Even McDonald’s is expensive now

Maccys have been godawful since they moved to holding food in the humidifiers. The kids will still go but only if nothing better is available. The Happy Meal toys are tat these days too.

I'd much rather make burgers at home. £20 all in and it's burgers and all the trimmings for 4. Winner.

We used to get a Deliveroo takeaway a few times a month, but after a particularly disastrous meal from a nice burger restaurant that you pay, effectively, restaurant prices for but turned up stone cold and inedible, we had a rethink.

We'd probably spend £100 a month on takeaways. Instead of that, I now get Hellofresh 3 weeks out of 4. It costs between £35 and £45 a week, but we get three meals for that, rather than just one. Yes, we're spending more than we did on takeaways, but we're getting at least 3 times the amount of meals and cutting down the main shopping bills too.

I like cooking, so doing dinner on a Saturday rather than a takeaway doesn't bother me, and the convenience of having freshly cooked food with a variety of recipes is much better than the takeaways we used to have.

On the McDonald's front, my usual go to is a large chicken select meal, which is £6.99. The happy meals are £3.79, so two adult meals and a happy meal would be £17.77 here, so about €20.79, so it does looks particularly more expensive where you are OP.

Me too, I don't mean to sound really depressing but I can't hardly think of anything than is better than it was 10-15 years ago!

I feel ancient just typing this but, leaving aside any considerations of quality, when I was a child/teen in the 90s my family definitely didn't consider McD's cheap food.

I agree. My sons were born in the 90s and would nag and nag for a 'happy' meal. They were not cheap, especially compared to the same food cooked at home.
Even in the 80s I never saw McDonald's as cheap, you could get a meal at a local cafe for a lot less.

Always keep the receipt as you get a code to put into this site:
McFood for thoughts
Mac and medium fries for £2.99!!

Yaay 6 hash browns 😃. Yeah they are the only breakfast item I will eat from there and I refuse to pay that. I buy the fake ones from Aldi and put them in the air fryer, almost as good. Supermarket/boots meal deals instead when out and about.

This may not be a bad thing, if it means those of us who can, will now cook more.
Junk should be a treat.

Now if only they’d work on the price of good, healthy food. Until then, £1 a scoop (not even a pound anymore), here I come.

I work in a drive thou but not on the drive thou (I'm in the dining area)

Not that I've ever heard-i do know where I work are meant to,but nobody bothers

I'd keep my mouth shut and reuse it!lol

Not heard of a change using onions,but I will ask on Sat (I'm off until then)

I always get the wrap of the day for £1.99! Delicious.

Lol at the caps 😂

The minimum wage is going up to £11.44 at the start of next month, which is obviously a good thing for people doing service jobs, but it will inevitably cause another spike in food price inflation as corporates protect their profits by passing on the costs to their customers.

I had this exact thought last night. Took the kids last night after swimming for what I thought would be a quick/cheap takeaway. Was nearly 20 minutes waiting and it was £18 for 3 happy meals and an adults meal. It wasn't a massive amount of food - neither the 8 year old nor I felt particularly full.

Our local posh burger place is great but it's £15+ for burger and chips. We have cut way down how much we get. Probably twice a year now, 5 years ago we got one once a month.

Totally! Ten pounds a meal nearly! Ridiculous.

I think they rely on you just ordering without looking at the prices. My son always gets the Wrap Of The Day and customises it to remove bacon, sauce or whatever and get the uncoated chicken. He gets a Tropicana with it and it's about £3, which seems reasonable.

I prefer a Tesco meal deal (sushi, Innocent smoothie, Tony's salted caramel bar). Now those are good value.

Has no one thought to mention @DonnaBanana and her SIX hash browns? LEGEND 👏

KFC IS MUCH WORSE

I feel ancient just typing this but, leaving aside any considerations of quality, when I was a child/teen in the 90s my family definitely didn't consider McD's cheap food. It was an occasional treat within our budget, and while we weren't well off we were hardly on the poverty line either. I wonder if food prices remained artificially low relative to budgets from early 2000s to mid-2010s and we're now seeing a readjustment.

We stopped going. It was a habit but now i would rather spend the money on something else.

@Sharontheodopolodous

i do this! I was a bit shocked when the price jumped from £1.99 to £2.99 a few months ago but still better than full price.
Just out of interest I’m usually in the car so go drive thru… it was often enough to say at the speaker ‘I’ve got the feedback voucher’ and they’d take your word for it so they wouldn’t ask to scan the code, therefore you could get away with using it another time😉 I’ve noticed the past few months they ALWAYS scan the code. - is it something the staff have been pulled up on?

Its €5.99 for a happy meal here

It wa sin the paper saying it due to start today officially.

And on the eating disorder groups.

We had a quick dinner (dh & me with two youngest dc) at Nando’s the other night - cost £75. I’m sure it used to be much less

Energy costs are up, wages are up, raw materials are up, as wages there are up, fuel costs to deliver products to them are up, so the finished product needs to keep pace.

we argue for better wages, which is right, but the end result is that produce costs more in part due to it.

It does say in all of the papers that as part of the new changes to burgers they will be adding onions to the burgers while they’re on the grill.

Just comparing the same meal though, aside from quality, a burger fries and a milkshake is about 3x what it is at McDonald’s and people will have to go to McDonald’s if that’s all they can afford for a burger fries and a milkshake. So as costs for everything rise, some people will have to stop going to McDonald’s but some five guys customers will have to stop going there and will trickle down to McDonald’s I think.