Man Overcomes Taco Bell’s Challenge To Get 30 Tacos for $10 And Nothing Else

For those of y’all that haven’t heard, Taco Bell recently released a “Taco Pass.” The agreement is such: You spend $10 up front, and you are able to get 1 free Taco Bell taco* every day for the following 30 days. You can only get one Taco per day, and you cannot “roll over” any unused tacos to claim them after the initial 30 days.

For those of y’all that already knew, and for those of y’all that just learned, the reaction to this news, almost unanimously, was, “Wow, you can get 30 tacos for $0.33 apiece!” Often times, that reaction was met with a skeptical reply: “Well, I *doubt* you would go EVERYDAY, and even if you did, you’d probably spend more.” Only the most stubborn and steadfast anti-corporate / game-rigging people among us would reply, “Oh yeah? Watch me. I’ll make sure Taco Bell makes good and gives me those 30 tacos for $10.”

Well, it finally happened. I fought the [Bell,] and the law won. (Here “the law” being the mutually-agreed upon and voluntarily-entered-into agreement to exchange $10 for an opportunity to get one taco every day for a term of 30 days, beginning at the moment of Taco Pass purchase and ending 30 days from that date.) Here are my receipts.

$10 for x32 tacos, and not a single item more except for some salsa packets at $0.00. What can I say, I was feeling saucy.

Don’t give ME an opportunity to manipulate a set of rules to maximize my gains AND stubbornly prove a point. You will lose every time.

I guess Taco Bell rounds up to be kind…? I actually managed to get 32 tacos! They probably consider it a “month,” define a “month” as 31 days, and round up because, hey, why not? From their perspective, there’s no WAY somebody is going to come in every day for 32 days, and even if they do, surely they’ll make other purchases of the food that is chemically addicting and very rich in salts, starch, and fat!

Hooooo-eeey, were they wrong.

So, I got 32 tacos. Let’s do the math.

I have to assume that Taco Bell pays its workers minimum wage to maximize profits. I specifically chose a Taco Bell that was a little further, but in a jurisdiction with a higher minimum wage. Minimum wage at the Oakland Taco Bell is $15.06.

Let’s say that it takes employees one minute to make my taco. I watched them do it, they mash those things out with the quickness, so this seems fair. So that’s 32 minutes. 32 minutes at $15.06/hr is:

32/60 = x/15.06
60x = 15.06*32
60x = 481.92
x = 481.92/60
x = $8.032.

So, out of the $10 I spent, Taco Bell spent $8.032 on its employees’ time making the tacos. We’ll be nice and drop the $0.002, so let’s say they spent $8.03 on employees. (This doesn’t take account how much they pay for their payroll solution on the backend HR, but, for simplicity’s sake, let’s just assume paying their employees doesn’t cost them anything.)

If every Taco Bell customer did this across the board, we could tank the company.

So, that leaves Taco Bell with $1.97 left out of the $10 I gave them. So they gave me 32 tacos for $1.97.

1.97/32 = $0.0615625

Taco Bell got $0.06 for every Taco they gave me. I could round up to $0.07, but there are some minor costs, like distributing ingredients and employees grabbing my order and handing it to me, so this time we’ll round down for simplicity’s sake.

I know Taco Bell gets things for cheap, but somehow I think they spend more than $0.06/taco.

Also, Taco Bell was already “out of my way” and an infrequent trip. But now, I am absolutely SICK of Taco Bell. I can’t imagine getting it again, not for a long, loooong time. So not only did they lose money on those tacos, they also lost all of my future business.

If every Taco Bell customer did this across the board, we could tank the company. If, in a desperate bid to survive, they were to stop giving out free daily tacos to those that had already purchased the Taco Pass, we could tank them with a massive class-action lawsuit.

Everybody says they’re anti-corporate oligarchy, but are you willing to put your money, and 32 tacos, where your mouth is? I challenge all of you. The goal is systematic corporate collapse of a massive fast food chain, and Taco trucks on every corner / outside every party.

*-Offer only applies to either:

• A Crunchy Taco
• A Crunchy Taco Supreme
• A Soft Taco
• A Soft Taco Supreme
• A Doritos Locos Taco
• A Doritos Locos Taco Supreme (I chose this one to maximize my return)
• A Spicy Potato Soft Taco