Friday, January 25, 2013

Family Night: Free Food and Flashlight Fun


This crazy idea was born out of my desire to clean up some of the coupons floating around for several weeks on my counters. I had free coupons for four free tacos from Taco Bell, two free kids meals at Zaxby's and two chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A! I was struggling to use them because at any one restaurant it wasn't enough to feed our family and I didn't want to fork out the extra for the extra food.

So, one night on the way home from ballet we swung through each and used our free coupons where I spent exactly $0.00 and came out with dinner for five people. Hooray!

I'm guessing one of the next questions I'm going to get is where did I get these coupons and how you can get some of them too. The Chick-fil-A coupons came from their coupon calendars they put out each year. One was a gift and one was free with a gift card purchase - we were there to eat lunch anyway, so purchasing a gift card to use to pay for lunch and get a free calendar seemed like a no brainer. Zaxby's has a great kids club you can sign up for and they send free cookie coupons several times a year and even free kids meals at the child's birthday and a couple of other times a year. The Taco Bell coupons come from basketball games David works - when you buy a ticket to get into the game, these coupons are on the other side and he hunts for abandoned tickets to save!

After our random assortment of free food and some clean up, we played a fun game of flashlight hide and seek. I had not thought of this until I saw some mention of it by my friend Joy who said they play it during power outages. We turned off all the lights and only the counter/seeker was allowed a flashlight. Great fun was had by all!

7 comments:

Mary Ann said...

How fun and frugal! We got 2 CFA calendars for Christmas and got our free sandwiches for lunch this week!

Julie said...

Why didn't I ever think of using up all those free food coupons that way? Genius!
We have received so many free item coupons or gift cards that have small balances. What a great idea.

Stephanie in SC said...

Monica, I agree with Mary Ann and Julie..fun and frugal. And what an enormous investment in your family's happiness.

Julian said...

Great idea combined with fun! Can't get any better!
Christina

Wendi said...

Flashlights are always fun! Love the way you fed your family... I bet the kids thought it was neat.

Blissful & Domestic said...

What a fun family night. I love it;)

angie said...

We grabbed our free chicken sandwiches at CFA on the way to dance this week. And on my receipt I got an offer to get another free sandwich after completing a survey. I've noticed many restaurants offering this lately.
I am amazed at how many people will discard an offer for something free! I would do the same as David. In fact, my husband's co-workers know that we save coke lids so they will often drop one on his desk if they had a coke product for lunch.
FUN family times!