Thank you, JustUss2 for the pre-approval!

Colleagues, not every dinner must be prepared and eaten at home, and dining out is recognized as a good opportunity for UA time. Dining out can cost less, if you'd like.

There is a website called www.restaurant.com that sells discount dining certificates. Nominally the deal is that one pays $10 and receives a serialized e-coupon, easily printed, for $25 off at the restaurant chosen. (There are similar higher denomination offers.) Use of the $25 coupon usually entails a commitment to spend at least $50 at the establishment. (Again higher denominations behave proportionally.) So in effect, the $10 coupon price means the $50 meal costs the user $35. A good, but not earth-shattering, deal.

But....the site through 31 January is running a sale for current customers. The $25 coupon is now reduced to $4, so the nominal $50 meal would be $29 out of pocket.

What I do is wait for a sale like this, and buy 10 - 20 coupons to local restaurants, and use them over a year (They NEVER expire, and if a restaurant closes, you can "swap" for any coupons on their site.)

If interested, go to www.restaurant.com/yum. You'll have to open a free account, with a credit card, supplying your e-address and a password. Then put in your zip-code to find the places in your area that are participating, or any other zip-code, if you know you'll be travelling, for instance. Select your chosen coupons, send them to your electronic basket, and when you're done, check out. At check-out you'll see in the upper right corner (not hidden) a place to enter "yum" again. That will signal the system to apply the discount to the coupon purchases. Then hit "Complete Transaction" or whatever, and your card will be charged the discounted rate. Your coupons will usually be available for printing right away, or you can come back to your account some other time for printing.

Bride and I use this a lot, and it's not as disconcerting as a newspaper tear-out coupon, because the item has printed on it "Gift Certificate" (which by the way, we've used as stocking-stuffers for our three adult children.

Thanks NG, really appreciate it.

Another option is splitting a meal. Last night, we could have easily split the meal my husband got!!! Most of the time the portion sizes are WAY too big.

Other options: going on a picnic.

Just adding those if you live in a rural area like I do where those kind of deals don't really work!

We've bought certificates through restaurant.com. It's a great site with a lot of good deals.

Another thing we do is buy an Entertainment Guide every year. If you wait a month or two after the new books come out in November, you can usually pick one up for $20 or less. They have tons of coupons for local restaurants, including some buy-one-get-one-free deals. In addition to restaurants, they also have discounts to many local museums and attractions.

We almost never go anywhere without a coupon!

Thanks NG.

I found something similar. Here in the Mpls/St. Paul area they have the Twin Cities Daily Deals. Everyday I get a new email of the day's new deal and if I chose to get a certificate I go to their website and purchase them online.

The certificates you can buy are in wide variety ... things like entertainment, restaurants, material things and services. I'm a golfer and they have plenty of cheap golf deals. So I look everyday for that great deal. I've used this quite a few times.

I also look everyday for that 1/2 price Marriage Builders certificate. So far ... nothing.

We really like splitting meals because it gives us a chance to try appetizers without getting too full. We avoid doggie bags because they end up in the trash.

Restauraunts.com seems to re-stock their gift certificates at the beginning of the month, and as the month goes on the deals get better, but the selection thins out. If you sign up for their e-mails they will send you coupon codes to drop the prices. I have gotten $10 certificates on this site before for under a dollar by hitting their extreme sales.

I have gotten $10 certificates on this site before for under a dollar by hitting their extreme sales.

Wow! Even better!!! Why don't you make it a point to flag us all here when one of those super-sales comes along?

Groupon is also great. I have paid $5 for $20 at various restaurants and gotten tickets to local events 90% off.

Living Social is another good deal site.

We're going out tonight on a Groupon for dinner and a radio deal for event (BBQ and toboganning at the public chutes).

www.siezethedeal.com has daily deals that are usually a 50% off of goods or services, but is available for limited cities.

I would assume it will expand as time goes on...

For my city today is $20 of food and beverages for $10 at a local eatery.

For anyone still interested in trying the restaurant.com offer, I just learned the code word has been changed to BOWL, as in "Super----".