Crispers Kids' Club Rocks

Dining out with a large family makes my wallet ache so I'm always on the lookout for a great deal.  I found one in spades with Crispers Restaurant.  If you have kids and live within driving distance of a Crispers you are crazy to not have them enrolled in the Crispers Kids' Club.

Joining is easy.  All you have to do is fill out the form and pay a $2.99 initiation fee, which gets you the snazzy "I'm a Lettuce Head" t-shirt.  From then on, your kids eat for $.99 with the purchase of any adult entree.  ".$99?!" you say? "My child can't survive on bread and water!"  Oh don't you worry about that! With a kids' Club meal you get too choose from a number of quality sandwiches, soups or other entrees, chips, fruits or veggies and either soda or milk.  But that's not all.  It also comes with a scoop of gelato for dessert.

All you have to do is remember to bring the shirt with you each time.  We keep ours in a bag in the back of the van so I can't forget them.  Technically they want the kids to wear them but I always just bring them wadded up with me to the register while the rest of the family finds a table.

One thing to keep in mind.  The not-so-fine print states that you're only supposed to get one kids' meal per adult entree.  Fortunately the actual enforcement of this policy is pretty lax and the seven of us have only been called on it once and even then the manager very generously gave us the deal anyway. (Thanks!)

The kids love it for the ice cream, grown ups love it for the healthy food options and I personally love it because a family of 7 can eat out for about $25.  Do it today.

Hop on the BOGO Shtick!

Our kids eat like NFL linemen.  So I'm always looking for ways to stretch my grocery dollars.  The Holy Grail of grocery shopping bargains as far as I'm concerned is the Buy One / Get One Free offer or "BOGO"

I used to take a very wait and see approach to sales like this.  I'm at the grocery store for one thing or another almost every day and if, in my wanderings, I happened upon a BOGO, I'd pounce on it.

Well not any more!  Publix (my grocery store of choice for regular shopping needs) has an iOS app that allows you to view the week's sales from the comfort of your living room.  Yes, I know you can also do this online on the computer without the iPhone but I'm a creature of convenience so this really helps.

It's not a perfect app by any means.  The reviews in the app store attest to that.  apparently some folks have problems with the app locking up and/or crashing (though I've not experienced that) and a shopping list function would be nice.  It's also annoying that it doesn't download the week's sale items for viewing offline.  You have to have an active connection to the internet.  Publix doesn't have free wifi and I'm waaayyy to cheap to spring for an iPhone with a cellular data plan so I and my iPod Touch are out of luck inside the store.