This guy has been tracking the average cost of a slice of pizza in New York for 8 years. That’s what he found

We all know that things cost more these days and we’re so inundated with this tiresome message and our wallets are so frustrated that sometimes it’s easier to just move on. We’ll get it.

So does the intrepid freelance journalist who brings it all home, contextualizing it in a way that may be most understandable to those who live and work in the New York area.

He did it about pizza.

Liam Quigley, who has written for local publications such as Gothamist and AMNY, says he has tracked the price of every New York bite he has eaten over the past eight years, according to his website. He started in 2014, he says, and is now drawing conclusions based on the 464 slices of pizza — plain, pepperoni, and more — he ate through 2022.

Quigley says he spent a total of $1,244.22 on New York pizza in those eight years: $955.09 for regular pizza, $202.28 for pepperoni, $51.76 for other groceries, and $35.09 for $1 slices (he did not take the latter into account when calculating the average cost). For research purposes, Quigley excluded $1 slices from the average price calculation.

The city’s average price of a simple slice jumped 19% over that period, from $2.52 in 2014 to $3.00 in 2022, Quigley said. 2014 to $4.58 in 2022. The most expensive piece of pepperoni he’s found? $6.53 In regards to this caliber, Quigley says “everything was fine.”

Learn more about his calculations, including fun charts of where he thinks pizza has suffered the most and which NYC locations have the best slices on his website here. And check out his Instagram for photos of his journey.