硅谷骇客松点餐撇步 1 2 3 (下) | 7 Ways To Save Money in Hackathon Meals (Part B)
上篇文章里，我介绍了如何从场地赞助商以及餐厅菜色选择方面来省钱/省健康麻烦。在这一篇文章里，我会更加的详细介绍怎样在早中晚餐里作出不同食物类型选择。
In my last article, I shared with you how to choose sponsorship, food services, or even healthy dishes economically. We will continue with this flow in this article as well; specifically, I will talk about how to save money from each meal.
4. 一天至少一次大餐 | At Least One Big Meal a Day
因为比赛时期晚睡晚起或者根本不睡，午餐和晚餐的戏份非常重，特别是因为许多参赛者不吃早饭所以中午的那一顿饭有着让所有人期待不已的魔力，是每天的餐点重头戏。所以午饭不仅要健康美味，分量也一定要足，菜肉碳水化物三样每一样不仅不能少还要提供不同的选择。
For weekend hackathons that start from Friday night (like ours), a lot of attendees do not make it to breakfasts, so they mainly fuel their bodies from lunches and dinners, which makes these two meals the emphasis of the day. I had to make sure that not only did the meals have to be healthy and delicious, but they also have to satisfy everyone quantitatively.
如果经费不足需要减少某一餐的费用，可以从零食饮料早餐或晚餐下手。譬如，晚餐时减少较贵地肉类的选择，用充满蛋白质的植物类食品来代替部分肉类，又或者在早餐的选择里去除水果或yogurt这种较贵的选择。
If there is not enough fee to secure two big meals per day, make sure at least one of the meals in the day is sufficiently large and tasty so there is something to look forward to everyday. For example, I made sure that the lunches for this hackathon were the best meals in terms of quantity and quality, which included multiple types of meat. I replaced some meat categories with protein-filled plants. I also removed the expensive breakfast categories such as yogurts and some fruits that were not as popular as pastries and cereals.
5. 早餐便宜又好吃 | How and Where to Purchase High Quality Breakfast Under Budget
早餐如果选择配餐服务，虽然说食物搭配不用烦恼，但是通常每十个人左右就已经需要大概睡前$100上下，150个人左右就要上千。要省钱又想要吃得好，自己在提前在高级卖场买早餐。水果，yogurt，有机granola，cereal，面包，牛奶果汁，各种酱料等，质量保证便宜又好吃。
为了这场骇客松，我本来要定Specialty’s 配餐服务，配齐120个人份以上的食物就要上千块；后来临时发现Specialty’s 周末不门，决定自己开车冲去Whole Foods，买了两天的120人份才花不到$350，超级划算。
Yes, it is hassle-free to choose catering breakfast services that deliver fresh pastries, juices, milk, coffee, yogurts, and fruits to the event location for a large crowd of attendees. However, connivence on such services usually comes with an expensive price tag.
Let’s use Specialty’s as an example, in which the Executive Combo from Business Catering include pastries, orange juices, yogurts, granola, fruits, and coffee for ~10 people, and it costs about $100 pre-tax, above $1,000 for 150 people. However, since I planned the food purchases from Whole Foods and Costco ourselves, we spent <$350 to prep breakfast for both days, an amount substantially lower than the original estimation.
因本次骇客松场地有提供冰箱来存放食材，我可以方便地一次过买够两天的材料。如果没有冰箱又不想跑好几次的话，建议买以碳水化物为主的早餐比较容易存放哦。
Please be aware that we were only able to purchase large quantities of food that needed to be refrigerated because our sponsor locations had multiple refrigerators. If your location does not have such amenities, please plan your purchases accordingly.
5. 饮料零食满满来省钱 | Save Money with Snacks and Drinks
我们的购买清单包括水（有气泡和无气泡），红牛（含糖和无糖），碳酸饮料（可乐），咖啡，果汁（橙汁和莓汁），以及牛奶。虽然说碳酸饮料对健康不甚好，但是因为非常多人喜欢用以佐餐，简直到了无可乐不欢的地步，所以还是买了来。
Our purchase list for drinks included water (carbonated and not), red bull (sugary and non-sugary), carbonated sugary drinks (coke), coffee, juices, and milk. Although carbonated sugary drinks are not good for human body, I’ve noticed that many people like to have a cup to go with their lunch or dinner, so we prepped some coke still.
虽然说在那个周末里，咖啡看起来并没有占很大比例的费用，但是提前做市场调查会让价格再往下降。Peet’s Coffee有提供旅行装的 96oz箱型装咖啡，一箱$23美金（未含税），给150人每人每天准备大概一杯半到两杯的咖啡需要每天至少13箱咖啡;相比之下，同样大小箱型装咖啡在星巴克要价一箱$17美金，非常适合举行中小型活动的时候给大家提神。
It’s very important to do market research and compare prices prior to making the orders. Drinks wise, although coffee didn’t wiggle a lot of room in our planned expenses, I still managed to get some Peet’s Coffee offered a traveler’s box (96oz) of coffee for $23 per box, while Starbucks’s cost $17. Assuming that an average person drinks ~1.5 cups of coffee per day, 150 people drinks ~13 boxes of traveler’s boxes per day. The choice of opting for Starbucks instead of Peet’s saved us ~$150 pre-discount.
另外一样重要的事是，一定要问店家有没有/可以不可以打折扣！在订咖啡的时候，我询问了那家星巴克店经理如果我订两天每天6箱的话，是否可以给我们一个折扣。那位店经理非常慷慨地不只给我们折扣，还答应每天送咖啡上门；拿到咖啡的时候杯子纸巾牛奶精豆奶糖精搅棍统统备齐，小小地惊喜了我一把。
Another important thing to do is to always ask/bargain for discounts. I asked the manager of the Starbucks store I was ordering from for a discount or sponsorship, and got 10% off and free deliveries for our orders each day. Those were not the only surprises: for this discounted price, we received enough cups, milk, cream, soy milk, napkins, sugar, and stirring sticks for each order.
在这里提醒，如果是非盈利组织举办小型活动，提前申请就可以有机会得到星巴克赞助咖啡（免费）。
Here’s a friendly reminder: if you were organizing a small-to-medium event hosted by a non-profit organization, you can apply for Starbucks’ sponsorship a few weeks ahead of the event and get free coffee!
在此非常感谢星巴克的一位员工。在活动的最后一天，恰好遇上三藩市Bay to Breaker的长跑活动，把我们活动地址周围的街道都封了。这位超好人的员工用一辆人力拖车把我们的咖啡和附送品林林总总加起来几十磅走了半个小时给准时送来。
In here we want to thank Starbuck’s worker again. Without him, the last breakfast of our event would have been ruined. The last day of our event happened to be on the same day of Bay to Breaker, and worse of all, our event location landed within the closed out zone of the run. But thanks to this kind Starbucks worker who walked over a mile with all of our drinks and condiments, the hackathon spirit started high for the last day.
也非常感谢Salesforce，不仅提供的上好的场地，还在场地里塞了非常多的小包零食以及茶叶，让我们省了很多准备花在零食上的预算。
We’re also really appreciate all the snacks and drinks Salesforce Rincoln Cafe tucked in. They enabled us to allocate part of the snack budget to other more needed areas.
6. 欢乐时光 | Happy Hours
在我原本的计划里，星期日的晚餐是非常简便的，因为在赛后只有大约一个小时让我们把大家喂饱外加清洁场地。后来想一想，那不如办一场欢乐时光让大家聊天结识不同组的队友也不失为一个好主意。欢乐时光佐酒水的起司和饼干可以像是早餐一般买订购运送的的。但后来发现，自己买比较便宜，就跑去好事多搬回来一箱又一箱的酒水（含有以及不含有酒精两种）以及各种大包小包的零食塞满一辆小货车的尾箱。在这三天里没有用吃完的零食此刻也可以拿出来消耗。而且欢乐时光的布餐不像正常晚餐餐盘摆满大厅这样大阵仗，一百多人的零食外加酒水一张桌子就可以放地很好。
In the original budget plan, Sunday (the last day of the event) was suppose to be simple due to the short period of cleaning we had after event. Hence I changed it to a Happy Hour, which would be a great way for all the attendees to mingle and network while they wait for the competition results. I could have ordered Happy Hours snacks/finger foods and alcohols through food services; however, like breakfast, it was way cheaper to purchase these ourselves, so we spent we spent less than 1/3 of our original dinner budget at Costco and stuffed the back of my car with tons of snacks and alcohols. We also took out the remaining snacks from the previous days and put them on the table, hoping they woule be gone by the time the door closed so we wouldn’t have to take them home.
在大型活动中的省钱妙招有很多，而我也只是刚涉足其中的新手而已。欢迎大家在下面留言分享自己的省钱妙招！
There are lots of great ways to save money for large event. As a noob at this task, I would love to hear from you about how you save money for big events without sacrificing quality! Please leave me a comment below and I will respond asap. ：）
