Not anymore. I just checked, a hamburger happy meal at the McD's nearest to my house (i.e. not an abnormally expensive location such as an airport) is $4.49. Extra $0.20 to add cheese. This is for a 1/10 lb hamburger (!). As others have pointed out, I think it's very possible to acquire the ingredients for this for less than that, assuming you can buy enough for 3-4 at once.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.