Frugal Indulgents by Kera Bolonik & Jennifer Griffin

Author:Kera Bolonik & Jennifer Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

I LIKE THE NIGHTLIFE, I LOVE TO BOOGIE: GOING OUT

The benefit of city living is, of course, its endless diversions for a wide range of pockets. There are restaurants to dine in, bars to wine in, films and theater to see, people to do. The trick is getting the most for the least.

Eating Out

Restaurant going transforms one of life’s necessities into a jaunt. It is fun. It is social. But, don’t kid yourself: It is recklessly decadent. Restaurant food is infinitely more expensive than a home-cooked meal. If you are hot to save money, this is a logical place to slash your budget. (As shrewd spender Saylor Breckenridge once observed: A human being can easily survive for at least a week on nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.) Yes, this raises quality-of-life issues. But it boils down to priorities. If food is important to you and you are determined to eat it outside of your apartment, consider some tips that will save you a few dollars!

EXPENSEPLOITATE IT. Charge dinner to your expense account. Wake up: If you have an expense account and are not using it to combine business with pleasure, you are not making the most of your benefits package.

You and a friend are having dinner. Why not take that fun client along, talk business for a few minutes, and call it work?

Are your friends even peripherally involved in your industry? Then they are not just friends, they are contacts and colleagues. Treat them as such, and treat them—and yourself—to a nice dinner.

Have a friend with an expense account buy you dinner. This is why it is important to have some older friends more advanced in their careers. They find buoyant youth at the dinner table refreshing and will pay to be entertained by it.

MAKE IT COFFEE AND DESSERT. MAKE IT DRINKS. MAKE IT BRUNCH. Dinner is the most expensive meal of the day, so for God’s sake, unless someone else is picking up the check—be it a corporation (see Expenseploitation, above) or an individual (see Date, below), avoid it. Unless it is a dive, a charming ethnic restaurant, or a rare splurge, try to turn dinner into something less expensive. Keep in mind that even ordering cheap items at an inexpensive restaurant may not work to save you money if, at the end of the evening, the check is split evenly among you (house salad) and the others (lobster).

Coffee and Dessert. This works well when you have after-dinner plans with a group. Offer regrets and say you’ll catch up with them at meal’s end. Try these excuses: “Already ate, had a late lunch, feel mildly queasy, working late.”

Drinks. Here’s a chance to try a new spot, ideally one that has free nibblies, or barring that, a spectacular view. Consider ordering a thick stout beer, most of which have a consistency only slightly thinner than bread, and drink your dinner for a fraction of the cost.

Brunch. If you can move the date from night to day, do. Brunch is the most cost-effective meal of the day.

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