i recently wanted to put together a photo album from my highschool years, i had about 900 photos i wanted to print (ik it’s excessive but i wanted all the memories) my total came out to about $270 for 913 photos at .39 each i thought it was insane that a piece of paper that is my own photo is almost fifty cents but then i was even more blown away when i found an old photo receipt from 2020. showing that i had ordered 117 photos for only $10, totaling to .09 cents each. meaning if i had tried to order my 900 photos then my total would’ve only been $82 compared to the whopping $270 it costs today. literally over 3x the amount. i know inflation has everything rising like this but its just rly disheartening that it costs this much to have a simple hobby and keep your own memories in a physical form.
Walgreens periodically sends out codes for free photo prints if you sign up for their myWalgreens. It's free and the free prints are nice enough to frame and hang up. Just today I got 2 free 5x7 prints. They send out codes almost every holiday for different size prints. I don't know if this is US only sorry.