I thought the $20 airport sandwich rule was dumb until I added up my food receipts for one trip to Denver | Budget Travel Hacks

Gray Smith · 2026-09-30T11:10:03.324507+00:00

For years I packed granola bars and called anyone buying food at the gate a chump. Then I added up my receipts from a 4 day trip to Denver and my total food spend was $187, mostly from grocery runs and sad hotel meals. I started tracking it out of boredom, not because I planned to change anything. The math was obvious once it sat in a spreadsheet: I spent more avoiding the airport than I would have just eating there twice. Last trip I bought a $14 burrito at the terminal and felt almost nothing, which was the weird part. Now I want to know if anyone else has run their own numbers and found their cheap habit was secretly the pricey one.

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I thought the $20 airport sandwich rule was dumb until I added up my food receipts for one trip to Denver | Budget Travel Hacks - The Community Guide