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Cutting Costs When Dining Out (and It Includes Wine!)

I do believe that one of the easiest ways to save money is to not dine out, but as I said before, I also try not to deprive myself. Everyone has to enjoy life sometimes. I try to limit myself to eating out once a week. And it is difficult, because more often than not, socializing seems to revolve around food. But when I do, I do my best not to pay full price. This is how my friends and I cut corners when we went out for dinner last week.

There is a free service called Blackboard Eats that has 30% off deals in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Subscribing is free, and if they list a deal for a restaurant that you want to frequent, you sign up for a unique passcode that you give to your server and usually have about 2 months to use. Couldn’t be simpler. I’m sure they get some kind of commission from the restaurant. Last year, they tried charging $1 per passcode, many frugal people like me just stopped signing up for them, and they quickly went back to their free system.

I had a BBE 30% passcode for a Mexican place I’d been wanting to try called Tinga. This was the damage for 3 people:

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Categories Dining, Food, Wine

BlogHer ’12 – Part Two: What I Spent While I Was There

10 Aug

My flight arrived at JFK at 5:30 am on Thursday morning. While I never have any problem sleeping on planes, it was still only a 5-hour flight, and it was really 2:30 in the morning Los Angeles time.

Thursday

Right next to my baggage claim carousel was a Dunkin’ Donuts. This was clearly a sign, as there is no Dunkin’ Donuts within a 50-mile radius of where I live. The only way we can get DD coffee in southern California is to find it in a grocery store and brew it yourself. So, hell yes, I was going to get me some. I got an almond-flavored iced coffee for $3.78.

To get to Manhattan, taking a cab from the airport didn’t make frugal sense since I was traveling alone. Flat fare to get into Midtown is $45, plus any tolls and tip. If I had been able to share a cab with one or two others, it might have been worth it. I was originally looking for a group van or Super Shuttle to take in for about $15-20. After reading too many horror stories about pretty much all the companies on Yelp, I opted to take the AirTrain. From there, I transferred to the E line, which took me to the 53^rd and Lexington stop, 5 short blocks north of my hotel. It took about an hour and 15 minutes, but I took my time because it was the crack of dawn anyway. When my BFF came in on Wednesday evening, it took her over 2 hours in a cab because of rush hour.

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