Careful studying of menus can save you a lot of money on eating out

[purplefdu]

Originally Posted by MoneyTrev

You can buy less drinks and share it. That's a common strategy I see people use. Then using the free refill, you can save more!

My dad has seen truck drivers just go into a McDonalds with a McDonald cup and use the free refill so they pay essentially zero but my family never does that as it is unethical.

Not all restaurants allow you to share, especially if they realize you are cutting costs by doing so on drinks, apps, entrees, etc. Other than apps/desserts it pretty much not common to share things.

As for taking in the plastic large drink cups, I used to delight in turning those people out on their ear. Our McDs was in a busy tourist strip and we got tons of kids who thought they could cheat and buy a drink Monday and fill it up the rest of the week. Doesn't work when the same person works all week and has a photographic memory. The cops will arrest you for theft for doing this should the store decide to press charges....sad but sometimes needed.

[Johansen8]

Originally Posted by amyschiff

Drinking water is a HUGE money saver when eating out. At one of the restaurants the boyfriend and I frequent, I had started cutting back on costs by drinking iced tea instead of pop because it was $0.99 instead of $1.59. It saved 60 cents just doing that.

I switched to water when they started charging $1.59 for iced tea. If we both get water instead of pop, we save over $3.00 per meal.

At another restaurant we once ate at pops were $2.29.... I was pretty much appalled. Sure, you do get free refills but I barely ever need one, and I don't like to drink a lot of pop anyway.

My boyfriend tips too much in my opinion when we go out to eat, always 30% no matter how good or bad the service is. He's generally a nice guy..I just want to help him to save some $$ but dont want to look too cheap myself.