More frugal relativism courtesy of Wendys
May 6th, 2008One of the reasons that I took a new job that moved us several states to the west was that the job change allowed for more family time. And so far, I have had more time to spend with the family. Actually, might be home too much now and I suspect that Mrs. Rocket might be getting a little weary of having daddy home every night . . .
Last Friday night, I was home and we are still exploring our new area, so we decided to eat out as a family. In our pursuit of the cheapest meal possible, we succumbed to the siren song of the Wendy’s Dollar Menu. Here is what we ordered: 3 hamburgers, 3 orders of chicken nuggets, 2 orders of fries, and 2 orders of mandarin oranges. We shared the various items and everyone in the family drank water - except for my five year old who refuses to drink water - until she gets really, really thirsty or the water is in some kind of “princess” water bottle.
We were able to feed our entire family of five on 10 bucks plus tax. A pretty cheap meal all things considered. If we had ordered beverages, we would have increased our costs by 50%. If we had ordered kids meals for our three children, we would have spent 60% more. If we had ordered from the restaurant across the street, our costs would have increased by at least 200%.
We felt pretty frugal until I started to do some more math. If we spent $10 on every meal that our family eats, our food budget would be over $900 per month! There is no way that we could afford to spend that much of our monthly budget on food. I developed a new appreciation for the fact that Mrs. Rocket successfully feeds (judging by my size) our family of five for less than $200 per month.
This also means that when our stimulus check arrives, we will be turning it into a grocery store gift card that comes with a 10% bonus. Our stimulus rebate might feed the Rocket household for the next seven months.
Or we might just eat from the Wendy’s Dollar Menu for a month and half.
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