Here’s How Much The Average Illinoisan Spends On Fast Food Yearly

It's not like we're hurting for variety in fast food restaurants here in Illinois, because we've got plenty. TheTakeOut.com says that Illinois has 112 fast food restaurants for every 100,000 Illinoisans. For contrast, Wisconsin has 115, Iowa has 108, and Missouri has 104.

In Illinois, NiceRX.com says that Subway reigns supreme, at least in terms of overall stores per 100,000 people, with 7.8

Dunkin' comes in next with 5.5 stores per 100,000. McDonald's is at number three with 5.2. Rounding out the Illinois list, you've got:

Somebody want to tell me where Beef-a-Roo is on the list? That's okay, Beef-a-Roo falls under the "regional favorites" banner.

First off, let's not beat ourselves up over the frequency of our visits to fast food joints. It's a universal truth that grabbing yourself food at the drive-thru cuts down on the stress of meal planning, it's somewhat affordable, and it's perfect when you need to eat right now.

If you need to yell at yourself, you might want to go with how much you spend over a calendar year at the fast food places you prefer.

According to a piece at Mashed.com, Alaskans are number-one when it comes to money spent annually on fast food at $3,600 per year (or, $300 per month) on average.

These findings, when considering other statistics, might come off as surprising. When it comes to population, Alaska sat in 48th place as of 2022, with approximately 734,000 residents. As for the number of fast food restaurants, it takes the 44th spot, having 2.6 stores for every 10,000 people.

Obviously, results will vary depending on how many people at your house you're buying dinner for. There are 5 of us in my household, which makes it substantially more expense to hit the drive-thru now than it was before we had kids to freeload off of us.

In Illinois, according to the Mashed.com study, we spend just under $3,000 per year, or $245 per month on our fast food cravings.

Here's the full top ten, along with the money spent: