Eating out is great, gives a fun relaxing time with good food, the chance to meet up with friends and family, and no mess to clean up afterwards. We all think of eating out as something we do as a treat, it costs more generally than cooking at home does, so when we’re in a recession as we are now, it’s often one of the many things that we take off our ‘to do’ lists assuming that we can’t afford it.
If you’re clever however, it can be possible to have good meals out with friends, enjoy that relaxing atmosphere and still not spend too much. One of the best ways to do this is to look for restaurant discounts and vouchers, and to remember that if you were eating at home you would still be spending something. If you start by saying that a cheap meal at home for 4 people might cost you £2-4 per head, then you can effectively knock that much off the cost of what you spend when you go out as you’d be spending it anyway. If you can then reduce the cost of the meal out by using a discount voucher then you can further reduce how much you’re spending and often the cost can work out very little more than you might have spent eating at home.
Restaurants at the moment are out to seduce you, they want you to spend your money with them instead of their competitors so many of them are offering some really excellent deals from two for the price of one meals, to free deserts when you eat a main course, or an amount off when you spend a specific amount. Obviously if a restaurant is offering more than one deal you’ll need to think hard before you decide which deal is going to save you the most too.
If you’re uncertain where to look for discount codes of this nature, try sites such as http://restaurantvouchers.org.uk/ where they list as many discount vouchers as possible to try and help you to save as much as possible.
It’s also worth thinking about when you go for your meal, it’s often more expensive to go in the evening, or at a weekend, and there are some excellent deals to be had midweek. A local well known carvery near me offers roast dinner meals at just £3.59 per person Monday to Saturday during the daytime for example, but the same meal cost increases to around £6 per person if you go in the evening and is even more on a Sunday.
Some current deals at the moment are:
40% off Wagamamma
£1 meals at Zizzi’s
