My husband and I are trying not to spend more than $100 a month for eating out with our family of 5. (It helps that one is not eating solid food yet and the other is mostly a picky eater. We’ll probably have to raise this amount as our two little ones get bigger.)
One way we have found to do this is to build a stock of Groupons and restaurant.com certificates. When there is a good Groupon, we buy it. Right now we have six to use.
Restaurant.com certificates go on sale about every 4 to 6 weeks and you can buy them for 80% off their list price. This is the only time we buy restaurant.com certificates. (Right now they are on sale for 80% off when you use the code SHARE through September 22nd.) We have 6 of those built up.
Now, when we decide where to eat every weekend, we choose from our Groupon and restaurant.com certificate stock up. We do this unless we can find a restaurant offering very cheap fare that particular week. (We have been visiting Qdoba at significant savings thanks to their Fight Burrito Boredom promotion.)
This is just one way we have found to enjoy eating out at a significant discount. Works for me!
I shared this post at Works for Me Wednesday, Food on Fridays, and Frugal Fridays.
Melissa, a mom to three little ones (ages 7, 3 and 1), blogs at both Mom’s Plans where she writes about living a fulfilling life on less and paying down debt, and Fiscal Phoenix where she writes about rising from the ashes of your financial mistakes.