The family at BrickCon!

So, this is a tip that I have been using for a little over two years now. When we go on trips, either vacations, short weekend getaways, or work trips, I save a ton of money and try really good food by using an app that allows me to buy food from delis, restaurants, and some grocery stores, for a fraction of the original price. We've used it in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Too Good to Go is an app which partners with these places so that their overstock does not go to waste. Some companies use it as a way to generate income to make sure they don't have overstock, too. There is a rating system, and as all of these are grab bags, with no way of ordering something specific, I am a little careful. I make sure that I check the reviews (if it is a place I haven't tried before), and only order from places with high enough ratings. For me, that is no lower than 4 out of 5 stars. So far, there has only been one that was just okay, and none which have been bad.

One of the ways that we check out these places is also to check reviews outside of the app. So far, it has worked well for us. In London, for instance, there was an Ethiopian restaurant we tried that was fantastic! It cost us all of about $6.50 each for our full dinners (mine was too much for me to eat, and Rich ended up eating his and about a quarter of mine, too). We picked up three orders of smoked fish from a place in Bellevue to add to the fruit and crackers and cookies we brought with us to make lunch for the family after BrickCon, which consisted of smoked salmon, smoked black cod, smoked halibut, and smoked sturgeon, and was all of about $34 for all eight of us, and left enough for two more meals. I've gotten quite generous bags of muffins and breakfast pastries for about $4.00 in Portland, OR, and a dinner and dessert that I grabbed from a Lebanese place for about $11.75 in London.

The way it works is that you put your location in the app, search for what is available in that area, make a reservation for the grab bag, which also will give you a window of time in which you can pick up the food. When you get to the place, you show them the app, slide a little bar to show that you have picked up, and they bring you the food.

This is not as useful in small areas, and there is only a gas station "deli" participating here in my little town. However, whenever we travel or are heading to a different area than where we live for an evening, I always fire up this app and see what is available. We have found all sorts of interesting restaurants and places to eat, and kept the costs down to what they would have been nearly 20 - 30 years ago.

This isn't a huge, amazing thing, but it is one of the ways that you can save some money, stretch your budget, and perhaps allow for some special meals out, or permit your family to go on trips without worrying as much about the cost of the meals. I hope it helps you.

We used this app, plus some of the hints in my Bargain Getaways post (like finding a Homewood Suites - though it looks like the dinners there now are only standard once a week instead of the Monday through Thursday that they used to be - some locations still host more days). Also, we found that Element by Westin hotels have evening socials/meals three times a week, as do Staybridge Hotels (and also offer free laundry machine services). Drury Hotels have daily dinners available. These are all places to look into while traveling to cut your meal costs down, as well.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs
What's in Your Refrigerator (Revisited)
Taking Stock
Garbage Management
End of the Paycheck Meals?

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

// posted by Ranee @ Arabian Knits @ 12:34 PM