15 Ways to Eat Out More and Spend Less
Share This
Photo: tannazie
Dining out is one of the great pleasures in life. Fine food, great drinks, a meal with friends and the next thing you know you’re loosening your belt. But with a troubled economy everyone is tightening their belts. You can still enjoy dining out, even on a budget. Do you know the best days and meals for making the most of your dollar? How to find a credit card that rewards you for restaurant dining? What site offers you rebate checks just for making reservations? Check out our smorgasbord of top tips for saving money when you do dine in restaurants.
- 1. Find discount deals. Sites like Restaurant.com offer gift certificates for less than face value. Just make sure you’re getting a discount somewhere you want to eat, otherwise it’s like those uncomfortable shoes you bought on sale and never wear. No bargain.
- 2. Use an online booking agent like OpenTable. You’ll get a rebate or thank you check for doing something you do anyway, making reservations. You’ll also find special promotions that will earn you rewards faster by dining at certain slower times.
- 3. Some credit cards give you a bonus or rebate on restaurant purchases, decide which ones make the most sense and then use them as much as you can. Mint.com can help you with unbiased recommendations based on your personal spending.
- 4. Go out for lunch. Sometimes the prices on the lunch menu are a fraction of what you’ll pay at dinner for almost the same thing.
- 5. Watch what you drink! Restaurants make a larger margin on beverages than they do on food. Do you really need that bottled water or cocktail?
- 6. Eat less. Smaller appetite? Try choosing a salad, side dish or appetizer. Let your waiter know you are looking for something on the light side, you just don’t want to end up with something so small that you end up ordering a huge dessert.
- 7. Share dessert. Speaking of huge desserts, you may have noticed that dessert prices and sizes have steadily grown larger. Find a partner and be sure to ask for two spoons.
- 8. Share a large entree or take half of it home for tomorrow’s lunch. The best way to do this is to visually divide your plate in portions before you start eating. If you plan on taking it home, order something that reheats well such as soup, stew or a braised dish and skip delicate foods like salad or seafood.
- 9. Have a snack! You know what happens if you go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. Likewise if you go out to dinner ravenous you’re likely to order too much. If you skip lunch, you’ll also be tempted to order too much.
- 10. Eat out on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, the slowest days of the week for restaurants. You’ll be much more likely to find special deals and offers, not to mention a quieter more relaxing dining experience.
- 11. Look for early bird or prix fixe specials. Now more than ever restaurants are looking for your business and offering special promotions. Often a three course meals is just a few dollars more than the cost of one expensive entree.
- 12. Use a coupon. Local coupon books like the Entertainment book offers hundreds of 2-for-1 and 50% off coupons for all kinds of restaurants. If you like fine dining, find a friend who likes fast food and share the cost of the book. The online version of this book may be a great deal if you are planning to travel. There is no long-term commitment, you can choose any location you wish, and the print the coupons you want for only $4.95 a month.
- 13. BYOB. If you have a nice bottle of wine at home, look for restaurants that offer reasonable corkage fees. Just be sure you are not bringing a bottle that is on the restaurant wine list. Some restaurants offer free corkage if you buy one bottle. With a group, this is a great way to save.
- 14. Cut a coupon. Don’t forget those coupons that come in the mail! Valpak offers coupons online as well. Be sure to do a quick search before heading off on vacation.
- 15. Eat at the bar. Dying to try that expensive new restaurant that just opened to rave reviews? See if they have a bar menu. You may be able to get a taste of what’s being served in the dining room for much less.
Related Articles
Organize your financial life.
Use Mint.com to see where your money goes, get bill reminders and alerts, track your investment performance, and find extra savings. It’s FREE!
Find Out MoreHow Mint Can Help
See Where You Spend
Mint.com auto-categorizes all of your transactions so you’ll always know where your money goes. Find out more »
Popular Articles
19 Comments so far
leave a commentDon’t forget that with dining comes gratuity. If you are trying to save money thats great but skimping out on the tip isn’t the way to go. Just a tip for tipping move the decimal over one place and multiply by 2. For example check is $200.00 tip should be $40. which is close to 20%. As long as the service is acceptable.
… so say the waiters. I know tip amounts vary from region to region, but in my circles 10 is poor, 15 is acceptable, 20 is excellent or if you’ve lingered at their table for too long after finishing your meal.
Why perpetuate that nonsense, Derek? Why not be sensible and stop all tipping whatsoever. Cry all you want about waiters being paid less than minimum wage, but it’s people like you that are the reason they’re paid less than minimum wage.
Many countries have no tipping in their cultures and that’s how it should be everywhere. If the menu says $10.95. That’s what the final all-inclusive price should be (including taxes like in Europe!).
In response to “Why perpetuate that nonsense”… Tipping seems to be a fair way of paying for the service that you receive, if the server cops an attitude or the performs inadequately, they can expect to earn less. Tipping keeps the service levels up, don’t believe me? Look into places that don’t rely on tips for services like automotive repair, home repair, doctors and dentist, they make money regardless and sadly, often times that shows.
Bruce,
While I agree that you should tip your server, that is just how it works in the U.S. I must say that some of the best service I have ever received in a restaurant was in France where the waiters are paid well and it is customary to only tip the coin change you get back from paying your bill.
Derek,
I hope you are using the pretax figure to calculate the tip. And, quite frankly, unless you are a relic of the pre-implosion Wall Street era, 20% as a general rule is way overdone. Depending on the area, level of restaurant, and service, it should be within a range of 10-20%, with the upper range restricted entirely to five star places that actually earn it.
Nice post!
Wow, excellent tips indeed!
RT
http://www.anon-web-tools.tk
This is a really great post. OpenTable is a valuable resource that I use all the time to get great deals on multi-course meals.
Very handy tips. How about having a large glass of water before leaving for the restaurant, to prevent ordering a huge meal
thanks for the really good tips on spending less.
Or you could just buy ingredients and eat at home or have a friend provide the ingredients in exchange that you’ll cook or prepare them.
The federal gov’t taxes servers for all the tips they get. If a waiter reports “too little,” they get audited. If they or their employer report more than they actually earned and they would pay taxes on too much… but this has happened to servers where businesses did not keep good records and just reported 18% of the tabs split among the staff for the evening.
Saving money should be on the restaurants deals, and not on the serving staff. They are often making less than minimum wage, precisely because tips are supposed to make up the difference.
Ordering vegetarian usually saves about 20-50% at most restaurants. I guess it helps that I’m a vegetarian… even if you’re not a vegetarian it’s a great way to save some money — maybe try once a week?
wow, is it just me or is tip #12 and #15 the same tip? in a follow up to this article, the author lists 15 tips on writing lists. tip #3, 7, 9, and 14 in that article? reuse one tip at least once.
very useful post,I am going to completely follow your tips,but they do very interesting,thank you.
A far better recommendation is to avoid eating out at all. You pay for that service, at least triply, before tax and tips. There is an upcharge for overhead (which includes rent, insurance, payroll, payroll, income, and business taxes, furnishings, maintenance, advertising, etc.). Add to that upcharges for food and drink. (yeah, they actually have to try to achieve a profit.) So, something that might cost you $20 to provide at home–dinner for 2 at a sushi bar, including beer, for example–will wind up costing $60 BEFORE tax & tips.
EAT AT HOME, and paper-bag it to work. Period. And learn how to cook.
Well, I tip 20% (pre-tax) in Washington State, where wait staff is paid WA state minimum wage ($8.55) + their tips. Yet, I get flack at times for not tipping 20% on the full amount.
I’m amazed (and wish I lived elsewhere, perhaps, outside of Seattle) that folks can get away with less than 20% in places where for some reason the waitstaff is not even paid minimum wage…
http://www.saving-money.net