Brendan McDermid/Reuters

For young Wall Street types, few deals matter more than the ones taking place at 7 p.m. on Seamless.

Seamless, of course, is the Web food-delivery service most large financial firms use to facilitate their meal orders. Banks typically allot employees a given amount for lunch, and a bigger dinner budget for workers who stay past a certain hour. Before the financial crisis, the arrangement was typically fairly generous – $30 or $35 for employees staying past 6 p.m. Now, with budgets tight, some banks have downsized to $25 a person , and moved the time several hours later.

Fast Company is out with an article about how value-minded Wall Streeters can game the Seamless system. We’ve heard of bank analysts using their Seamless allowances for beer, Five-Hour Energy drinks and other after-hours essentials. According to Fast Company’s Austin Carr, there are other tricks to coax every dime of value out of a $25 meal allowance.

Some top Seamless tricks include:

Pull a time switch: If your bank allows Seamless dinner only after 8 p.m., you can schedule a delivery, then override the time requirement by calling the restaurant and asking for an immediate delivery instead. “I’d finish work around 6:30 p.m., hit the company gym, and then grab my sushi — spicy tuna rolls — on the way out,” one banker tells Mr. Carr.

Pool your resources: If co-workers aren’t in the office, combining their allowances with yours can multiply your purchasing power. “Almost every weekend I was at the office, I’d have a $90 dinner of steak, lobster, mac & cheese, and calamari,” one banker tells the magazine.

Call ahead: Most banks block employees from ordering beer, cigarettes and other nonfood items on Seamless. However, there is a workaround: calling the restaurant or deli and manually subbing out your pizza order for other nonfood grocery items before the delivery goes out. “You see these orders come through, and you’re like, ‘Why are 20 rolls of toilet paper going to 200 Vesey Street?” Seamless’s chief executive, Jonathan Zabusky, says.

Take your complaints to the top: According to a (perhaps-apocryphal) story told to Mr. Carr, one gutsy Morgan Stanley employee responded to the bank’s lowered Seamless limit by taking it up with John J. Mack, the former chief.

One of the women on the call asked Mack to raise the limit to $30 again. Mack, not really having paid much attention to expenses, was surprised to hear it had been reduced. Concerned, he asked her why she needed $30 instead of just $25. She said that with the new reduction, ‘I can’t order my Perrier anymore.'” The next day, as legend has it, there was an entire case of Perrier on her desk — courtesy of John Mack.

Tread carefully: Left unsaid in the Fast Company piece is that in an era of capped bonuses and downsized cups, Wall Street accounting departments aren’t likely to look fondly on Seamless chicanery.

So take heed, kids: A sixer of Yuengling isn’t worth losing your job.