Restaurant.com

I’ve been reading about restaurant.com for a while now in various saving money advice places, but hadn’t checked it out. Today, someone posted in one of my communities that you can get 80% off with the code SANTA, and I had no food for lunch, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I ate delicious cornbread for free! photo by xandert

The site offers discount gift certificates to tons of restaurants. I doubted many places I know would be on there since I don’t go to many chains, but there were tons of places less than a mile from my work, including a place I’ve been wanting to go to for a while. I ordered the gift certificate-$10 value, normally $3, but $0.60 with the code! Sixty cents! There were a bunch of qualifiers, but they didn’t matter to me-you had to go for lunch, which was my plan, and spend at least $15 total, which was no problem. I went with a friend and split a huge delicious lunch. We even had leftovers. The total per person ended up being less than $5, including the $0.60 spent on the gift certificate.

So totally worth it.

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The point here is not just to check out restaurant.com, which you should. The point is, I’ve been reading about this site for probably over six months and always figured it’d be too much work, but it was super easy. It reminds me of starting my savings account; I put that off for months and then it took about two minutes. If there’s a way to save you’ve been meaning try but think it’s too much effort, give it a shot. Go do it now, I dare you.

If the thing you’re doing is starting an ING account, by the way, let me know. If I refer you I get a bonus and you get a bonus (this also works if someone else refers you, but then I don’t get anything.)