Going Out to Eat... Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!

It's summer time and that means kids, kids, kids! I love my kids, they're the greatest, but I gotta be honest - I am really looking forward to getting away from them for a bit tonight! Tonight is date night! Woo-hoo! As exciting as date night sounds, it can cause me a lot of stress. Stress because we really don't have any extra cash to be spending on dining out! And I DO NOT want to eat at McDonald's! So what's a mom to do?

Restaurant.com!! That's what. This is perhaps one of THE greatest things I have come across to help you stay sane on a tight budget. Restaurant.com is a place where you can buy gift certificates to local restaurants and super discounted prices. Just last week I bought 2 $25 gift certificates for a total of $4 - yes, you read that right $4! That's $50 worth of food for $4!! So, what's the catch? Well, here's the deal...

First of all you won't find chain restaurants on the site - mainly smaller, locally owned restaurants use this to bring in business, but I personally think that's a good thing. We should be helping our local businesspeople! 

Second, there are conditions that apply so you have to read those carefully. For example, some will have only certain days that you can use the certificate. I think all of them have a certain amount of money that you have to spend, tonight we have to spend at least $35 to use our $25 cert. They also automatically add in your tip, I think to protect the servers so that someone doesn't tip them on the $10 they spend rather than the $35 they actually ate. But these are all very and easy conditions to adhere to, in my opinion.

Usually the certificates run about $10 for a $25, but quite frequently they run 80% off sales, that is the only time I've ever purchased them, so then I spend $2 for a $25 cert! To be notified of the sales you can sign up here...  
 

  https://www.restaurant.com/signup.asp

Also many of those blogs I told you about will let you know as well. This is a great opportunity to get out of the house on the cheap, and support local businesses! So tonight's date night will not be stressful because we'll be eating dinner at a sit down, someone else serve me restaurant for less than what it would cost to go to McDonald's - you can't beat that!