I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on here before, but eating out is absolutely one of my most favorite activities. Call it a luxury, call it lazy, call it expensive…either way, it’s practically a hobby for me.
Eating out IS expensive, so I try to keep it inexpensive by doing the following:
- Happy Hour – Many times I can get out of a restaurant with a tab under $10 – including meal and a drink – during the happy hour.
- Splitting with Lloyd – How absurd are restaurant portions? We can order a $12 plate and be completely full afterwards and we’re each only $6 in the hole.
- Restaurant.com – Lifesaver. Not even kidding. This website saves me a lot of money.
- Signing Up Online – If you sign up to receive e-mails on the restaurant’s website, you’ll generally get a friendly helping of coupons.
So, to end my 5 day streak of not eating out, I’m going to celebrate with none other than a streak of eating out:
- Thursday – happy hour with friends!
- Friday – Lloyd and I like to go out to dinner just the two of us on Friday nights if we don’t already have plans. The game plan for Friday is a coupon for an appetizer & splitting a plate.
- Saturday – I offered to bring a pizza to a relative’s house for the evening. Well, hello there $2.00 off Papa Murphy’s coupon.
- Sunday – Lloyd and I have already decided to order Chinese from our favorite Chinese restaurants and watch Mad Men to prepare for the work week. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t have a coupon. BUT, in my defense, splitting Chinese is pretty cheap since they give you SO much food. It will probably set me back $10 bucks.
- Monday – (oh yes, I’m still going) I should get my score for my second CPA test on Monday (fingers crossed!) and I’m either going to celebrate or have an ugly cry in my beer. 😉
How do YOU save when eating out?
Cheers!
Blonde & Balanced 
My three money savings things are:
(1) I always get water instead of soda.
(2) I’m not a big drinker so that saves a TON of money.
(3) I have a rule that I never eat out (or get take out) by myself. Eating out is something I do with at least one friend to be social.
I’m trying to spend less on eating out this month… we’ll see how that goes. I usually spend around $100 and so far I’m at $25. Not bad for halfway through the month, right?
Found your blog after you commented on mine – looking forward to reading!
Eating out is our big downfall, and it’s not just the food – we love to split a bottle of wine and that can get very expensive! Considering I’m just starting on this PF thing, I don’t have a lot of strategies yet, but I have two ideas – (1) find any”bring your own bottle” places in my city and (2) get an “Entertainment Book” – a book full of coupons, including a lot of restaurants, many of which are “2 for 1”.
Eating out used to KILL our budget every month. We used to eat out once or twice a week. Now we eat out MAYBE once or twice a month.
It’s all about priorities for us. Wedding, debt… you name it!
Now that I am at home 90% of the time, I have nothing else to do but cook 😛 but I actually enjoy it! The waistline and the budget are thanking me!
Ugh – so true. Cooking at home can save the waistline. I pretty much despise cooking. 🙂 Wanna come cook for me? 🙂 We can work out a good rate, I’m sure….although, Canada is a far drive from Kansas City. He he.
I save on eating out by refusing to eat anywhere that I can’t get a meal for under $6. If it is more than $6 then I better get two meals out of it with their big portions! I make exceptions for places that I can eat at for under $7 if they had a special diner program – like each dollar earns me a mile at American Airlines – or eat 10 meals there get one free.
The hardest part for me is going to bars. My coworkers go out probably once a week to drink, and I used to do this all the time and somehow would wind up buying a pitcher of beer when I only had one glass (mainly because I would feel guilty since I make more than all my coworkers). So now I only go out on special occasions (every other month now, but somehow I still end up buying a pitcher…)
BF and I save money on eating out by only doing it once or twice a week. We don’t live together yet, so during the week we cook for ourselves at our respective places. Lately we have been eating amazing, authentic Mexican food on Fridays, which costs $15 for both of us. STEAL! Then on Saturdays, we’ll usually go out to eat somewhere else. There is a quasi-expensive Italian place we love (it’s usally about $50 for the two of us), but we try to go there only once a month or even every two months.
Also–we just started watching the first season of Mad Men on DVD and we LOVE it! I am going to have to break out my vintage dresses and coats soon!
Don’t you love how Mexican food can be so cheap?? I love that.
Yay for Mad Men! I love it, too. Although, Don ticks me off sometimes – Betty is SO much hotter than those tramps he is catting around with!!
Restaurant.com has a ton of deals, and I also look through the local Clipsaver for deals and discounts at my favourite local places and ethnic restaurants. It pays to have a more adventurous taste in food because most of the time, that food is less expensive and is much yummier than other chains. Also, I try going out for lunches where they have similar sized portions to their dinner menu at a smaller price so I don’t feel as guilty. My main goal for myself is eating out 1-2 times a week. I feel better if both of those are lunches, or splurging on just 1 nicer dinner with a friend or my boyfriend.