[onion2k]

There are 563 calories in a Big Mac, and the average price across the US is $5.71. You could get the same number of calories from ~190g of cooked white rice. At Costco prices that's about 38 cents. You could spend $5 on things to put on top of the rice and still come out ahead.

Obviously there are cheaper fast food options than a Big Mac, and I've used average prices which doesn't help you, and I've assumed you're in the US, and I haven't accounted for things like fuel and water, but there's something seriously wrong with the market economics of where you live if fast food is really cheaper than cooking for yourself.

[tluyben2]

I do not count calories so I don't know about that. I don't know why anyone would unless you are either very underweight or very over weight (the latter, cooking yourself will definitely help). I live in the EU and my fav foods are egg fried rice, pizza & curries; all of them are vastly cheaper to make myself (with smart shopping); far healthier, tastier/nicer (matter of taste for sure!). I see a pizza at NYC Domino's will cost you $7.99 with a coupon; mine, including wood + ingredients comes to around half of that.

Ofcourse not counting time; counting time makes all cooking crazy costly, but yeah, it does so with a lot of other things as well; actual eating (fastfood or otherwise; why not a nutrients drip next to your computer?), going to the gym, shopping, cleaning, showering, going to the toilet and most people probably did not optimise any of those either.

[gridlockd]

That much cooked white rice is a very high glycemic load. I'd rather get my diabetes from candy, thanks.

I think you missed a subtle point though: Cooking takes time and energy, which you should not value at $0, unless you really enjoy cooking, in which case you probably don't eat at McDonald's a lot.

[onion2k]

Cooking takes time and energy, which you should not value at $0..

If you're not being paid for your time then the value is $0. Most people on HN are on salaries where the hours we work have no direct impact to what we earn.

I'm not suggesting there's no value in choosing what you should spend your time on, but rather that using some imaginary hourly wage to define it is stupid. There are much better ways to choose how to spend your time than dreaming up a threshold of "things that aren't worth $x/hour" vs "things that are worth $x/hour" because it will always end up being the boring, tiresome jobs that fall below that threshold even if they're actually useful or important.

I know a lot of people who claim they don't have time to cook or clean their houses or do gardening, and use the dollar value of their time as a reason. Most of them seem to have time to watch the latest Netflix shows or play videogames though. For some reason watching Stranger Things is apparently worth $100/hour.

[gridlockd]

You're conflating the time you can use for work and the time you must use for leisure. I have about 5 very productive hours in the day, plus maybe another 5 less productive ones. I must replenish my energy in the remaining hours.

Now, if you like cooking, perhaps it is like leisure, perhaps it actually replenishes you. Otherwise, you might as well put a dollar value on it, because you are effectively working overtime.

Another way to look at it is that you're really using dollars as a way to better manage your time. Let's say you work 8 hours a day, but you put in another 2 hours into learning something new, maybe a side business, anything that isn't just leisure. Of course that doesn't translate directly into a salary, but the expected value is not zero dollars.

[mft_]

> If you're not being paid for your time then the value is $0.

Is it that simple?

When deciding whether to do something myself versus paying somebody else, I factor in the time taken multiplied by the pleasure or displeasure of doing the task myself, probably sometimes multiplied by the probability of the outcome being above or below ideal.

I’d therefore argue that my unpaid time does actually have a dollar value: it’s the amount I’d be willing to pay to not perform a task myself in that time. It’s complicated by the other factors, but a relationship still exists.

[tluyben2]

Exactly; it's a subjective value, not $ value. If it was really $ value, people would behave quite a bit different.

[tluyben2]

Not the person you were responding to, but I made the point in another comment; the optimizing of time for one task over another (as example; eating fast food (in the example a big mac which is not considered healthy by any standard) to save time but going to the gym because that's healthy) seems not really relating to valuing your time in money, but just valuing your time in subjective ways. There are many people who make > $100 / hr who clean their own house. Why? I don't know, but if you say you don't cook because it costs money then that goes for all things you do. There are people who like cleaning, but anecdotally speaking anyway, I don't know any of those and yet I know millionaires who clean their own house because 'that's how you become a millionaire'. But real sense it does not make. They all (the ones I know that is, to be specific) love to cook (hours / day) though.