, you can break the package to be smaller. Even things like squash can be cut in half (ask the produce people, places like Aldis will not do this).

Buy canned and frozen veggies as much as possible, they last longer. They won’t be as tasty, but will reduce your food waste.

Cook larger portions and freeze the leftovers and eat them in a week or two.

As far as spices, dishes, etc. look at them as “investments” cause you won’t be using them all on one meal…

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RIP Stalinwolf

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Sure, but then the wait staff expects you to tip at least 20% for simply being given one, and if you don’t you’re an asshole.

That's the neat part about affordable food, 20% on $10 only means you tip $2.

They bring you the food, refill your water, and serve you on ceramic plates with metal silverware then take your dirty dishes away, no trash. The burger and the fries are way better than McD.

IMO The only FF place you still can't touch is a $6 Taco Bell with the cravings box. It's a huge amount of shitty food for a total of $6, it is super fast and it runs through you super fast.

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The funny thing is that we've hosted like eight exchange students and they all agree that the quality of our fast food is noticeably worse than from the same chain back home, and for way more money after accounting for exchange rates.

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And the lines show it. I remember the single drive-throughs being backed up around the building and them putting in the dual-ordering drive-throughs to handle the traffic. There are never more than 2-3 people in line these days and there's almost no one inside. I get it, they're property banks these days.

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That's a great find!

BBQ places in my area have gotten really expensive. Sides are like $5 each now for a small container.

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That's so stereotypically French.

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That's not gonna work in the US.

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So many lol. There's lots of ways numbers are formatted across locales https://cldr.unicode.org/translation/number-currency-formats/number-and-currency-patterns

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The dude that never went to in-n-out

Behold the superior hamburger, ye mighty, and despair:

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I have a Taco Bell addiction. Its my comfort food. I can't even feel guilty about it anymore, its so cheap.

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3.94? lies /s, at least $30 USD here

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Yeah, but the coke isn't car friendly, probably because you end up with white powder everywhere.

Porto881

Sorry, I'm more of a Michael Richards type myself

𝕾𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖞 𝕿𝖚𝖓𝖆

I'm a spreadsheet nerd. Not a guru by any stretch, but I love to make spreadsheets. They help me plan and organize things in a way nothing else does. Despite all the websites and apps out there that make budgeting simple, I do ALL of my budgeting and spend tracking in an odt file. I've built a whole custom spreadsheet for doing all of my budgeting.

I think what's really helping me stay on top of it this year is the fact that in December, I spent about a week planning the year in painstaking detail. I built a whole paycheck estimation tool that automatically calculates tax withholding. I cross-referenced employee handbooks to determine pre-tax withholdings like retirement and insurance. I found the 2025 tax brackets and standard deduction. I understand now how our taxes are withheld for the state side. I actually determined my wife is taking out way too little for tax. January is an awesome time to make that catch. By the time I was done, I determined four paycheck numbers we might experience in the year based on various circumstances. I planned out how much I think each of our 26 paychecks will be, when they will occur, and how we will spend them with a high degree of confidence. I gave us a set amount of fun money each time. Most importantly, I found a way for us to make regular deposits into our savings account. I have a plan in place to save $2,000 and pay off a couple of credit cards this year. It ain't much, but it'll be a start. And if something goes wrong, having some money stashed away will be a huge help.

So far, I've squirrelled away 300 bucks. I feel really good about that.

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In-n-out is mid and their fries are like cardboard.

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Meat is actually the easiest one because you can just freeze it like you said.

But for example, the recipe I tried called for...

Jasmine rice - could only find it in a whopping 5 lb bag which was ridiculous for a solo person who rarely ears rice. I know rice keeps, but since I don't at all like to cook, it was very excessive. Even if I were to have made a larger quantity of the meal or make it multiple times, I still would have an insane amount left over.

A clove of fresh garlic - I know you can get powdered garlic or garlic in a jar, but people seem to say that it doesn't at all work the same, so I wanted to try it the way the recipe wanted you to. So I had a shitton of cut up garlic left over. Can you even freeze that?

A portion of whole fresh ginger - again same issue as the above problem I had with fresh garlic. Only this one was even worse because ginger rarely present in any of the foods I eat

Yes, I get that you can do some complex puzzles and math to figure out how to use all of these ingredients in different meals without wasting the excess, but that is absolutely NOT for me. That's a whole additional ordeal and one of the many reasons I hate cooking. I don't want to have to perform an elaborate game of ingredient to avoid significant food waste when I'm grocery shopping.

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That's an impressive level of financial responsibility, nice job