INFINITY Calories Per Dollar – AKA Free Food
Efficiency- Michael: Quick Math
1 Calorie / 0$ = infinity
(technically this doesn’t equal infinity, but rather approaches infinity however – no calculus until after dinner)
Originally I thought this was going to be silly – telling people to eat sugar at their local coffee store, but I think there is something fascinating about
- How much time people will spend for free food
- Companies advertise to you in exchange for food
- How the easiest sources of free food are the least nutritious
I often see engineer’s cubicles have this printed:
>Fast
>Cheap
>GoodPick Two
Given those, there are all sorts of ways to classify each ‘deal’.
Free Sources
- Socially acceptable
Infinity Calories Per Dollar
- Work food
- Donuts/Snacks/Baked goods
- Events
- Team Lunches
- Free Samples
- Costco/Sams Club
- Mail in samples
- Free after Rebate
- Work food
- Work
- Gardening
- Hunting/Trapping
- Foraging
- Begging
- Volunteer opportunities
- Illegal/Immoral
- Theft
- Unnecessarily going to a food bank
- Not actually free, but an incentive
- Buy One Get One Free
- Coupons
- Reward programs
- Birthday Deals
- Often involve tipping, or bringing others along to pay full price
Non Free Sources Of Infinity Calories Per Dollar (Theoretical)
These assume either Sunk Cost, or Calories are infinite (infinity/30$ is still tending towards infinity)
- All-You-Can-Eat
- Free Refills
- Taking receipt surveys
- Costs money at point of service
- Wedding/party food
- You were going to go to the wedding anyway
- Restaurant Freebies
- Sugar Packets
- Coffee Creamers
- Ketchup/Condiment Packets
- Candy/Mints
- Parmesan packets from Pizza Places
- Shoutout to Jaci who said you can use this to make a ‘good enough’ grilled cheese
- Salsa +Chips
- Bread + Olive Oil
- Free Refills on Drinks
Right away, there are a few things that caught my attention:
There is a fine line between frugal and theft, I don’t feel bad about taking an extra few sugar packets, but I don’t think its right to take all of the sugar packets.
Deals are misleading
- Buy one get one free, is not actually free.
- Coupons/rewards usually require an expensive upfront cost.
Unless you are walking to a location, gasoline costs money.
There is time cost to doing any of these. How often do you drive by the place you have a coupon on the way home from work?
Final Takeaways
Upon doing this I decided – its SOOO much easier, tastier, and healthier to just cook food.
We eat for ~3$/day and personally, I’d put more time into looking for a higher paying job before signing up for Red Robin Birthday Coupons.
My exception is Work Food and Sunk Cost when they are healthy. I’ve outgrown work’s weekly donuts, but I’m a sucker for protein filled sandwiches. Regarding the chips and salsa, I can’t tell if I love salsa or I love getting Infinity Calories Per Dollar.