Eat Out On The Cheap & More Money Saving Strategies!
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Today I wanted to bring you some more money saving tips while I toil away on the eCookbook I’m working up for you! I had hoped to have this post up earlier but its been one of those crazy days. Sometimes I feel certain I could be a rich woman if I sold tickets to witness the things I go through in the course of trying to get a post up! ~laughs~
Save Money When Eating Out
We very seldom eat out and this is entirely my fault. I can’t help it, though! Every time we get the check, I look at the total and find myself mentally adding up how many dinners I could have made at home for the same amount of money. Most of the time, eating out with a family of four costs the same amount of money as putting four to six suppers on the table. It is really easy to feed a family of four for under ten dollars a meal at home and feeding them for five dollars is entirely doable as well.
One of the great things about our economy right now (yes, I just said ONE of the MANY great things! – there is always a bright side if you look for it!) is that you can get some amazing deals at restaurants if you only look! We are now able to eat at our favorite steak house for about twenty dollars, all four of us! We have eaten for even less in the past two weeks. How do you do this?
- Plan ahead when eating out and choose your restaurant by the deals the offer.
- Check the restaurant’s website. Sign up for any email newsletters they may have and you will more often than not receive great coupons. Most have a loyalty club of some sort as well. I signed up for Logan’s and Ruby Tuesday’s newsletter and get coupons often from them in my email. You’d be amazed how many restaurants are offering this now!
- Find the restaurants offering deals for kids! Many more places are offering kids eat free programs but some are only on certain days of the week so call ahead. Even with two kids, getting kid’s meals free can easily save over fifteen dollars. I recently found a great post listing some restaurants where kids eat free or cheap on a locally run website, Two Thrifty Sisters, you can view that post here.
- Eat out before four o’clock or on weeknights, this is when you can find the best deals. I find the lack of crowds and wait time much more enjoyable, too! My friend, Mary Anne calls this “Eatin’ out with the paw paws and mee maws” and I can’t think of a finer crowd to dine with!
- Sign up for the Pizza chain’s newsletters. Pizza Hut and Papa Johns send out regular coupons in email.
- Call the restaurant and see if they have any weekday or weeknight specials
- Check the search engines for restaurant deals.
- Don’t forget to hit up your favorite fast food websites! I was recently craving my yearly heart attack meal at Captain D’s and went online to see if they had any deals (Captain D’s food is amazingly good but about as greasy as they come…still SO GOOD!). I signed up for their newsletter and within minutes had a coupon for a free adult dinner. Got my arteries clogged for free! Many major fast food chains are doing this now so it pays to visit their websites and nose around a bit.
Other Ways To Save
Buying a side of beef
This is touted as a miracle worker when it comes to saving money and I have always wanted to do it! My problem is finding someone to buy it from. When we were little my mother’s father gave each family a calf at Christmas and that provided our beef for the entire year. I still remember seeing our freezer filled to the brim with packages of meat wrapped in white paper.
I’ve scoured the internet for a place to purchase a side of beef in my area to no avail. Hopefully some of you will have better luck at this. If you do let me know!
Food Programs That Help
Many people aren’t aware of the programs out there which serve as sort of “food co-operatives” in order for families to be able to buy boxes of groceries at a discount. Many of these programs have no pre-qualifications and welcome anyone to participate. They simply exist to help families save money and still put great meals on the table. One such program is Angel Food Ministries. This program allows participants to purchase a box of food for around $30.00. The food included is set to feed a typical family of four for a week or a senior citizen for a month. Tipnut wrote a great article on this which can be viewed here and goes into more detail 🙂
There are other such programs as well though. Please visit the following links for more information on programs such as this and if you know of another one, please let us know about it in the comments!
Freezer Cooking Problem – Where Do I Find The Space?
Thanks again to my sister in law, Tina for her great freezer cooking posts last week. Many of you have emailed or commented asking how to freezer cook with very limited freezer space so I thought I’d show you my favorite method.
I recently mixed up three batches of Cheesy Chicken and Corn Casserole and here is how I froze it:
- Measure out even portions into Gallon (or quart for two people) sized freezer bags.
- Write Instructions on Bags
- Smooth them out flat, removing as much air as possible.
- Freeze flat
- Once frozen, stand them up and stack like bookends.
This takes up very little space! To bake, simply thaw the bag in your fridge the night before and when you are ready pour it into your baking dish.
This is a frozen bag. Okay so it wasn’t exactly flat..but it was awfully close!
My writing translates to: Pour in dish. Bake at 350 for 30 min. Add cheese. Bake til melted. 🙂 Told ya I have horrendous handwriting.
I also had enough to fill two little loaf pans with casserole for my Grandmother to have as a quick and easy dinner one night. I just filled up my little loaf pans and went ahead and topped them with cheese and wrote instructions directly on the foil for Grandmama.
The most important thing when it comes to saving money on groceries is to PLAN AHEAD. By planning in advance, shopping sales, using coupons and other saving strategies as well as plotting your meals around what you have on hand already, anyone can drastically reduce grocery costs. Southern Savers has recently become my ultimate go to source and I never hit the grocery store without her specials and suggestions printed out and tucked into my purse!
What are your great money saving tips when it comes to feeding your family?
I want to hear them!
Please share with us in the comments below!
I’m a little behind this week in my comments and emails and want to thank you all so much for taking the time to send them to me and post here. Like all of you, I need motivation, too! Your comments are the fuel that keeps me running at full steam! I am so very grateful to each and every one of you.
Gratefully,
Christy 🙂
I know a place you can find beef sides for sale. Look at the Georgia Department of Agriculture Market Bulletin website. If you look at the list of Ads, you will see “Things to Eat.” A sample of an ad this week is:
Angus cross beef, no antibiotics, hormones, steroids, $2.75 lb. hanging weight, half or whole, references available
Alabama might have the same thing, or since you’re close, Georgia might be an option.
I skip ordering soft drinks and/or coffee. Most places charge close to two dollars for drinks and I a happy to settle for water with a dash of lemon to save $8.00 for a family of four. When my children were small I often only ordered for one and split the sandwich and order of fries as they they were not going to eat that amount of food anyhow. I shudder when I see how much waste there is at a restaurant. I often see many rolls untouched as well as large portions. It is too bad when we have hungry people in our country.
OK, I’ve mentioned it in other posts, but here goes again … my money saving tip is to eat deer … financially its comparable to buying a side of beef. I know so many women & men who turn up their nose at venison and I can’t fathom why … maybe they once got a bad piece of deer jerky or badly seasoned sausage??? My husband shot 4 deer this year and we will eat every bit by next hunting season thanks to all of Christy’s great recipes requiring ground beef. We have it professionally butchered and get most of it ground with a little beef fat added because deer have virtually no fat! Nutritionally, venison has more protein and less fat than chicken. And deer haven’t been feed gobs of antibiotics and steroids like non-organic meat you get from the grocery store. If your spouse doesn’t hunt, there are always, always guys around willing to help you out, you just have to pay for the processing. Plus hunting controls the deer population and helps keep them off the highway, also saving us money!
What’s wrong with deer/venison? I’m surprised to read that you say people don’t want to eat it. I actually thought it was a more ‘luxury’ meat to eat. I have only eaten venison once at a restaurant and it was much more expensive than steak or lamb.
It’s not a common meat here though and is mostly served in restaurants only. It’s not something you find in your local supermarket! But as a comparison, you can buy kangaroo meat which is quite cheap to buy yet also very lean, high in protein, low in fat. I don’t mind kangaroo although I don’t really eat it much. Some people think it’s a little strange we eat our national animal! =)
We love deer!!! My dh doctor told him that it is ok to eat as it is not bad like red meat! If you use ground deer in things you won’t be able to tell the difference. I use it all the time and company never can tell. My kids LOVE backstrap grilled up. So you get healthier meat and help the control the population!!
A great idea when out on vacation is to follow the pawpaws and maw maw’s… It works like a charm everytime. We followed a few around 4pm while on vacation in Charleston… they lead us to the BEST PLACES TO EAT! Not fancy.. JUST REALLY GOOD LOW COUNTRY FOOD!
When in Doubt… Follow the elder crowd. VERY SMART people!!! YUM YUM! One day someone will be staring at our pictures hung up in a cracker barrel. Just wait… lol
Well Christy,
As I write, your steak tips are in the crock pot and the house smells WONDERFUL, have my noodles ready to cook, salad in the fridge, and veggie ready to heat up. I plan on pigging out, I wonder if this recipe can be frozen and then reheated for a “no time to cook” day. And also, Tina’s tips have been great. With an apartment sized fridge and freezer, these pointers are coming in handy.
I have frozen the beef tips and rice leftover before. It came in handy when I need something quick to fix for supper. Just let it cool and then put it in containers or freezer bags. It will be like a homemade tv dinner.
the side of beef thing. If you have a local 4-h club or FFA club most of the time they will have someone showing steers. Since steers are not a benefit in the pasture, they like to sell them. Most of these steers are well feed and are taken care of very well. If you are interested in purchasing a side of beef that would be the best place to start. They also will most likely be able to tell you where it can be processed at.
I plan my meals and then go thru my pantry and only buy what i have to have to go with the meals. I do this for two weeks at a time. It has worked very well for me.
I dont remember if 1stopmom ever made her cookies?