Eating Out On a Budget
- kenziedegraaf
- Feb 20
- 5 min read
Whether you are trying to feed a large family, or simply looking for ideas for a more affordable date night, I’ve got some ideas to stretch your dollar a little farther to help you eat out on a budget!
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Eating Out On a Budget
Eating out is fun and can be a real treat for a number of reasons. From the convenience of having someone else cook and do the dishes instead of you, to enjoying a delicous meal you might not have easily made for yourself. But those conveniences come with a price tag. So how do we make eating out not just enjoyable, but also affordable? Let me share with you a couple tips and tricks our family uses.
Sign Up For Rewards Programs
If you are not already doing this you need to! Signing up for rewards at restaurants is a game changer for us. With fast paced technology even local coffee shops are jumping on the rewards train. By simply using an email or phone number, sign up and in just a couple minutes of your time you can earn lots of free food, in addition to this, many offer first time sign up bonus offers. Most use some type of point system to trade in for food, and some even take a monetary value off your order. I’m signed up for a variety of places and I’ve seen $5-$25 credits available in a variety of locations.
By signing up you can see when specials like BOGOs are happening or even get customized rewards sent to you like any size coffe just $3. In addition to this, places like Cheesecake Factory lets their rewards members make reservations online. Something only available if you’re a rewards member. Though not a money saver in the traditional sense, “time is money”, as they say, and at places that have long waits this is a major time saver!
Buy Gift Cards at Discount
This next tip is a personal favorite of mine and many people don’t seem to know about it. Places like Costco allow you to buy gift cards in bulk and save approximately 20-25% off restaurants and services like Instacart and DoorDash. Other restaurants like Panera and Cheesecake Factory and many others around the holidays will email you offers when they throw in bonus gift cards to the buyer. For example buy $50 gift cards get a $10 voucher. Both options are great ways to either buy gifts and save the bonuses for yourself, or stock up for date night and gift to your own family.
Do the Receipt Surveys
Now, I know this option can sound sketchy, or not super fun BUT it actually works and it makes a big difference. The key is to look at what the benefit is for taking the survey, some restaurants offer an item I may not be interested in-or I don't go there often enough-so skip these. Others, offer something valuable for just a couple minutes of your time.
The top three I usually do are: Dunkin Donuts for a free donut with a medium or larget drink purchase, if I'm already grabbing an iced coffee I might as well get one of the kids a free donut. Culvers offers a free scoop of ice cream-someone has to check me to see if that one requires a purchase to redeem or not, and Potbelly's offers a free cookie with an entree purchase. Not only do you get rewards, but good reviews actually help out restaurants too!
Use Coupons
Before you throw away those pesky advertisement packets that come in your mail-take a peak inside to see if there are any coupons?! One of our favorite coffee shops usually has a BOGO once a month. Sometimes school fundraisers will offer discount packs filled with great coupons-saving you lots of money and supporting a good cause all at the same time.
Birthday Rewards
This goes along with the point above on rewards programs, but in addition to just regular rewards, birthday rewards in these programs are usually a really great treat! I have a whole blog about this over here where you can get a FREE printable of restaurants and coffee shops organized by offer and how long you have to use each reward. Some places like Starbucks require you to be an active member to get the reward on the account, so just be sure to use the account throughout the year. (Please note at least one reward has changed since the original posting and rewards are often changing.)
Kid Eat Free
Pay attention to specials going on around you. Many restaraunts will have a certain day of the week where kids eat free. I've seen this at Potbelly's and Dicky's BBQ recently, and Chick-fil-a will do this from time to time as well. Plan ahead and use these days as ways to save your family money. Sometimes kids eat free on a child to adult ratio-so if you have a large family bring grandma and grandpa along for even more family fun!
Ask for Gift Cards for Birthdays and Christmas
In addition to buying your own gift cards in bulk, ask for gift cards as gifts. Gift cards are not only super fun to give and receive-as you know that the person can use them to get just what they actually want, but they are also excellent options to gift a friend or family out of state. We've even sent digital gift cards to Door Dash to friends when we can't physically bring them a meal, like if they are sick or if a friend out of state has a baby and we want to treat them to a dinner on us. Gifted gift cards are great options for feeling like you are eating out without spending a dime of your own.
Smart Stacking
The key to SAVING THE MOST MONEY, is to stack these tips together to get the biggest bang for your buck. Buy gift cards for your own family in advance at discount, then use your rewards when ordering, go on a day kids eat free, do the surveys, and then pay with the gift card. Often only one type of coupon or reward can be used at a time. So consider having mom pay for an order and dad pay for an order. Or place a second order for dessert or drinks.
Treat the staff and severs with kindness and respect, learn their names, engage with them. Do this just because, but also, 9/10 times our experience has been way better and they are likely to respond in kind and even help your family get good deals. The point is to be the light of Jesus, but people notice, let me tell you!
I hope these tips bless your family and give you some creative ideas to save money Eating Out On a Budget. Let me know in the comments below, do you have any other tips and tricks?
Links
Product links in this post are affiliate links. If you choose to use them I may make commission off of purchases, thanks for supporting our family if you do.
Need a place to keep gift cards and things organized? I use one of these accordion folders.
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