The Fun Yearly Tradition That Helps Local Families Save

When I was a kid, going out to eat was a special occasion. Family time, traveling, or birthdays and holidays.

When we did go, we would pull out the coupon book and crowd around it. The coupons were good, often buy an entree get one free, or a flat $10 off.  It was a practice born of necessity -- saving because money was tight -- but that practice became a ritual I now remember fondly.

It wasn’t just about the savings though. The book was like a map, reminding us of places we had been meaning to try, and restaurants that had changed their names.

We’d get the book of deals for local restaurants through our neighbors, whose son was fundraising for a youth football team.

At first we bought the books just to help his football team but quickly we realized the coupon books were a really good value. The $25 we gave to the football team easily saved us hundreds over the course of the year. While so many fundraisers offered unwanted products, we actually got use out of the coupon book. Our donation always paid off; what we had donated actually turned out to be a sound investment investment. Just by using the coupon book with our regular spending patterns we were able to recoup the cost of the book in no time.

So, we would buy the new book the next year, with an updated list of local businesses, new locations, and different offers. It was always interesting to flip through and find out that there’s a new Chinese place right down the street that you didn’t even know about. Getting the book each and every year was a tradition not just meaningful for the football team and their fundraiser, but also for my family.

When I was a child, my family would leave the book in the car so we would never forget it. Now that I have my own family, I leave my our own book there, too.

When someone is new to the area, I might have them flip through my SaveAround book. You can see the switch flip in their mind when they realize just how easy it is to save while discovering all of the terrific local businesses in our town. If you’re already going out to eat, why not save? And with both a national and a local section to the book, your options are nearly unlimited. Especially with the new mobile app, it’s even easier to save on the go.

I first thought the coupon books from SaveAround were only a fundraiser, but I came to quickly realize that they contain tremendous value and my family and I now make it a priority to get our new books each year.