Good eats from Restaurant.com

I posted earlier about the huge 80% off sale at restaurants.com.
We are on vacation this week and we debated about going out of town but decided to stay here.
So, we've been doing fun stuff around the area and using some of the $25 gift certificates I bought for $2 during this sale.

Last night, we went to eat at this fantastic Italian restaurant after going to our great friend's birthday party at a jump place. This is a local chain and their food is wonderful. The garlic rolls are to die for! We both got the chef's specials and the girls ate with us since they had pizza and cake at the party. But man- they ate more than we did! I got a yummy stuffed chicken breast with spinach, roasted red pepper and artichokes served over angel hair. Mike got a swordfish and shrimp diablo served over linguine. We got salad and rolls. To use our certificate- we had to hit $35 with 2 entrees. Our total was $35.40 so after our $25 certificate- we paid $20 including the $2 for the GC, tax and gratuity. And we brought home enough leftovers plus the waiter gave us a box of rolls to eat for dinner another night this week! Italian will be a great change after all that turkey on Thursday. I just transferred the leftovers into tupperware so it will keep. We laughed and commented that we couldn't have eaten at a fast food chain for much less than $20. And the girls thought it was really fun and loved the food.

Before I talk about the next great score- I'm loving how my 5 year old is understanding saving money. I took her to the bathroom and on the way back- she notices the dessert display and immediately saw the key lime pie. Desserts are about $6-8 but huge. She wanted to get the key lime pie because it's Dad's favorite and the girls love it too. But...she came back to the table, told Mike about the dessert and then stopped mid-sentence. She knew we were going to do our CouponMom list for Kroger afterwards since they are in the same shopping center. She looks at me and says, "Do you have a coupon for key lime pie at Kroger? Because we can get it cheaper and get a whole pie to enjoy all week versus one big piece here to split." Hello? She's 5 and already so wise beyond her years. HAHA That's exactly what we did even though I didn't have a coupon. She's also been really great about her Christmas lists- she really pays attention to prices and will debate greatly if she thinks she will really like something and play with it a lot. And the irony- we don't talk about couponing and saving money. She just quietly observes, seems to appreciate how we do it and seems to be getting the bigger picture.

Anywhoo- so today we take the girls to see High School Musical 3 at a brand new, super nice AMC complex about 20 minutes from the house. It was cold and rainy here in Georgia so a movie was perfect! We had 2 free adult tickets so we only had to buy 2 child tickets. Got the girls the kid packs of popcorn, fruit snacks and drinks. Walk in the theater and we are the only people there! We had a huge, stadium style theater all to ourselves. Madi thinks we arranged it for a private viewing! We laugh and tell her no but she just thought it was amazing.

We bought another $2/$25 Gift Certificate for a Japanese/Sushi restaurant that was right down the street from the theater. This certificate- we had to buy $50 worth and 2 entrees. We got a ton of food and sushi, it was wonderful and we ended up paying $32 for dinner. That's pretty good for Japanese/Sushi. And again, we have enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Not too many families can leave a Japanese restaurant having a great meal for right about $9 a person.

If you haven't checked out www.restaurant.com- I encourage you to take a look. The 80% sale is over but I will post it every time I see it come around. An 80% code usually comes out at least once a month. Enjoy!