Am I Saving Money by… ?

Last week my daughter and foster son graduated high school. The graduation was at 6 p.m. and finished about 7:30. We had a choice to make about dinner. During the summer months my husband does not work very much. We always need to be especially careful with our money and going out to dinner is usually not an option. However, we also had a coupon to Lowe’s that was about to expire. Our dilemma was about what to order for dinner at Lowe’s (not really!) Our real dilemma was about which thing we had time for. Dinner at home and a trip to Lowe’s OR dinner out and a trip to Lowe’s.

The coupon was for $25 off a purchase of $250 or more. I still have a gift card with about $250 on it and I wanted to use it to buy a light fixture for the dining room and paint for the kitchen. In order to use the coupon, we had to use it Friday night since I was leaving to go visit my mother on Saturday. The only way we could use the coupon was to buy dinner out and rush to Lowe’s after we ate. So, we would spend $25 on dinner to save $25 on the light fixture and paint. No savings would be had.

I realized that it was a tie and decided to skip Lowe’s after the graduation. We had planned to have a very nice, quick, cheap dinner at home and save $250. However, at the end of the graduation we were so hungry that we went off to the Indian Cook House and had a wonderful dinner ($41 including tip) and now I REALLY wish we went to Lowe’s and some stupid fast food place instead. We would have spent far less than we did at the Indian Cook House. (Although I have to say I hate fast food and LOVE the Indian Cook House!)

Moral of the story, well there are several:

1. Always eat before you go out somewhere to save yourself the cost of a meal. At the very least, bring a snack and drink in the car.

2. Don’t wait until the last minute to use a coupon since events may make it impossible to use.

3. Think about if your are really going to be saving money when you use a coupon. It may not save you much, if any, money in the long run.

4. The Indian Cook House is a delicious place to go for dinner.