re: What is the acceptable amount to spend at Buc-ee’s?

There's a spending formula, we'll call it the Buc-ee's Multiplier (BM), that accurately captures my spend every single time. It goes likes this: If I am in the store for 10 minutes or less, I'll spend roughly a $1 a minute while I am in there. Once I've been in there longer than 10 minutes, my spend rate goes up to about $5 per each additional minute.

I usually walk in the door to hit up the restroom. If I am taking a dump there the BM is going to kick in during this trip because I'm already casually taking my time. Then I walk over and grab some type of breakfast or lunch item. It never fails, I'll grab a sandwich and start slowly walking to the cash register and something will either catch my eye, or I'll remember there is some special occasion coming up such as my wife's birthday. Next thing you know, my hands are full and conveniently this little red shopping cart is stationed right where I am walking. So I grab a cart and next thing you know, I've bought everyone in the family some new Buc-ee's Hawaiian shirt that we'll all wear once, but it sure felt right while I was in the store.

I don't know what is an acceptable spend, I just know that there's timing threshold where my rate of spend skyrockets compared to the first few minutes of being in the store.