When we first were married, we made the choice to live on one income (the lower of our two incomes), and save the other income for a house and to raise a family. That meant we didn’t go out to eat a lot, if at all. But boy did it pay off!
Here we are 10 years later with three little kids and occasionally we can eat out! What a true blessing it is, on some of the longer days for a mom to not have to make dinner, right?
Still in our frugal habits, we look to save whenever we can, especially when eating out. One of our favorite places to eat out as a family is Applebees because we can eat there for practically free by utilizing the secrets and tips we’ve learned over the years.
Here’s how we eat out for practically free at Applebees.
1. We eat out on Tuesday nights, after 5pm. The Ephrata Appleebees allows 2 kids to eat FREE for every one adult entree. Woohoo! Call your local Applebee’s first to make sure they offer a kids eat free night on Tuesday too, and verify the details. You can also check out the full list of Where Kids Eat FREE in Lancaster County.
2. We eat off the 2 for $20 menu, the under $10 menu (only offered at special times – check their website before you go!), or share an entree (since 2 Kids eat FREE for every 1 adult entree purchased).
3. We only order water to drink. This is just something we’ve always done to save when eating out—and since we are perfectly satisfied with water, we have no reason to change. Plus adding a $2 beverage to your meal can really break your budget quickly!
4. We redeem rewards for Applebee’s giftcards from our credit cards rewards or swagbucks, to help pay for our purchases.
5. When we don’t have a gift card to Applebee’s already, we purchase discounted gift cards through Raise.com (get a $5 credit off your first purchase), where we save up to 17% on the giftcard.
6. We sign up for the Applebee’s email club to get a coupon for a FREE treat around our birthday. They always let us redeem this coupon on kids eat free nights!
7. We watch for special offers like $5 off your first online or app order over $25 if you use the code 50off25. We usually find these offers on their website or in emails.
Discover is offering $50 Cashback Bonus to new customers who make their first purchase in THREE months! Now that’s an easy $50!!
Full disclosure: we don’t recommend signing up for credit cards unless you are able to use them like a debit card. We never encourage going into debt! We use ours as if it were our bank account, and never spend anything on it that we don’t already have sitting in our bank account.
