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tell them it’s your birthday
Many restaurants and fast food chains
have a birthday or anniversary club. All
you have to do is sign up through the
restaurant’s website and when your
birthday is near, you’ll receive a
coupon via email. As a taste of what’s
on offer, all Subway customers with a
Subcard receive a free cookie and small
drink with any sub, salad or wrap
purchase on their birthday. Sumo Salad
gifts a salad to members on their happy
day and those with the Hungry Jacks
app get a free Whopper to celebrate.
Not all offers have to be redeemed on
your actual birthday so if you plan well,
you can eat free all month!3
eat at certain times
They say the early bird catches the
dinner at Firsttable.com.au. Here,
restaurants list the time their first table
is available, and if you don’t mind
eating dinner before the sun goes
down you’ll save 50 per cent.
Here’s how it works: you pay $10 to
book a “first table” at participating
restaurants and in return you get 50 per
cent off the food bill for two to four
diners. Drinks are excluded. Be sure
to arrive on time though, because if
you’re just 15 minutes late the
deal is off! If you happen to be in
Melbourne, Kobo Jones, a Japanese
restaurant which sits on the banks of
the Yarra River, starts its first table at
a respectable 6pm and that includes
Saturday nights. If you’re keen to try this
site, it’s worth Googling for a promo
discount code on the $10 booking fee.
There’s usually one on offer which
reduces it from $10 to $5.Light touch Muse credit card
sleeve in Basket Print, $49.95, Oroton.If wining and dining is your financial Achilles heel, our resident finance
expert Effie Zahos has some savvy suggestions for eating out on the cheap
money moves
to make
HOW TO EARN & SAVE
advice
pay before you eat
You can often get better deals by
paying ahead. Group buying sites like
Groupon, Scoopon and Cudo offer
daily deals with discounts of up
to 70 per cent. You simply pick
a deal you like, pay for it and the site
then gives you a voucher to redeem.
A deal on Groupon, for example,
can have you dining on a seafood
platter for two at Tokio Restaurant
in Sydney’s Darling Harbour for just
$49 – a saving of 59 per cent. The
catch? It’s a weekday-only deal and
numbers are limited. Terms and
conditions vary depending on the
offer and the site, so it pays to read
the fine print around the days and
times you can book your table plus
the expiry date. For a snapshot of
the best deals across the major
group buying sites, check out
comparison sites like Allthedeals.
com.au or Spreets.com.au.1
@reallivingmag
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