Getting Your Money's Worth -- Soda

Via Yahoo's Daily Question...



How many soda refills would you have to get in order to "get your money's worth"?

It's a familiar dilemma, especially for cheapskates. Even though we may not want more soda, we ask for it just to "get our money's worth." The question really boils down to whether we're receiving relative value for the soda purchased. The answer depends on...

How much does the soda cost?
How big is the glass?
How much ice is in the glass?
Do you buy your soda by the six-pack or the case?
Do you shop at 7-11, the supermarket, or Costco?
Do you buy a major brand (like Coke or Pepsi) or a generic cola?
And so on.

First, let's assume you buy a six-pack for $1.50. Excluding sales tax (which also applies to the restaurant), the recycling fee (in California, anyway), and electric utility charges (you have to cool the soda), your 12-ounce can of soda costs you 25 cents, or $0.0208 per ounce.

(Considering that no one buys soda by the six pack anymore...well...most everyone buys soda by the 12-pack for between $2.50 and 3.33 a 12, if not more. And...that works out to the above $0.0208...I don't see why they couldn't have used the more common 12-pack as a calculation point...probably to make nerds like me do the math and figure out that they had it right to begin with...sigh.)

Now, let's say you order a soda with "free refills" at your favorite eatery for $1.95. The 12-ounce glass is half-filled with ice. You're really getting only six ounces of soda for $1.95 or $0.325 per ounce.

(An 8-ounce, small, fast food soda at an average of $1.25, figuring that half the volume is ice, meaning 4 ounces of soda, comes out to $0.31 per ounce.)

So, if you divide the cost of the eatery soda by the cost of the store-bought drink, you'd need more than 15 refills to get your money's worth. Of course, a restaurant spends mere pennies a pop on pop, so if you're out to stick it to Applebee's, you'll have to drink a lot more. Hope you're thirsty...

(And the fast food calculations fall right in line...guess my getting small sodas when I go inside fast food places really doesn't equal up to my getting my money's worth by going back for two refills before I leave.

The calculations...

Cost of 8-ounce fast food soda = .031 per ounce
divided by
Cost of 12-pack soda = .0208 per ounce

= 14.9 free refill small sodas would have to be drank at the fast food place to equal the dollar value per ounce of the 12-pack bought on sale at your local grocery or convenience store.

I'm going back to drinking my coffee...not sure why this popped up as being interesting enough for me to do all of this...

And NO, don't ask me to do it for a medium or large or supersized drink...you've got the formulas...do it yourself.)