Is More a Better Deal?

The question to get your morning rolling today is, Is more a better deal?

This is one of the questions that I truly struggle with on a daily basis. I will give a classic example. I was at a fast food restaurant the other day and made my #3 set order which included a regular sized drink, a burger and fries. The lady at the counter asked me if I would like to “super-size” it – get a large drink and bigger fries for only 50 cents more. Was it a better deal?

One side of me looked at the increase in size and knew that I would be getting more for my money with the larger order. I could certainly eat the larger size without a problem and it would probably mean I wouldn’t get hungry quite as quickly as if I went with the regular sized meal. I wouldn’t need to spend extra money on the food that I would snack on before going to bed. On the other hand, I could certainly get by without adding the extra food onto the order and if I did get hungry later on, I would likely eat something that was a lot more healthy than what I was going to eat. I find that on any given week, my answer to this question would change as to whether more is better..

I’m not sure there is a black and white answer for many of these situations. Is a bigger house a better deal? Is buying in bulk a better deal? It depends on a lot of factors which I often ignore if I don’t take the time to really think about it. I try to make the judgement on an individual basis, but I do know that I have to remind myself much more often that bigger isn’t necessarily better much more often than the other way around.

Please share your own experiences on this topic as a wide variety of views and thoughts are helpful to everyone. If there is one thing that I have learned about personal finances from all of you is that there are always exceptions to the rule and differing circumstances can mean completely different solutions. If you have a blog and you have written about this topic in the past, feel free to link to your writing (although a short summary would be helpful). If you have recently read a good article on this topic, please links and share in the comments.

Image courtesy of amanky

Jeffrey Strain

Jeffrey strain is a freelance author, his work has appeared at The Street.com and seekingalpha.com. In addition to having authored thousands of articles, Jeffrey is a former resident of Japan, former owner of Savingadvice.com and a professional digital nomad.