Man, if eating out isn’t a category that could wreck anyone’s budget let alone a big family. Below are ways we are able to eat out without depleting our bank account. I hope these tips help you save money next time you and your family treat yourselves to a meal out!
Use Restuarant Gift Cards
For Birthdays and Christmas Sam, myself, and our kids will pick a favorite restaurant and put that on our wish list for family asking for gift ideas. Typically, when we do this, we can get a nice stash of gift cards and then plan ahead and use these to make eating out happen for our family. If we use them wisely, we can get a few meals or fun desserts from them.
Other times we have saved our change until we have a Quart sized Mason Jar filled and take that money to deposit at a CoinStar machine. Then cash out with a Gift Card to a restaurant that our family enjoys.
Use Coupons + Kids Eat Free
Use Coupons when eating out. Or check out restaurants where kids can eat free. Before eating out, we see if we have any Gift Cards to use. Then check to see if we happen to have any Coupons to pair with the Gift Card or perhaps just use the Coupon on its own.
Some restaurants offer family value meals now and others offer nights where kids eat free. Keep a list of these restaurants and refer to it on a night Mom is too tired to cook, and all the Gift Cards and Coupons are gone.
Limit Eating Out
Eating out multiple times a week would get EXPENSIVE for our big family. Just trying to feed everyone at McDonalds or Chick-fil-A is upwards of $50. We have learned that in order for our whole family to eat out we have to limit this to maybe once or twice a month. Maybe we rotate through having a Pizza Night, ordering from various Pizza joints each week. This helps to see what our kids like and what will feed everyone without blowing a crazy amount of money. Or we stock up on Frozen Pizza during a weekly sale to make this a reality. Taco Night is another idea or even Breakfast for dinner. Our kids love getting the Breakfast Family Feast with Waffles from Ihop. This is enough to feed us all and at times have leftovers.
Another option is to save eating out for special occasions such as Birthdays OR Holidays. Anniversaries OR Big Milestones. We usually do donuts on Birthdays and take the Birthday person out somewhere they want to eat another day that week when we can have someone come watch the rest of the kids. Or maybe the Birthday child choses one parent to go with if we can’t get childcare.
Rethink Eating Out
Rather than order a whole meal rethink eating out. Maybe just do donuts for BF and pair it with fruit and cereal from home. Treat the kids to ice cream out after eating dinner at home. Forget the kids’ meals and order a bunch of chicken nuggets or hamburgers and a few large orders of fries instead.
More Creative Ways to Eat Out?
Please share them with us in the comments. Or be sure to check out more topics from our Big Family Logistics Series. Next Wednesday I discuss how we cloth our big family of 8.
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