Dining-room - Originally posted by He Shi
An article on the Get Rich Slowly blog caught my attention recently. It was entitled How to Eat at a Swanky Restaurant Without Blowing Your Monthly Food Budget, and it gave 8 tips for saving money when dining out. To summarise, these were;
- Eat a healthy snack before you go
- Order something that takes time to eat
- Order appetizers as your meal
- Watch what you drink
- Order in sequence
- Share food
- Take food home
- Skip (or share) dessert
This article really appealed to me because dining out is one of life’s luxuries that I would find really hard to live without. Having said this I am always looking for ways to cut down on the amount I spend, especially if they don’t involve cutting it out completely. Another useful side effect of these tips, which was also mentioned in the post, is that following these tips should help stick to my healthy eating plan by helping me to avoid the huge portions and calorific desserts that are so often on offer. I strongly suggest you head on over to ‘Get Rich Slowly’ to read the article for yourself.
While I though that J.D. covered almost everything, I managed to come up with a couple of tips of my own;
- Toptable.co.uk - I almost always use the Top Table website when I am dining out. They have some amazing special offers (up to 50% off the cost of you food) and also offer a loyalty scheme where you get one meal free for every 6 you book. They mainly cover the UK, but are also expanding to other European cities, including Paris. I haven’t tried it myself & am not sure what deals they offer but www.opentable.com is recommended for booking restaurants in the America.
- Go for brunch or lunch - I’ve found that a lot of top class restaurants have excellent fixed price lunch menus. There are often a number of advantages of these. Firstly, they provide a low cost way of trying a restaurant for the first time. Also, the bill is often substantially reduced because there is often less of a temptation to have alcoholic drinks with your meal.
- Drink Plenty of Water Before and During Your Meal - First point in it’s favour - it’s free - at least if you don’t drink the fancy bottled variety. Added to this, not only is drinking plenty of water good for our health - and very few of us manage to drink the recommend daily amount - it also helps us to feel fuller meaning that we eat less, stay healthier, don’t put on weight, and save some money in the process.
I hope these are helpful and I would love to hear any suggestions you have.
Best of the Rest;
One thing I am particularly keen on is highlighting posts from other bloggers that relate to my posts and that I believe are worthwhile additional reading. I plan on including these ‘Best of the Rest’ links is as many of my posts as a I can.
- Gather Little By Little - Money Saving Monday Tip #14 - Save Money When Eating Out
- Get Rich Slowly - Is Eating Out Cheaper Than Eating In?
