We get it: student budgets are often tight. Residents of our student apartments in Missoula usually pay a lot for tuition, and may not always have a ton of disposable income after taking care of the essentials. But you don’t have to give up on fun activities like dining out if you know how to make your money go a long way! Today on The Sawyer blog, we’d like to empower you with a few simple tips to save money when dining out!
Have a friend you’d pick to tag along when you dine out near our Missoula student apartments? Go ahead and share this post with them so they can save money too! Now, let’s talk tips, shall we?
Take Advantage of Happy Hour Specials
You can save a lot of money during happy hour, and not just on drinks! Downtown Missoula provides a wealth of happy hour specials just steps from our student apartments. Missoula residents can expect to find a good happy hour between three and seven PM, which allows you plenty of time to snag those cheap appetizers and entrees. Pro tip: a couple of appetizers can easily replace a full entree while also offering more variety than ordering just one dish.
Split Large Dishes With Friends
Many restaurants in the US offer huge serving sizes, and Missoula is no exception. Take stock of which local favorites of yours serve up large portions, then go to dinner with a friend and split that large entree. This way, you can split the price of a single entree and, even if you also split an appetizer or side for a little extra food, you’re paying less than if you ordered that entree alone. Just make sure you dine with a friend whose taste in food matches up with yours.
Opt For Lunch Instead of Dinner
Most restaurants are cheaper at lunch than they are at dinner. Even the exact same entree might be priced differently at different times of the day. Snag those reduced prices by choosing to dine out for lunch instead of dinner, and your bank account will thank you. Many restaurants are also less busy around lunch compared to dinnertime, so you’ll enjoy better service and a more pleasant atmosphere too. It’s a win-win.
Get Your Food To-Go
When you don’t mind sacrificing the experience of dining in the restaurant itself, getting your order to-go can help save you money. You won’t be obligated to pay for tip, since you won’t have a server, reducing your total bill by about 20%, give or take. And you can still make the meal feel special if that’s important to you: take your meal back home to our Missoula student apartments with a friend and have a movie night, or enjoy a little picnic in one of Missoula’s many excellent parks.
Do you have any strategies for dining out cheaply? We hope we’ve given you some helpful tips that will save you money! If you enjoyed this post and you’d like to see more like it, go ahead and bookmark our blog page for easy access to future tips, recommendations, and features! And don’t forget that we have an Instagram! Follow us there to keep up-to-date with all things The Sawyer.