Eat Cheap- Spend a few bucks at Restaurant.com to save big bucks at your local eatery!

There are two things I love in this world besides my wife and kids: saving money and eating out. If I can do both at the same time, even better. Lately, what with gas prices going sky high and my new job, money has been a little tight lately, so when I was on the lookout for different ways to save money and still do what I love, my friend Allison came to the rescue.

Thank you Allison!
(source: unknown)

She told me about Restaurant.com. Here's an example of how it works: Buy a $50 gift certificate for $10 from the long list of restaurants in your area. They have a contract with Restaurants.com to accept the certificate and in the unlikely event your certificate is denied, you'll get your money back. You can search for a place by name or zip code.

Is it legit? Allison seems to think so and has used the service several times with full satisfaction. Also, the site has more than 18,000 "likes" on Facebook, so that's promising.

There are a few minor catches: all are local restaurants (no chains that I could find), Drinks are not included and the tip is to be computed before the discount is taken- although this is standard for all discounts. Finally, you have to spend a up to certain amount before you can redeem the certificate (easy with a family). This is Ok with me as we have several locally-owned favorite places we frequent and one well-liked Mexican restaurant three blocks from my house is on the list, so you can be pretty sure I'll be buying a certificate soon.

BTW, if this seems like a commercial for the site, it isn't. I have no connection whatsoever with Restaurant.com. I just love saving money and feeding a family of five ain't cheap and if there's a way to keep a few dollars in my pocket and frequent a local business, I'm in.

Go to Restaurant.com here and don't forget to tip your waiters!

Let's Save the Economy and Spend Some Money!

I've decided that economy has taken long enough to recover and it's time to take the reins and fix it ourselves. To that end, here are some websites to save you money while you spend money. There are thousands of sites like these, but I can vouch for these specific sites as I've used them myself.

The first is a site called Coupongirl.com This site continually lists bargains and deals, coupons and other deals that will save you money on products you need. During the holiday buying season, this site morphs into another site called "BlackFriday.com". They dig around and find early releases of the infamous Black Friday sales that most stores have the day after Thanksgiving. Whatever the name, this site can save you money.

The next site is woot.com. I can't explain the unusual name, but I can explain the great deals. The hook here is that one product per day is offered at an incredible price. This site may take some persistence because it may be days before you see a product that grabs your attention, but when an item appears that you need or want, grab it, because you may not have another chance to get it at the same low price. It's worth checking every morning for the best deals.

Newspapers are struggling and one of the reasons is craigslist.org. Think of Craigslist as online classified ads. You can look up your town (or thousands of towns across the world) and look for deals on cars, apartments, furniture, pets, jobs and anything else you can imagine. You'll be able to sift through the ads by price, date, photos, keyword and find the item you want at the price you need. Like paper classifieds, it's in your best interest to tread carefully and inspect all purchases before buying.

Great deals take a little effort. Money is hard to come by these days and a little effort is nothing if it keeps bills in your wallet and change in your pocket.