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12 Ways to Save Hundreds (or Thousands) of Dollars per Year at Restaurants
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Whether you cook at home a lot or not at all, chances are still pretty high that you and your family still spend a lot of money dining out each year. It’s also rather easy to have a restaurant bill with a tab that comes to $100 or more, even just for two people.
24/7 Wall St. has created many self-help pieces for savings and deals over the years. Now we wanted to share some basic actions that can help you save money when you dine out. All in all, there are 12 steps here that can lead to serious savings. Each effort can save you literally hundreds of dollars per year — and this can easily add up to thousands of dollars per year in savings.
There are some basic considerations about who actually spends what when dining out. There are many variables to consider as well. Forbes projected that in 2013 the average American is spending right at $1,000 going out for lunch at restaurants, and that is just for two days a week and just for lunch. Imagine those of us who eat out-of-home five or six lunches a week.
Then ValuePenguin also ran the 2013 average household showing that the total food budget averaged $6,602 per year. Some $2,667 of that large amount was in the “food away from home” category. They even showed that wealthy people spend a lot more than this dining out, so the more you are spending now the more it offers room for saving money.
Zagat confirmed that the spending trends for eating away from home are high. They show that the national average spent for dinner out is $39.40 in the 2015 Dining Trends Survey. That was up at $48.15 in New York City and just $25.81 in Austin. Zagat also showed that the national average is to eat out 4.5 times per week.
Maybe it is nice not to have to cook for just one person. Maybe it is a reward to go have someone else feed you. And maybe you just like to switch up your cuisines so frequent that you just can’t keep up with your own desires in your kitchen. Perhaps you just hate to cook or are not good at cooking.
24/7 Wall St. has brought its readers a new “How to Save Money” series on various aspects of daily expenses and covering personal finance. The aim to help consumers cumulatively save millions of dollars over the course of each year.
If you skeptical, give any one of these efforts a try. Hopefully you will be surprised by how much you really save. And to throw in a twist, there are even ways to save when ordering in from a restaurant delivery or to-go.
Here are 12 ways that diners can save money eating out at restaurants. Again, with thousands of dollars being spent, this can add up to hundreds of dollars (or more) in savings per year, depending on your dining habits.
1. Do Some Basic Research
The internet is a powerful thing. Long gone are the days that you would have to go spend on money on local restaurant guide books. Many new restaurants pop up that you might not ever hear about without doing research, and many new restaurants thrive on offering deals or specials at big discounts until they build a steady client base.
Many restaurants advertise on their websites if they have deals or specials, and they may vary daily or weekly. Doing the research will lead you to all sorts of promotional codes (or coupons) to dine out. Popular websites for this include RetailMeNot and Groupon for deals on dining out or delivery/to-go. Then you can also do research on best to spend money on wine, beer or spirits.
The ‘basic research’ is what will ultimately lead to all of your other searches and savings tips outlined in here. Still, you have to crawl and walk before you can run. One key admission here on basic research is that there is no way we can hit every single website.
2. About Buying Beverages There
One thing that will jack up your bill out is the fun stuff like beer, wine and spirits. Beers can run $5.00 to $8.00 easily. Cocktails can run $7.00 to $10.00 easily, and wine can easily run $10.00 to $15.00 per glass. Now consider that restaurants often have a 100% to 200% markup per bottle of wine, with the lower prices having the most price hike (a $20 store wine may cost $40 to $60 at a restaurant).
The first and easiest way to lower your drink bill is by asking if they have wine, beer or drink specials. Then you can ask what the house wine is, usually less in price per glass or bottle.
What about water, tea, and the sugar drinks? Bottled water at a restaurant is marked up massively, tap water is free. Soda and other sugar-water drinks also add up fast, and it is important to know if they have a cost for refills. The cost of ice tea is almost 100% in the labor now because the tea costs are generally so cheap for ice tea. Drinking tap water might save you as much as $3 per dining experience, which would add up to $700 per year based on 4.5 times a week and 52 weeks.
3. Bring Your Own, or BYOB
While this is also a tip on your beverages, the reality is that the one best way to save money on your drinks is if you are allowed to bring your own. his is the Bring Your Own Bottle (BYOB) theme. Some restaurants in many states in America (laws vary greatly from state to state) allow patrons to bring their own beverages. Some allow patrons to bring wine or beer, and some even allow their patrons to bring their own bottles of booze for mixers.
If you and one other person generally split a bottle of wine when you dine out, get ready for thinking about BYOB if you are legally allowed to. Many restaurants charge either a corkage fee ($10 or so per bottle) or they charge a set-up fee based upon how many wine glasses you will be using. If wine costs $20 at a store and costs $40 to $60 at a restaurant, even a corkage fee or set-up fee can help you save $10 to $30 per dining incident — that can be hundreds of dollars per year.
4. Coupons
Perhaps the most traditional way of saving money is by coupons. Restaurants advertise coupons for deals all over the place now. They mail them to your home, they are online, they are in newspapers and local rags. Coupons are also simple to use, with the caveat that you seem to get your coupons accepted more if you tell your waiters and servers when you start your dining experience. Sometimes diners get their coupons “real world terms” mixed up with “what they expect as terms” and this can make coupons worth a lot or worthless.
Many coupons can be bought or printed online, or even downloaded to your smartphone when you are at a restaurant. Think of an average of even $5.00 in savings for dinner out or take-home, even if you use them once or twice a week. That $5 or $10 savings per week can be over $250 to $500 per year in savings.
5. Daily Deals and Ongoing Deals
Daily deals websites are sometimes the new version of couponing. Maybe the restaurant just has daily deals for anyone, or maybe they charge you to buy your deal.
The Restaurant.com website may have your restaurants of choice already on the site for your city, and they generally allow you to spend $5.00 now for a $10.00 off deal (or spend $10 to save $25, or spend $20 and save $50). That can easily add up to $5.00 or $10.00 (or more) off of your bill. That also can add up to hundreds of dollars per year quite quickly in savings.
Groupon also shows many deals on a city by city basis. Some of their entrees and other savings are as much as a 30% to 40% off. Imagine if that gets used once a week, for savings of $5 or $6 off of each entrée. That could easily save $25 to $300 per person each year.
Retailmenot.com is often considered for saving money on clothing and goods at stores, but they have numerous restaurant offerings. These can be off of total bills or deals on certain dishes. Either way, the savings here can easily add up to $5, $10, or more per meal.
6. Food Clubs and Loyalty Programs
Everyone knows about airlines and credit card points by now. What many people forget about is that certain restaurants have customer loyalty programs. Some offer as much as $1.00 credit per $10.00 spent, or some give you free or discounted meals after you spend a certain amount of money.
Many chains and restaurant groups have loyalty programs. At a minimum you know they may treat you better if you are a loyal customer. More likely than not, you will be able to use programs to save money. The Landry’s group of restaurants allows you to track spending and accumulate credits on just about all the restaurants in the system and all over the country. Even OpenTable has a Dining Rewards & Points program that will accumulate for the OpenTable Gifts website.
Starbucks, Subway, Domino’s and many other quick-dining or carry-out places have rewards programs too. Loyalty programs often feel like you are not saving that much money at a time. Then suddenly you find out an entrée or even a whole meal just got paid for without you having to grab for your wallet. Then it’s a massive saving — maybe $25, or $50 or even $100 that you might get to save a couple or few times a year.
7. Social Media
Maybe you already waste too much time on social media. Well, when all those people are posting pictures of their lunch or dinner they also alert their friends about a cheap deal. Restaurants, bars and coffee shops have increased their presence on social media over the past few years to better connect with their customers. If the average engaged person uses social media an hour a day, maybe they could at least find an occasional savings tip in all that time.
Restaurants that are national chains or sole proprietorships alike use social media on their own. If you like a place a lot, joining their followers on Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat just might give you one special alert no one else knows about. Now keep in mind that some restaurants only market through social media, so you can’t get their savings if you aren’t following your regular or local dining establishments too.
Yelp can even be a source of savings. Restaurants were initially what Yelp was all about, and now you can book your reservations directly and occasionally find out about deals or savings — and sometimes customer reviews can keep you from wasting a lot of money at a place.
8. Portions and Sharing
There are a few more basic ways to save money when you order food. Many couples now order one entrée and one or two appetizers and then split the meal. Many restaurants serve portions that are so large they can’t be eaten by the average diner. Splitting a dish with a friend or significant other can save on money and calories alike.
If you are going out to eat at a place that is too expensive, you can do the double-up effort. Eat a little at home before you go out, and then when you order your meal you will be happy with just having one dish or a smaller portion.
Knowing what things cost is also a must. At a steakhouse, sometimes spending that extra $5.00 for a 12 ounce filet versus the $30 to $40 for the 8 ounce filet is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Ditto for a whole chicken versus a half-chicken, or the large plate versus the small plate. If you don’t want to be stuffed, go for the smaller and save money that way. Maybe you decide the larger steak or chicken will give you that 4 or six ounces of protein you wanted with lunch the next day. That makes your next meal already paid for, in full or in part.
9. Knowing About Tipping
OK, so “Tipping” is not a city in China. It is what allows you to be served at a restaurant. If you eat out of the house, you are probably going to run across having to tip your server for your meal. The Zagat 2015 Dining Trends Survey showed that the national average tip is 19.3%. If you eat and drink $100 per outing, that’s an extra $19.30 per dinner — or $9.65 for a $50 meal.
Knowing what to tip on matters. Some restaurants do not expect you to tip on a bottle of wine, if they have that built into their wine prices. You do not have to tip on the amount of sales taxes are on your bill, as your server did not perform that function.
Knowing when to be generous or stingy on a tip is a must. Great servers who know how to guide you and serve your food or drinks better deserve better tips.
Then there is the question of what to do when you have a really bad server on your table. How much do you tip there? Please understand that if you “stiff” your server with no tip to prove a point that you actually just cost your server money because they still have to pay taxes on their food sale receipts. Don’t expect to be treated the best if you make a server pay to wait on your table, and know that they are on the hook to pay taxes for generally 8% of their food sales.
Tipping on carry-outs or delivery. Unfortunately, even when you do a carry-out many restaurants treat that close to the same as dining in. You can tip the normal 15% to 20% if you wish, but many who just stop in do not tip as much for carry-out. Sometimes this is 10% as a general rule. On deliveries, you usually tip the same amount you would tip a waiter or server. Sometimes it can be more and sometimes it can be less, and sometimes rain or cold or other extreme weather or distance factors in on how much you tip.
10. Types of Restaurants and Services
Everyone knows that they do not have traditional waiters or servers at most fast food restaurants. Those employees are on salaries or on an hourly basis. Fast food or quick casual is obviously cheaper than fine dining. That is a simple rule of thumb that won’t surprise anyone. What about knowing what you want costs different prices at different types of venues?
Pizza is an easy example here: you can order delivery from your phone or by an app, you can do a pick-up, you can go to a full service restaurant or a counter-order fast casual experience; and you can even go to a buffet. The prices here can differ greatly, as can how much you have to pay in tips and for the overall ambiance. If you just want pizza picking your type of destination can save you massively, as pizza specials may run $6.00 to $8.00 per pie — versus the high-teens or in the $20s for specialty pizzas at full service restaurants.
11. Leftovers — Doggy Bags and Brown Bags
Many people on a first date might not want to take food home, but the reality is that restaurant portions can be huge or customers can easily over-order. By taking home your leftovers you might not recognize the saving there on the spot, but consider that this is a free meal or part of a free meal the next day or later that day.
One report was made by Andrea Woroch about how much brown bagging it can save workers. Her point was about being too lazy to brown bag — and how that could save you $20.00 per week. Imagine saving $1,043 per year just by brown bagging — it might not be dining out and saving money the classic way, but it saves your overall annual spending on food that you might have otherwise spent.
Brown-bagging and taking leftovers is a serious money-saver. It’s the same concept as making a big dish of pasta for several days rather than one cooking one dish each days — it’s almost always cheaper (even if it is just time-spent) to buy the ingredients and prepare three meals at once than it is when you buy just for one meal.
12. Desserts, Coffee, After-Dinner Drinks
Many people who dine out love to have the sweets and goodies when they go out for dinner. Eating desserts or having coffee after dinner can be costly, as can having after dinner drinks.
Just one coffee and one dessert can easily cost $10.00 or more at a restaurant, even before considering your extra taxes and additional tipping costs. If you must have these, consider splitting a dessert if you are out as a couple or as a group. Skipping this portion of the meal is also certain to save you seriously on your intake of the bad calories.
Add up $10.00 plus your tax and tips, then imagine what the cost is just once a week for coffee and dessert — $520 a year.
There are of course other ways to save money eating out. We just wanted to give you some new ideas for savings or using what you already do to help give savings tips. Many people who dine out can easily save themselves money, maybe even well over $1,000 if they want to.
Imagine if each adult diner in America really did manage to save $500 per year on average. That could be billions and billions of dollars cumulatively per year that the public gets to spend elsewhere — or even put into savings and investments.
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