It's definitely a welcome development, but it still costs more than cooking your own meals and cleaning up by a whole lot, so something is amiss. (As I wrote before, I don't mean to say it is all the restaurant's fault, it could be rents are simply too high.)

When you say it costs more to eat out, are you factoring in the cost of your time?

If I spend an hour and a half prepping and cooking dinner, but I managed to buy that ingredients for $10 less than what I would spend at a restaurant, it's still cheaper to eat at the restaurant if I factor in the time I spent.

>When you say it costs more to eat out, are you factoring in the cost of your time?

Just an addendum: if that time would have been spent, say, watching TV (and you are a healthy adult that doesn't have any psychological or physiological benefit from watching TV) then the time cost is possibly negligible.

Full time salaried workers can't easily convert additional time into money.

I mean there are many ways to overwork oneself, and I suppose the fact that I often am just too mentally drained after work to do all the cooking anyways speaks to a similar malady.

I think we do see PP's point with poorer people with horrendous commutes, part time inconsistent jobs, etc. Lot's of anguish about "food deserts" of course, but I think there is a larger reckoning that we simply need to reduce work and commutes before dual income people at all levels can afford to cook real food.

You should get multiple meals from cooking and cleaning for 1.5 hours, either as leftovers or for other people.

You should, but I eat a lot and the prep work adds up.