Sponsored Giveaway: One Year of Unlimited BlackboardEats Passcodes
I just mentioned it the other day, but I’ll say it again: I’m a sucker for restaurant deals. As a kid I used to love reading through the chunky Entertainment Book (they still make these!) dreaming of exotic places to go like The Melting Pot even though my family only used the fast food-ish coupons…oh, do I miss Taco Time.
I’ll almost be sad when the economy gets stronger and discounts get their stigma back (at least in NYC). But in the mean time I’ve been using Scoutmob (free), VillageVines not so much because it costs $10 and BlackboardEats (recently raised to $1, likely to compete with VillageVines). I just used BlackboardEats for Mary Queen of Scots and have been holding onto a deal for The Mermaid Inn until Lent (no, I’m not Catholic, but someone in my household seems to get religious this time every year, and I’m here with the 30% off fish).
If you want to join in on the savings fun and live in or near NYC, Los Angeles or San Francisco, I have two BlackboardEats annual memberships (worth $20) to give away free. Currently, there is a special for 30% off Lowcountry (NYC) and deals for Mozza2Go (LA) and an offal menu at Betelnut (SF) showcasing fish head curry, one of my favorite dishes, are coming soon.
All you have to do is type the cheapest thing you ever did into the comments. I will pick two winners (I think I’m supposed to say at random) next Tuesday, March 15. Don’t be shy.
I’ll get you started. For me, it was patronizing a nameless Chinese restaurant in Portland that everyone called Dollar Chinese Food in the ground floor a hospital that served, well, $1 Chinese food. You’d get a scoop of rice, small, flimsy all-cabbage egg roll and a choice from the steam table, often kung pao chicken that was 85% chopped celery and carrots, all served on a paper plate. But it only cost one dollar!
Your turn.
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I don’t want to take the potential to win away from one of your usually-quiet friends, BUT I needed to share with you the cheapest thing someone I know did since you happened to mention the Entertainment Book.
No one can ever use up an entire Entertainment Book, right? It just can’t be done. And we all know that going into it. But that’s no excuse to tear out the coupons you want before giving it away as a Christmas gift to your sister-in-law. Still, that’s exactly what my best friend’s sister-in-law did. And it wasn’t, like, “Here’s just a little gift we threw in at the last moment, hoping maybe you’d get some use out of the coupons we didn’t need.” It was, “This is your entire gift, but we really wanted that BOGO movie ticket coupon, so we took it.”
I went out with a guy who served me dinner made up entirely of food he took from his company’s lunch salad bar. It took him a few days to accumulate everything he needed. I later tried to get him to go to a place on 9th Ave that was buy one entree get one free with an Entertainment Book coupon, figuring it would appeal to his sense of thrift, but he wouldn’t go. He thought the place was too trendy.
So that isn’t really me being thrifty, but I am still working my Wendys Halloween coupon book for free Frosties.
The ultimate desperation — trying to make doggie bags from left over party platter sushi. Not something you should try and make last.
The other cheap low point: trying to steal items from the hotel breakfast bar (fruit, yogurt, cereal, pb tubs, bagels).
Ok, these are all pretty good, though I might have to say Lesley’s is the worst because it was someone else being cheap and inflicting it on others–a date, no less. I also appreciate that the Entertainment Book plays a prominent role here too.