Here’s Why You Should Never Throw Out Your Fast Food Receipt

This simple trick will save you money.

Nowadays, eating at a fast food restaurant can be almost as expensive as sitting down at a local eatery or fast-casual chain. Gone are the days of the dollar menu—and the only real way to score deals is to download a restaurant’s app or hope that your local franchise still stuffs paper coupons in your mailbox.

But, there is one way to score cheap, and even free, food at your favorite fast food restaurant that many of us are overlooking—and probably throwing away. We’re talking about the survey found at the bottom of almost every fast food receipt.

Save Your Receipts for Deals and Freebies

If you’ve ever taken a look at your receipt before throwing it in your wallet or in your passenger seat, then you’ve likely seen a bunch of words written near or under your subtotal. Most of the time, those words are asking you to take a customer satisfaction survey in return for some kind of promotional deal.

Every receipt is different, but most of the time, all you have to do is fill out a quick survey—inputting a code or other information from your receipt to prove you’re a recent customer—and you’ll be rewarded with free food, discounts, or BOGO offers on your next visit. The only catch is that a lot of receipt surveys and their rewards are time sensitive, so you have to remember to take the survey and use your promo quickly.

But it is worth it for a free Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich or a BOGO Quarter Pounder at McDonald’s.

The receipt survey isn’t just limited to fast food restaurants either. Some fast-casual chains, like IHOP and Buffalo Wild Wings, offer incentives for filling out surveys too. So, always check your restaurant receipt before tossing it.

One of the best parts about using your receipt to get free food is that, unlike with in-app promos or coupons, there’s no limit to how many times you can redeem the deals. Anytime you get a new receipt—no matter if all you bought was a small fry or a whole family meal—you’ll get a new survey to fill out. That means as long as you get a receipt on every visit, you’ll be in an endless loop of free and discounted food—who could ask for a better bargain?