How Can You Stretch Your Entertainment Dollars?
Every family deserves a night out once in a while – even those with the tightest of budgets. Here are some tips for stretching your entertainment dollars.
Restaurants across the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex have set nights when kids eat free. In most cases, they comp one child for each paying adult, but conditions vary. Click here for a fairly comprehensive list of restaurants and their rules, but don’t stop there. If your favorite restaurant isn’t on the list, call them. If your restaurant is on the list, but your city isn’t listed, call your location to inquire.
2 for $20
Chili’s and Applebees restaurants both offer special menus that enable two adults to eat for $20. At Chili’s, you get one appetizer to share, two dinner entrees and one dessert to share. Applebees gives you one appetizer to share and two entrees. Drinks are not included in the $20 price.
If you love the big screen but hate the big price, see the matinee. Both AMC and Cinemark offer $5 tickets across the board for any movie that starts before noon, any day of the week. If you sign up for their movie cards, a coupon for free or discounted refreshments is usually attached to the ticket. In the summer, both of these movie chains also offer free and $1 movies on set mornings. Schedules and details will be on their websites in the spring. Of course, you can always do a search for dollar movie theaters on Google.
Rent Movies
Family Video’s new releases are $3 or less for five nights. Family Video also has an entire kid section at every location with hundreds of FREE rentals – no purchase necessary. Membership is free, and all rentals are half price the first month. After that, renew your half price option for $9.95 a month. Your local movie rental store may offer similar deals.
Movie Trading Company buys, rents and sells videos. Consider buying an older $5 DVD at Wal-Mart or Big Lots and trade it to Movie Trading Company when you’re done with it. Watch the one you got on trade, then trade that in, and keep the cycle going.
Netflix is the largest online movie rental service. Rent as many movies as you can watch starting at 8.99 a month. Blockbuster online offers a similar service for movie downloads. Blockbuster also offers unlimited video gaming starting at $15 a month.
Bowling
Register your kids at kidsbowlfree.com and get two free games per child all summer long at participating bowling alleys.
Coupons and Special Deals
Entertainment Pass Books are filled with hundreds of discounts on food, attractions, groceries and even travel. Plus, there are more deals online at entertainment.com. The 2010 books are now just $22.75 with free shipping.
Online merchants like adpages.com and restaurant.com offer steep discounts on restaurant gift certificates. Get $25 certificates for as low as $2 and feed your own family.
And, never overlook websites for your favorite restaurants and attractions. You can often get serious discounts by signing up for e-mail newsletters offers.
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