<p>BB, Never heard of Claim Jumper… which state are you in?</p>
<p>I’m in WA, and I think they are a West Coast phenomenon.</p>
<p>Where we live, all you can eat sushi and all you can eat Indian are popular and inexpensive (and great when family members have such different preferences). Dim-sum for weekend lunches are good value too.</p>
<p>Oh for those near NYC…Benny’s Burritos. THE BEST value anywhere, located in the west village. Oh how I miss their big margaritas…</p>
<p>Ditto, Indian buffets. We have an Indian restaurant that charges $7.99 during the week for lunch. They also offer it as take out and you may fill up a very large container. I have purchased these at lunch and then just reheated for our dinner. </p>
<p>I don’t go, but my mother loves to go to Happy Hours. She orders coffee rather than liquor and then she eats dinner! I was surprised to learn that a lot places let her do that!</p>
<p>Many pizza places have Monday and Tuesday pizzas at a reduced price.</p>
<p>We used to purchase discount books that have 2 for the price of 1 offers. I have not purchased those for several years, so I do not know if they are still available.</p>
<p>We have Claim Jumper here in the Chicago area.</p>
<p>I wish, wish, wish we had Wegmans here. I’m getting increasingly frustrated with our local grocery store chains. Not much to write home about.</p>
<p>We haven’t had Schlotzsky’s in several years now… they closed them all down around here.</p>
<p>I admit - I have never heard of half of these places. I need to get a life!</p>
<p>I am all into saving money. At the same time, I am just very suspicious of restaurants that could offer food cheaper than what we could cook at home. My husband cooks and he doesn’t let us eat too much processed food. My favorite food is Kentucky Fried chicken, but he’ll let me have it only a few times a year.</p>
<p>My daughter gained 10 lbs last year boarding at her school as a freshman. This year living at her sorority where the cook makes meals more from fresh ingredients, she has been able to keep her weight down.</p>
<p>I also am not saying expensive restaurants necessary do not use processed food, and that’s why we don’t eat out as much as we used to.</p>
<p>At school, we usually get Qdoba 2 for 1 coupons in our mailboxes about once a semester, plus if you show your student ID, you can get a free drink. Their burritos are big too, so I usually only eat about half of one, put the other half in the fridge, and freeze the other whole one. It works out to be about 4 meals for ~$6.75…not bad. :)</p>
<p>Someone mentioned not buying drinks to save money - no kidding - it is a rare day that I order anything to drink besides water. Got my kids trained pretty well too - beverages hold no thrill for me as long as the water is good tasting!!! </p>
<p>Gotta second the Chinese ideas…we can order 2 dinner meals from our local place for about $15 and that will feed 4 of us generously with enough left over for my lunch to take to work.</p>
<p>My husband and I love to go out and have a nice meal, even when we are trying to save money! I have convinced my husband that we should either each get a salad and then share an entree, or we both save half of our meal and take it home for leftovers the next night. I figure this way we get to enjoy our nice meal and a night out. I am still trying to get him not to order a diet coke and drink water, but I believe he is a lost cause.</p>
<p>Here’s the good deals I’ve been seeing:</p>
<p>Hungry Howie’s $4.99 large cheese pizza on Wednesday
Macaroni Grille $9.99 full meals (salad, entree, dessert)
Pizza Hut 2 medium pizzas, 2 orders of breadsticks, 2-liter soda for $19.99</p>
<p>Oh, and if you have one in your area, go to Skyline Chili for some really good, cheap food.</p>
<p>And everyone should have that hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that serves up some good food.</p>
<p>Hi, BunsenBurner! I live on Oahu & we could use some visitors in our state. The good thing is that crowds are thin, so you shouldn’t have to fight for reservations and should be able to see and do what you want without as much crowd as we sometimes have, especially in the winter when it’s cold elsewhere.</p>
<p>We rarely ever order anything to drink other than water–would much rather splurge on an appetizer or dessert than drinks anyway. We are trying to figure out where to go to celebrate D’s 19th birthday tomorrow. Might go somewhere she gets a free meal; we’ll see. There are a few restaurants that offer free meal to the birthday person but sometimes they aren’t restaurants we’d normally go to so we’ll have to think it over.</p>
<p>We buy an Entertainment Book each year from a local group—buy one get one or half off at a lot of restuarants, discount movie tickets, etc</p>
<p>Restaurants.com is having a promotion enter DESSERT at checkout and $25 certificates are just $3…don’t forget to read the fine print about minium orders, etc.</p>
<p>Trader Joes has a lot of stuff that you can take home and heat. It’s nice when you don’t feel like a sit-down or like waiting in line for fast-food.</p>
<p>The Entertainment book used to be good but has lost a lot of the restaurants we used to like & hasn’t been that much of a value recently so we are not sure whether we’ll want it from now on. We had been using it for over a decade but hardly any of us used it much this year.</p>
<p>I never did well with the Entertainment Book though I have friends who use it faithfully. You have to be diligent about using it. I find it better to just see what coupons are on the web. It seems like the same old restaurants are in that book.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, I’ve only read up to your post (#6) so far and can see that we are kindred spirits. My kids tease that my tombstone will read: Buried here because she had a coupon.</p>
<p>Appetizers and/or desserts are a fun & less expensive way of being “pampered.” I love ordering things I’d never make but enjoy eating. We’ll probably be going out for dessert to celebrate D’s birthday today (dinner reservations were only available at 9pm at the restaurant we were thinking of). Hubby made a delicous yummy smoked turkey instead for dinner & we should be ready for dessert by the time the restaurant has seating.</p>
<p>Actually, I am working on those coupons. I am the champion of misplaced coupons. I collect them and have them until I want to use them. Really annoying. It’s galling to me that so many things around here are so discounted if you only have the coupon. Just saw 30% printable coupons at couponcabin for Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic. I don’t shop much for clothes, but I had just picked up a set of velour sweats that I wanted to replace a damaged set that I wore a lot. Got them inexpensively, but 30% off would have been even better. Missed it by a couple of weeks. Got a lot of things on my list that we needed at the Christmas Tree Shop at 20% off. I never shop at the book stores without the coupons, and even then I try to use the library or the used paperback shop and exchange. I was spending too much on books.</p>