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:
Frugal Flip 