Save Money By Splitting Fast Food
I was on my way home from work, taking Friday afternoon off. My wife and I were discussing what we were going to have for lunch. She stated she had been in the mood for a fish sandwich from Culver’s. I knew one was off the next exit, so I offered to stop. She agreed, but also admitted she wasn’t all that hungry.
My wife asked if I wanted to split a meal from a fast food restaurant.
Splitting a meal certainly wasn’t a new concept to us. Restaurants commonly over portion meals these days trying to give customers a sense of value. A person can get their fill of food by splitting a meal at a sit down restaurant or even ordering an appetizer instead of a meal. But I had never even thought of splitting a fast food meal. They just don’t seem to be THAT large.
I wasn’t very hungry either, so a light lunch sounded good. Plus, I figured that if I was still hungry, we had food at home to. I ordered the fish sandwich meal for $8.16 with onion rings, as requested by my wife. I decided to supplement the combination meal with an order of fries for $1.99.
When I got home, I took out two plates and cut the fish sandwich in half. I put a half sandwich, half the onion rings, and half the fries on each plate. We ate our lunch, even sharing the soda from the combination meal, and were both satisfied with the amount of food we each had.
So how much did we save?
Split Meal:
- Combination meal: $8.16
- Extra Order of Fries: $1.99
Total: $10.15
Each Own Meal:
- Combination meal for wife: $8.16
- Combination meal for me: $8.16
Total: $16.32
By splitting a fast food combination meal, we saved $6.17. Not an earth shattering amount of money, but it kept a little bit of extra money in my wallet, and it kept me from eating more food than I needed to.
How about you, Clever Friends? Have you ever split a fast food meal? Was it enough for you? What’s the biggest fast food meal you’ve ever seen?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
One way to save money is by not buying a drink and getting water instead. The idea there is you may only save a couple bucks, but if you mske a habit of it…the savings will add up.
My husband and I often split. We will each get one of the small $1.59 hamburgers and split a medium fry. We’ll get take-out and get a drink at home. Usually my husband will take a larger portion of the fries because he is has a bigger appetite than me. That is enough for me but sometimes he will have a piece of fruit to fill out the meal.
We do this at Dairy Queen too. We always split a peanut buster parfait 🙂