Diet Busting and thoughts of Pickles

For the holiday weekend, I ate out twice, and had experiences at opposite ends of the "budget wise" spectrum.

First, two thumbs up goes to Red Mango for the self-serve, pay-by-the-ounce frozen deliciousness.   If you haven't been there and you have one nearby, check it out.  Not only is it healthy (they even post their calorie counts), but you give yourself as much as you want and pay only for the amount you'll eat. . . .as opposed to paying $7 for an ice cream you can only eat 1/3 of before it melts (which then cycles, because you eat more than you want and then have to pay for the gym membership and...well, that's a post for another day.)   So, I had 2 different flavors (dark chocolate and coconut) AND had a lot of strawberries on top, and walked out for under $2.  Not a bad treat.

Second, a big thumbs down to major chain burger restaurants.   I won't tell you which one I went to because they are all the same anyway, but I wanted a burger and a I wanted fries.  Just a bite of each would have been plenty.  I don't like a lot of stuff on my burger so I didn't want any of the value meals.  The kid's meal was $2.70 and would have been perfect, but I knew I would be paying for a toy & packaging...not to mention I didn't need the drink.    I was in the drive-thru and didn't have a lot of time to study everything up, but I saw they had a "double cheeseburger" on the "Value Menu" (so it was $1) and they also had fries on the $1 value menu.   OK.   I ordered "A small cheeseburger, just a single burger and a small fry."

In my mind, a SINGLE burger should have been less than a DOUBLE cheeseburger, and the fries should have been $1, so I was expecting everything to be under $2.  Sensible, right?

When the total was $2.91 I was a little confused, but since it was the correct items I didn't question her.  I reasoned "tax, the new food tax, drive-thru adders, etc...its been so long since I got a fast food burger, maybe the add-ons really did increase the bill that much.

When I looked at the receipt, I discovered that the single burger was $1.40. . .so I could have saved $0.40 by throwing away one patty.   The small fries were $1.25.  Apparently "value" is smaller than small.

Go figure.

Next time I am getting my toy and saving myself the stress!