Saving Money While Dining Out

smlewis00

smlewis00

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How do you save money when you are eating out?
Here are a few things my family does:
I have signed up for several different resturaunt e-mail clubs. They often times send discounts or coupons. (Just visit your favorite resturant on-line and see if they offer an e-mail club.) For example, Chili's resturaunt gives you a coupon for free chips and queso just for signing up! FREE! :)
I do not like to eat out often, as it can be incredibly expensive. When you can combines discounts and coupons, it can really help! For Christmas, my husband and I received several gift cards to some of our favorite resturaunts. We plan to combine the giftcards with the coupons and discounts we receive on-line. While we do not eat out very often, it is important to us to save money when we do.
Another thing my husband and I do when eating out, is sometimes we share a meal. Today's portion sizes are huge! We sometime split the meal and just order an extra salad or maybe a small appetizer. Many places offer complimentary bread. We noticed that we fill up on bread and then can't finish each of our meals. (Texas Roadhouse, Logan's Roadhouse, Outback, Red Lobster-all offer complimentary bread/rolls/biscuits) We have found when we split a meal, it is just enough food that we are not completely stuffed. We almost always skip ordering a dessert. In fact, sometimes we share a meal at a resturaunt and then go home and make dessert at home, together. We bake brownies or cookies together and munch on them while watching a movie.
What are some things you do to save money while eating out?
I saw a crazy episode on a TV show called "Extreme Cheapskates" where a man actually asks people sitting near him at resturaunts for their leftovers! There is no way I would go that far!
But what are some ways you save money when you don't want to cook? How do YOU save while eating out?
 
If you look at the menu, the main dish really isn't that expensive. You add a drink and a desert and you could have doubled the price...
I never take a desert and very rarely get starters... that alone saves me a lot of money. If I'd want to save more I'd drink water instead of beer but since I'm out anyway I don't carer about spending a little extra.
 
We always cook and eat at home that is why we rarely eat dining out. But in some instances when we have the chance to eat out in a restaurant or any fast food shop, we eliminate ordering soda colas, juices or any flavored drinks we just ask for water and it is just okay especially if your are many in the family you can lessen the billing. We are just ordering the main dish maybe 2 or 3 kind and not too many only just to satisfy our cravings when we want to eat. Sometimes we also order combo meals which can be shared by two persons with a reasonable price and we also save in that kind of meals. So it depends how you will manage in order that you can save while dining out.
 
I find a great option to dine out (at least in the US), is restaurant.com. I have only ever bought a couple coupons there because they usually have strict number of people and times you can dine and use the coupons, but basically you buy a $20 coupon for $10 or stuff like that. It's pretty good so save money if some of your favorite restaurants are there.
 
crimsonghost747 said:
If you look at the menu, the main dish really isn't that expensive. You add a drink and a desert and you could have doubled the price...
I never take a desert and very rarely get starters... that alone saves me a lot of money. If I'd want to save more I'd drink water instead of beer but since I'm out anyway I don't carer about spending a little extra.
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Here is my experience today at the restaurant. I went to grab a lunch with a friend and his wife. We ended up having drinks, main course and a dessert and it came to around 35 euros per person. Now the price of the main course was somewhere between 15 and 20 euros.

So just like I said above, we pretty much doubled the price of our meal since we had beer & dessert.
 
I like dining out but I'm really afraid thinking of the expense that is gonna fall on me. It is being too costlier eating out these days and it is due to this reason I'm stepping backward. Can anyone suggest me an economic way to handle out this budget?
 
I tend to go for the Menu Del Dia, or set menu of the day. I always choose a restaurant where a drink is included, and preferably one that includes half a bottle of wine per person in the price. That's the best way to keep the cost down.

Another thing I do - which works well for Chinese and Indian food and Spanish tapas - is to order a selection of main courses to place in the middle of the table, but order one less than the number of people eating. This only really works if there are four people or more. The other night, 6 of us went to an Indian restaurant and ordered 5 main courses, with 2 rice and 3 naan breads. There was more than enough for everyone, yet we saved the cost of a main course and side dish.
 
Sandra Piddock said:
I tend to go for the Menu Del Dia, or set menu of the day. I always choose a restaurant where a drink is included, and preferably one that includes half a bottle of wine per person in the price. That's the best way to keep the cost down.

Another thing I do - which works well for Chinese and Indian food and Spanish tapas - is to order a selection of main courses to place in the middle of the table, but order one less than the number of people eating. This only really works if there are four people or more. The other night, 6 of us went to an Indian restaurant and ordered 5 main courses, with 2 rice and 3 naan breads. There was more than enough for everyone, yet we saved the cost of a main course and side dish.
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That is a great way to save money! It is fun to share meals because you get a wide variety of different dishes, not to mention it is cheaper than everyone ordering a meal of their own! Great suggestion! Thanks so much for sharing! :)
 
There isn't a huge coupon system here. We "save" money by eating at select restaurants. If we eat at Fat Fish, we can get 2 meals for 180 pesos. That's about $8.50 per meal. It comes with a salad, baked potato, garlic toast and either rib eye steak, bbq ribs, or shrimp. After drinks and tip our meal comes to around $30 (three people). If we don't eat there, we eat at the casino. We order a plate of nachos for an appetizer, one meal to share (it's to big) and other meal for $14. That's the cheapest meal as our drinks our free.

As a family, we eat out once a week; so, it's nice to keep it cheap.
 
Sandra Piddock said:
I tend to go for the Menu Del Dia, or set menu of the day. I always choose a restaurant where a drink is included, and preferably one that includes half a bottle of wine per person in the price. That's the best way to keep the cost down.

Another thing I do - which works well for Chinese and Indian food and Spanish tapas - is to order a selection of main courses to place in the middle of the table, but order one less than the number of people eating. This only really works if there are four people or more. The other night, 6 of us went to an Indian restaurant and ordered 5 main courses, with 2 rice and 3 naan breads. There was more than enough for everyone, yet we saved the cost of a main course and side dish.
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Someone else who does this, how awesome! We did this at a steakhouse that had a bar menu once. We all decided together which plates to order and then split the cost evenly. There was about 5 or 6 people in our party as well, I think we spent about $10 bucks each and got a really filling meal with lots of variety.
 
Dining out can be expensive but if you watch what you order it doesn't have to be. You could always use the website restaraunt.com and pay $4 for a $25 certificate. I usually order 2 $4 certificates to feed my family of 5 when it comes to the nicer end restaraunt.
 
With a family as large as mines we use coupons. We also dine-in on days when there are specials. Some restaurants give free meals on birthdays and for children. I also enjoy eating out buffet style. A person can eat as much as they want.
 
Apps like voucher cloud are good you just go on to it and it will tell you any local restaurants with offers in your area ,ideal fo days out
 
When I eat out with my family, we do not order dishes individually. Sharing is pretty big in my family. I think it is a waste that you order each but do not end up finishing your food. If we're like 3, we'll just order 2 dishes. If we're 5, we'll just order 3-4 dishes. We share everything up to the drinks and dessert. The drinks are usually large sizes so we just ask for an extra cup or glass and split the drink. We can finish what we order, no food is wasted and we save money.
 
We do not order the SPECIAL on the menu which usually comes with a discounted price. Usually these are the ones that are slow moving and are about to expire so for quality and safety reasons I tend to shy away from these. To save, we look for promos that are provided during slack time to entice customers and before closing there are some that gives fifty percent discount on your to go
 
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