In my search for ways to cut expenses, I found two great ways to cut restaurant bills by at least 50%. It didn’t take me long to discover them, and yet I have been living here in the States for 8 years without knowing the secrets, well, my American husband wasn’t aware of such secrets either. It shows that if you seek, you shall find it, and if you don’t, well…

The First Secret: the Entertainment Book

The Entertainment Book is a book of coupons of participated restaurants and businesses through out the United States, and there are so many of them. If you live in the bay area, like I do, you can buy a book of San Francisco/San Mateo, or of East Bay Area, or of Sonoma/Marin, or of San Jose/Santa Clara, etc. You can buy a few books in different areas where you go a lot. You can get a book for places you travel, the money you save on dining maybe be much more than the cost of a book even for a short trip, especially they are on sale now for $9.99 a book, the regular price was between $25 to $45 depending on the location.Save up to 50% almost everywhere!

It contain 5 categories:

1.Casual Dining & Fast Food-There are hundreds of coupons in one book. You look at the index of participated restaurants listed under different city to find the coupon you need, then just tear it out from the book. There are plenty of familiar chain stores, such as Burger King, Jack in the Box, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, etc, and a lot of local restaurants. Most coupons are “buy one get one free”.

2.Dining Out-Restaurants listed under this category are a little more expensive than those under the first category. For these restaurants, you use the plastic member card which comes with the book, you hand it over to your waitress and she will punch a hole on the number representing that restaurant, so that you can’t use the same discount in the same restaurant again.

3.Travel & Hotel-great discounts on car rental, hotels, cruises.

4.Entertainment & sports-save money on movie tickets, admission tickets to amusement parks, zoos, museums, etc.

5.Retail & Services-save money on grocery stores, hardware stores, dry cleaners, etc.

The Second Secret: Restaurant.com

To use restaurant.com:

Step 1: you enter your zip code to search for restaurants.

Step 2:purchase a gift certificate. The costs: $25 certificate for $10, $10 certificate for $3, $50 certificate for $20. If you like to pay even less, you can search online for promotional code, or you can just purchase one certificate first, then you will receive emails from restaurant.com for future promotions, they do 50% or 60% off all the time.

There are some fine prints to note. The participated restaurants usually require minimum food purchase. Some only accept gift certificates on certain days of the week, while many don’t have this restriction. No big deal, just remember to read the rules.

Step 3:print your certificate. Then just bring it with you, some restaurants prefer you to present it prior to ordering. Very easy! We have purchased 2 certificates to dine in the most expensive restaurant where we live twice to celebrate two special occasions. One of the occasions was on weekdays when the restaurant had specials of cocktail and steak for one price, I don’t remember how much now, maybe $18, but the total we paid after subtracting $25 gift certificate was about $25 including tips and taxes.

The Advantages of using these secrets:

1.Cut down dining out progressively. It’s hard to change your lifestyle abruptly, so if you can’t reduce the frequency you dine in restaurants per week, at least you can save about 50% using coupons and gift certificates to begin with. then gradually you can dine out less frequently.

2.Change your pattern and try out new restaurants. Now instead of going to the same old restaurants over and over again, you have incentives to try out new restaurants, because one coupon can only be used once, and one gift certificate can only be used once a month in the same restaurant. As humans, we tend to go to the same places over and over again, I found it to be great third force to change such pattern. My daughter often asked me why I always drove the same route to her preschool, and said that she likes to go different ways, well, I just can’t help doing the same thing.

Related Posts:

• How did I save $200 a month on grocery

• Save money on home phone bill