Monday, May 02, 2011:
I’m trying to win an iPad 2 in the iSave, iWrite, iPad competition from PlayPennies.com! So I was inspired to write this blog.
I love eating out, trying new foods and going to new places but I also like saving my money. Whilst I've normally found 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' ring true . You can get a discount lunch quite easily and find some pretty great deals.
I very rarely pay full price for a meal and you'd be surprised how willing restaurants are to give you a deal to get your custom.
When eating out. Do a bit of research before you decide where to go. I love using top table I've now got their app on my iphone and successfully managed to get late in the day bookings for tables in Paris and Warwick (which gets surprisingly busy on a Saturday) recently. Also the reviews are great to find out what is hot or not. Each time you book, attend and review a restaurant you build points for a free meal. They often run competitions and promotions. I've had a few great free meals. Do watch out though as your points are lost if you don't use them in a year.
There are lots of other sites that you can use to get deals and I have lots of apps on my iphone so normally if I'm eating out I do a search before going in anywhere.
I've got apps for Vouchercloud, qype as well as toptable on my phone.
Also get on the email list for places like Pizza express, yo sushi, ping pong, Leon as they often do great offers.
Get a ping pong loyalty card as they were giving away £10 of free food on it when you registered it.
Look out for local offers to you they are often run with local papers, I've seen great deals in London through the Evening Standard, Metro and Timeout.
If you eat out loads it may be worth buying a taste card or something similar. To be honest I've not found these worthwhile and there are lots of offers free out there.
Grazing. There are places you can go to like markets such as Borough Market where you can graze on free samples and get enough to stack up to a meal. You will get looks though if it is too obvious that you have no intention of buying also you are likely to end up with a meal mostly made up of bits of cheese, sausage, bread with oils and dips. Hmmmm sounds delicious to me. The best places to try this are busy places so you may not get noticed if you go round for a second swoop.
I love the current macdonalds monopoly competition. If you are a shameless wombleler like me then you may not mind picking up disgarded wrapper on the flood if they still have the stickers on. Lots of them pay out with free food.
Also if anything goes wrong with any food complain and you may get a free meal of vouchers. I got given the wrong pie from Eat twice and got a free meal. Also I had some odd mould fungus in a uncle bens rice pouch and they sent me £30 of vouchers, although after projectile vomiting eating it, I don't think I'll be eating one of those again
Another thing I'd highly recommend to get money off in supermarkets is get to know your local supermarket staff. Work out what sort of time they discount food. I used to charm the discount man at Tesco and he'd often stick a special discount on for me. Also if you are a Clubcard points collector I recommend exchanging your vouchers for restaurant vouchers, you now get three times the value so if you have £10 in tesco vouchers you get £30 in restaurant vouchers and you can use them at places like Cafe Rouge and the Strada. Have a look here.
So this may sound really naff but also look out for food that may be wasted if you work in a big office. Often after meetings whole trays of sandwiches or croissants may get binned so look out for this sort of thing and maybe try to swoop.
Basically there are lots of deals and offers out there you just need to keep your eyes open and search them out.
H // Monday, May 02, 2011 // 0 comments
Thanks for popping by. This is my random blog. Stuff about my life, places I've been, adventures I've gone on. I'm going to be doing some reviews this year too of beauty stuff and other things. I've won 22 holidays in 5 years. I've got married in May 2012, yes I won my wedding but not the groom. I did get together with my husband taking part in a competition! Please feel free to comment.
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