Frugal….not cheap!

Sunday we decided to go out for breakfast.   Before we left, I looked over my cache of  coupons in the cubbyhole (my dad’s name for glove box) in the car to decide where we were going to eat. I would predict I save 100’s of dollars a year doing this. I get the coupons in the mail all the time and they are usually only good for about 30 to 45 days.  They can be for McDonalds, Wetzel’s Pretzels or Oggi’s Restaurant, or many other places.  I never know until they arrive in the mail.

This morning I had coupons for Denny’s or Home Town Buffet.  Normally, I am not a fan of Denny’s.  The food as my husband calls it, is generic, but about three years ago, we stopped at the Denny’s  “on the hill” because of the coupons I had and tried it.  It was different than the others closer to us.   This Denny’s owner had expounded on the menu.  You weren’t getting frozen patties but fresh, the eggs weren’t from a big frozen bucket,  they were fresh, and you could taste it.  We had discovered a restaurant that we really liked because of the coupon and would continue to go there because of the coupons.

We headed up to Denny’s on the hill and sitting next to the big picture windows and talked.  About 45 minutes we were paying our check of $27.53.  I handed the cashier my “buy one entree and get one free” coupon and the total came to $20.25.

If you go out to breakfast every Sunday morning and used a coupon, you would be looking at saving at least $20.00 a month.  Use a coupon for every time you eat, whether it’s a restaurant or take out or even coffee, it could add up to more.

So, to show you what I am talking about, I am going to save all my receipts for eating out in the month of April.  Go ahead and try this experiment this month, too.  Before you go out only pick a restaurant or take out place that you have a coupon for.  This means coffee, too.  (McDonald’s and 7-11 have coupons for their coffee every now and then).  Save all the receipts and at the end of the month, total it up.   Let me know what you saved and I will be doing the same.