My favorite social event is dining out with a friend at local restaurants. Using coupons for substantial discounts really helps stretch my budget, save money and find new restaurants to go to.
I used to have a Passport Card for several years that offered 2-for-1 entrees at over 100 local restaurants. I got them from a friend that no longer has access to the Passport Cards. Around that time in 2009, Groupon started offering daily deals by email that offered deals such as $40 vouchers at local restaurants that cost $20. The vouchers could only be purchased on the day they were offered and expired after a year or so.
Groupon became wildly popular and was soon followed by several imitators such as Living Social and Get My Perks. In a few short years, the market business using 2-for-1 email coupons has come crashing back to earth. Now deals are typically in the five or ten dollar range gets ten or twenty dollar vouchers. A $5 coupon does not motivate me to commit myself to having to go to a particular restaurant in a finite time frame.
From a restaurant's perspective, I doubt I would even participate in those offers. There seems to be little repeat loyalty and they have to give away $40 worth of food that they might get paid (at most) $10.
One deal I did get was for Derek's Auto Detail where I will get $100 worth of detailing for $50. I left my car at the shop tonight to be detailed tomorrow. I do okay at running my car through the car wash, but vacuuming out the interior doesn't happen nearly as often as could be hoped for.
If the detail job doesn't come out so well, I will likely by new carpet for my car. I am sure to at least order new floormats. My wheelchair beats the crap out of the interior. The headliner has set a new record by a wide margin for how long it lasted. After 3+ years, it finally got its first rip last month. The rip grow a little bit more today. I will buy a new headliner to replace the old one that lasted far longer than expected.
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