Money Saving 101: Groupons

(Our blogger today is one of our team members, Lindsey, who helps teach our Money Smart programs in the Pittsburgh area.)

My husband and I go out to dinner, on average, about once a week. As we all know, going out to eat can get pretty pricey. How have we have managed to go out and stay within our budget? By using Groupons!

The whole point of using a Groupon or Living Social deal (or any number of those companies) is to save money. Most Groupons are usually something like $15 for a $30 voucher to a restaurant, so you’ll end up paying $15 for $30 worth of food at whatever restaurant you’ve bought the voucher for.  

The key to saving money with Groupons or any sort of ‘deal’ is staying within the limits of that voucher. The trap that many people fall into (and restaurants count on happening) is spending more than what your Groupon is for. Example: if you go the restaurant, get appetizers, a round of drinks and two entrees chances are, it is going to cost more than $30 (especially if it is a higher priced place by default). Say your total bill was $57 and you have the $30 Groupon bringing it to $27. What many people forget is that they already spend $15 on the Groupon. So, in reality, you’ve spent $42!  

This means planning ahead if it is a place you have never been to by going online and seeing what sort of prices you will be dealing with. If it is going to be more than the value of your deal, be creative! We have gone to places just for appetizers and drinks, a less expensive lunch date or even for some late night espresso and dessert with friends. When we know we are going to go to a place and spend over the amount due to a special occasion, like an anniversary, we plan ahead and adjust our budget accordingly.

By staying within limits of our deal, we have been able to save money while still being able to eat out or do any number of activities. We spend about $10 - $20 on any given Groupon. If we were to say that we go out to eat five times in one month using five Groupons at $15 that is only $75 a month. If we had gone out to eat without the Groupons, this could have cost us $150 easily, if not more than that.

We also use them to save money while we travel. Did you realize you can get Groupons or Living Social deals for almost every major city, not just in the US? When traveling, check out the Groupon or Living Social site for that city and see what is out there! Maybe you’re on vacation at the beach and there is a jet ski Groupon you could use. We recently did this when we were visiting Toronto and had a marvelous time each night eating out at local dining that we never would have known about. It was delicious and we were saving money on vacation.

An added bonus we have discovered while using Groupons or Living Social is that it makes us try new places and new things. We have done activities and gone to restaurants we never would have thought to try before and it breaks up the same ‘dinner and a movie’ routine. Why not dinner at an Indonesian restaurant and then going to a play while you are saving money? Don’t mind if I do!