The rise of the dollar meal
It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that McDonald’s has been doing well lately. There’s no mystery as to why: it food is relatively cheap, and people are pinching pennies.
I’ve never been much of a McDonald’s fan myself. I used to go when my son was little, of course, to make him happy with a Happy Meal. But not very often (oh, the poor neglected child); I just don’t much care for the food.
But I found myself in a McDonald’s the other day and was stunned to learn that the clock has been rolled back, and they are pushing the dollar meal menu. A burger (albeit small) for a dollar! A cheeseburger, likewise. It’s all very tempting to a cheapskate like me. After all, you can barely buy a pack of gum these days for a dollar.
There’s something very satisfying about the whole state of affairs, the silver lining in the darkening cloud of the recession. These items are smaller than a Big Mac, to be sure, but they’re not all that small. And the dollar hamburger fields a modest and diet-friendly 250 calories, while the Big Mac checks in at 540.
How do I know that? McDonald’s has obliged us by providing nutritional information for all its products. Some of this stuff you may not want to know (for instance, if you’re a fan of the Double Quarter-Pounder with cheese, or the 21-oz Chocolate Triple Thick Shake, you may need to be sitting down when you take a look), so click on the link at your peril.
And milk is down at Sam’s Club, too – so are other essentials. My daughter (a fiendishly chintzy shopper)noticed that there were some astonishingly upscale items at the local dollar store, like a little jar of olive tapenade.
And for perhaps not-so-mysterious reasons, there were a great many almost-new or just barely worn women’s clothes of excellent quality at the thrift store. I scored a very nice tailored suit (wool and rayon mix), fully lined and with the extra buttons still attached for about $12.00 (I had a speaking engagement and wanted to look something less like an escapee from a bag-lady’s convention.
Another odd thing – although everyone here in San Antonio is holding their breath waiting for the other shoe and the stock market to continue to fall … the many houses in my neighborhood which were empty and on the market over the summer and late fall – have sold, and people have moved in and even begun fixing them up in small ways. Work is picking up at both of my other jobs – one of them is a small boutique publishing firm, where we have about four books in the pipeline now after eight months of nothing much. The other is a small real-estate firm specializing in ranch and hunting properties – and he has had several profitable closings and a prospect of more.
Interesting times… interesting in that sense of the Chinese curse!
My favorite: McChicken, small fries, and a milk. Three bucks, tasty, and just enough.
Smaller portions, lower price points. It’s back to the early sixties. If we only had some Beach Boys music for accompaniment.
Bleah.
As a practical matter, some of those dollar meals can be eaten with one hand while driving. Thinking of McD’s double cheeseburger. The McChicken has too much shredded lettuce.
Burger King’s cheeseburger has more bun and less meat than McD’s double cheeseburger, but is just as handy. Mostly the dollar or dollar and a few cents menus around.