Kassidy Wilkinson

To combat the growing price on fast food, my family uses fast food apps. There are five apps we use the most: QuikTrip, Sonic, Chick-fil-A, McDonalds and Whataburger.

It’s a classic scene in my family. All seven of us kids lined up behind the cashier, eager to tell them our order. Once our whole pack of nine has had a turn, the cashier reads back our order. Four chicken sandwiches, two chicken strip kids meals, three chicken nugget kids meals, four buns and four large Diet Cokes with a side of lemons. By the time the total is final, it well exceeds $50. 

Now, $50 is a lot to spend on one dinner. So, to combat the growing price on fast food, my family has many ways to save money. From only ordering off the kid’s menu to only going out to eat on “half-price cheeseburgers after 5:00 p.m.” or “talk like a pirate and get a free glazed donut” these days. One of the biggest ways my family saves money when it comes to fast food is using all the fast food apps.

There are five apps we use the most: QuikTrip (QT), Sonic, Chick-fil-A, McDonalds and Whataburger. All of these apps have a different assortment of deals, rewards and app user perks that make each app worth getting. However, some of these apps are definitely better than others. 

My least favorite of the five is the McDonalds app. Honestly, I really only go to McDonalds on long car trips or for the occasional breakfast, so I might be biased because McDonalds is my least favorite fast food restaurant of the five. The app itself usually always has a really good deal on it like one dollar for large fries or 20 percent off any purchase of $5 or more. So if you go to McDonalds a lot, I would definitely recommend getting it. I am, however, constantly deleting it and redownloading it because I get a lot of notifications. Another downside to the app is that it has a hard time working in the McDonald’s restaurant. So while it has good deals, you can’t use them half the time because the app isn’t working.

My second least favorite is the Chick-fil-A app because it’s only okay. Of all the apps, Chick-fil-A has the best point system but it doesn’t give you a whole lot of coupons. Every couple of months, I’ll get a really good coupon, but that’s about it. If you are an app user you do get a free cookie during your birthday month, so that’s fun. But other than that, the app is a little disappointing.

Next is the QT app. When you first download the app you get a free drink, which is pretty sweet if you like soda. Actually, for the first couple months of owning the app I would get a free drink on almost every holiday, but sometime last year that stopped happening. However, despite taking away a free drink every holiday, the QT app always has an abundance of deals. Usually, there are about eight coupons in the app. In my experience, one of those coupons is always a 50 cent small coffee and there is always a coupon that includes a pretzel and a coupon that includes energy drinks. Every couple of weeks there’s a coupon for a croissant. My family considers this coupon to be gold because QT’s bacon, egg and cheese croissants taste like heaven. Unfortunately, the QT app is also very picky about when it wants to work and sometimes coupons that you knew you had just disappeared or the app wont open when you want to use it. In the end, it’s worth getting the QT app just to get the coupon for the croissants and the occasional free drink because both are really good.

The next app I use is the Whataburger app. This app has good deals when it gives them, but it is very spontaneous. Right now everyone living at home, me and my four quintuplet siblings and my parents, all have the app but we all get rewards at different times. It also seems like the app favors certain users because while I’ve gotten a lot of rewards, my sister hasn’t gotten any. In conclusion, this app is pretty good if you like Whataburger. It doesn’t have any problems working and you get pretty good coupons from this app.

My fifth and favorite food app is the Sonic app. This app probably should not be in the number one spot because nine times out of 10 there is a problem with it. However, it is in the top spot for one reason, half-price drinks all day long. I love Sonic Diet Coke, but the regular price is kind of expensive when you factor in the amount of ice Sonic adds to their drinks. Other than drinks being half-price all day long, Sonic actually has some good rewards like buy one get one free cheeseburger or free medium tots with purchase of a cheeseburger. Recently Sonic updated their app and somehow managed to make a bad app even worse. Ever since the update my dad hasn’t even been able to log into his app and the app works slower. In the end, this app is very quirky, but I’ll take half-price Sonic diet coke any day.

Honestly, it blows my mind that people don’t download food apps when they have such great deals. Sometimes offering free food or 20 percent off, it sounds like a steal to me. Food apps help my family save money and they can help you too. Seriously. I don’t why tons of people spend $3.09 for a large drink when they can have it for only $1.54. If you don’t have a food app, you should get one.