Restaurant Dining on a Budget: TXLC

Dining out at restaurants like Jim’s and Chili’s is one of our family’s favorite activities. Obviously with a family of four this can get expensive fast. We usually average about $30 a meal (after tax and tip) when we visit these establishments. As I’ve mentioned before, our family budget includes a decent chunk of change for dining out ($40 per week). However, my husband takes up most of that with his dinners while on duty. He tries to eat at places with uniformed officers discounts so he averages about $25 a week. That leaves us about $15 a week or approximately $65 to $70 a month. Traditionally we’ve been bad about exceeding our budget in that area, but I’ve been trying to cut down on our pizza runs and trips through the McDonald’s or Whataburger drive-thru as well as taking advantage of restaurant deals and specials.

This month we were considerably under budget on grocery spending so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice family lunch out. However, since we’re still trying to pay off hospital bills from Kirk’s birth we didn’t want to use all the extra money on one meal so I scoured the newspaper inserts for local specials. I wasn’t disappointed!

If you live in the San Antonio area, be sure to pick up a Sunday newspaper from July 26th. Texas Land & Cattle Steak House has an insert with several awesome coupons. The two we took advantage of today were the $5 steak burger meal coupon (lunchtime only) and the 99-cent kid’s meal. The nice thing about their coupons is that each one is valid for the entire table and the kid’s meal coupon was good for two kid’s meals per adult. We did splurge on drinks (which was a bit disappointing because we had a hard time getting our waiter to refill them) but our whole check still only came out to $17 before the tip. (Without sodas it would have been about $12.)

And that is how our family ate at a nice restaurant for just a bit more than a meal from McDonald’s. And it was a whole lot tastier too! (Note: TXLC’s French fries are to die for!! Thin, crispy and deliciously seasoned!)