> assuming you can buy enough for 3-4 at once.

I don’t think you can make that assumption. For someone living alone, that burger from McD’s may well be cheaper than the equivalent made from supermarket ingredients. When I used to live alone, I stopped buying salad ingredients because they would usually go off in the fridge before I used them all. It was cheaper to eat out.

I think that's partly why stuff like frozen pizza is kind of a meme with single people. Stuff in the freezer can generally keep for years before it really has anything off with it, and even after it starts getting a bit off, it's probably still not going to kill you.

Frozen pizzas can be had for as low as like $3.50 if you get them on sale, and since they keep forever in the freezer there's no reason not to stock up at that point...

I lived not-quite-exclusively on frozen pizza when I lived alone for about a year. It wasn't healthy for me, but it was pretty cheap living, at least in the short term.

Most fresh ingredients last at least a week. What kind of salads are you making that a single person can't finish before they go off?

I was out a lot anyway - lunch with work, dinner with friends, weekend catchups with family and so on. When you live alone, you need to leave the house to socialise. I was only home for meals a few times a week. And I didn’t want salad every time I made food for myself.

So yeah, usually I’d buy salad ingredients, make one salad (or veggie sandwich or something). Then a week later I would take a look in the fridge and notice my ingredients had gone bad. I did this several times before I gave up.

You have to use each chain’s app, now, to get what used to be menu prices. They figured out they could raise menu prices a ton and lots of folks would still pay it, while still keeping poor folks paying them money by providing the app option.

It’s still pretty cheap if you get whatever’s the best option from the deals and freebies they offer in the app, rather than buying whatever you want off the menu.

Who you calling poor folks!? I make big-tech SWE money and I never order from McDonalds without using the app. I guess I’d actually call it “price sensitive” vs. “price insensitive” which IMHO has only a moderate correlation with income.

> You have to use each chain’s app, now, to get what used to be menu prices.

Yes, I used their app. I have kids so I know happy meals used to be crazy cheap. They've gone up substantially in price in the past 3 years.

We used to get McDonald's once in a while as a quick, cheap meal that our kids liked. At some point within the past year or so I realized that it's not actually cheap anymore - I think they've raised their prices more than many competitors. IMO, they are now roughly at the same prices as some much more appealing options, so we don't really go there anymore.

We’re in the middle of moving so normal meals have been rather disrupted. We’ve used a 20 nuggets + 2 large fries deal a few times, about $9 with tax. Feeds three kids and then some.

I see a lot of single-happy-meal deals, but few for multiple, so that’s kinda been our go-to instead. Gotta go with what the app wants you to get. I much preferred when the menu prices were just pretty-good all the time…

Did you check on a delivery app, or in store? App prices will usually be inflated

Just the lowest price in the first row of Google shopping. Admittedly unscientific. Just trying to get a ballpark sense for relative prices.

As noted elsewhere, I’m an empty nester. Cooking for two adults, both of whom are athletic and celiac, so my perception of what’s cheap is WAY skewed. We eat lots of fish, chicken, and fresh produce.

I used the McDonald's app, creating an order for drive-through pickup (they don't seem to put prices on their website that I could find). So, I believe that should be their regular menu prices. I didn't look at 3rd party websites or apps because of the extra expense.