We keep our expenses down my doing restaurant Mystery shopping. Since we have done it so long, I can say it is easy and we are able to eat for free or for virtually nothing on average about once a week. We love doing it and we get to try new restaurants all the time. It takes a little work to get started. It takes some experience and practice to feel comfortable with it. And it takes some discipline to follow through with commitments and type in the evaluations...but it is worth it.

that you don't go out to eat with friends who like to split the bill evenly (especially if they drink and you don't)!

What I've always done, is skip ALL the drinks.
I always order a glass of water. I like water, and it's free, so I save a few dollars right there.

Also, I've found that just ordering an appetizer, ends up being enough of a meal in itself! At TGI Fridays, or Applebees, or wherever, a chicken quesadilla is enough to fill even my Husband.

Appetizer, water, (which I have in the past, squeezed every drop out of the lemon the water comes with, and added a packet or two of sugar, and BOOM! Lemonade with your dinner....for FREE!!
So anyway, appetizer, water, check please!

For McDonald's, I feed my family of four, for under $10 every time we go.
I always have drinks in the car for the kids, and always have water for me and the kids to share, so why bother buying a huge soda that usually gets wasted? (soda is the antichrist, anyway!)

We order ONLY from the Dollar Menu. Plenty of choices.
I mean, come on...you're eating at McD's...how luxurious can you get?

So, our typical order for me, my Husband, my 5 year old Daughter, and my 9 year old Son, is:

5 double cheeseburgers. (which sometimes is subbed with a chicken sandwich...still a dollar.)
4 small fries.
________________
$9.54

Everyone's happy, everyone's full.
(my husband has the exta double burger, in case you're wondering!)
And if we don't have a drink in the car, we'll order a small ($1) drink, in place of one of the fries, cause after the double burgers, the kids are usually mostly full, anyway. They share one.

He loves my frugal ways.

*I admit though, that a lot of McD's have changed their dollar menu, and taken the double burger off of it....but not our local one yet!!*

Now that you've pointed it out, Xin, it seems so obvious.

But, I've never thought of doing it that way before with take out.

Good tip.

I really dislike eating out in part because the food is simply heavier, less healthy, and calorie laden. If you're trying to lose weight or keep pounds off, just about the number on thing to do is stop eating out. That said, one more thing I do is almost always eat only half or less of my meal and take the rest home -- the leftovers speed up lunch making for other days and so on.

My tips is to only eat out for lunch when there are often reduced prices (and portions), and never for supper.

Many posh restaurants have happy hour specials in their bar area such as Cheesecake Factory, McCormick and Schmidts and others. For the price of a beer, you can have $1.95 half-pound burgers, seafood stirfry, spinach dip, mussels, etc. (I think it's $3.95 at the Cheesecake factory, and we take food home from there.) At Mortons, they will pass around little steak sandwiches for free at the bar. Of course, they also have drink specials, sometimes a glass of wine for $2. Usually it's a limited time offer from 4 to 7.

I also keep an eye on gift certificates on ebay. This time of year grads and dads may be re-selling theirs to make some cash. I aim for 10-15% off.

If you haven't signed up for email alerts from your favorite restaurant, try that. My birthday is next week and I have about 15 coupons ranging from free desert (without any additional purchase) to a free entree.

Expect good service. For example, once we ordered a salad, and as soon as we started eating it, our entrees came. We told the waiter we didn't even have time to eat our salads (which we paid extra for). They re-made the entrees, the manager came by and comped our desert, coffee AND cocktails. This was at the Great American chain, Costal Flats. Also, whenever we eat at Macaroni Grill and have left overs, they always pack a fresh loaf of bread with them.

For fast food, we have only a few choices, but at our local Wendy's I have gotten to know most of the employees there, and I am always finding extra B1G1 coupons, free drink coupons, etc in my bag. I have never asked for the favor, but it definitely keeps me coming back!

Also, at local restaraunts (not chains), we have a few that we have become very friendly with most of the waitresses. We notice when it's a waitress that we know we get much larger portions (good for take home bags).

I have never asked for preferential treatment, and that's not why we are nice to people. But, we have really noticed a payoff there.

Also, just for reference, it's just me and the hubby. We do tend to eat out a good bit, the weeks we know that we'll be out alot I buy much less at the grocery store. If we had a child or two, I don't think it would balance out, but for us it pretty much does. My husband likes big meals at times, and it's so much easier to go out for one meal of fried chicken than to destroy my kitchen and have enough fried chicken for many days. One high calorie meal vs several high calorie meals.

Shelle

I'm a huge fan of keeping a wide variety of frozen vegtables in the freezer and using them to stretch semi-prepared, quick meals. For instance, bags of chopped broccoli are 97 cents for a 16oz (1 pound) bag at the Super Target where we shop. They recently had several varieties of those new Bertolli frozen skillet meals on sale 2-for-12dollars. I'll cook up the "Chicken, Rigatoni, and Broccoli" Bertolli bag, and add a 1/2 pound more of chopped frozen broccoli. This yields enough to feed a family of four, and makes it healthier in the process because you're diluting a finite amount of salt, fat, etc. with straight-up veggies. Another example is if I'm making mexican food, I'll buy those cans of Spanish Rice from La Preferida when they're on sale, and mix one can with 2 cups (prepared) of plain long grain white rice. There is so much salt (2790mg) and spices in the can to begin with that I couldn't imagine actually eating it "straight" without diluting it with an equal volume of plain white rice. My last trick is this: Guys, I know how it always seems like there's never enough food is those frozen dinners. Again, keep veggies in the freezer and augment whatever veggie came with the frozen dinner. If your entre has peas as the veggie, add more peas. If your entre has carrots, add some more frozen carrots. Eat a bite of meatloaf (or whatever it is), then a bite of carrots, etc., repeat, and when you're done you'll feel more satisfied and be less likely to heat up another one!!!!

I recommend eating at a restaurant during happy hour. Many restaurants or bars offer Happy Hour specials on their food (hoping you'll order a drink obviously!) but when you don't get a drink sometimes you can spend as little as $5 for a meal!
Plus, it won't be crowded since happy hour is normally between 3-6pm.

Does Mystery shopping actually works?
Isn't it a scam?
and if is not how can I get in it, where should I start of go, call?
Thank you in advance.

Mystery shopping is for real. But services which offer to get you into the business are fake. Go to volition dot com and start reading the boards, just don't compete in my area.

To sign up with the different companies, you'll need to write a narrative of some sort. Whatever you write, keep it concise. The best way to get the jobs and maintain your rating is to understand what a company is looking for. Get names, give exact details and keep the report concise. Only write the facts and reserve your opinions unless asked specifically for them. Never vary from the guidelines and never cancel a job.

My wife and I both shop and have been doing so for almost 15 years. Restaurants are mostly a reimbursement with a few dollars extra thrown in. Video shops pay the most and don't require any narrative or written report. Remember, companies will file a 1099 on you, as you are considered an independent contractor.

If you are grammatically challenged, you need not apply.

As for signing with a company and not being offered jobs, it may be that they are not operating in your area. There are various other boards. Jobslinger dot com acts as an aggregate for a variety of boards and you can find companies there which are looking for shoppers in your particular area.

Most will require you to handle a small shop to obtain a rating before you are offered one which pays a bit more.

You'll have a hard time finding out which companies shop a particular restaurant, but if anyone knows where, I wouldn't mind seeing that list myself.

We do a lot of fine dining, however those shops usually are limited to one visit, per location, per year. Average is around $120 - $180 in expenses, including bar tab and valet.

Invest in a small digital recorder. The time stamp will make it easy to calculate timings and allow you to more accurately recall details of interactions. The most grueling of my reports takes me about an hour, including scanning the receipt.

Xin Lu, I live in Silicon Valley like you, and find the San Jose-area Entertainment Coupon Book to be a great deal for eating out. The selection of restaurants is pretty decent. Most of the coupons are for 2-for-1 entrees, so the book pays for itself in about 3-4 meals. It works best if you're not the kind of person where coupons entice you to eat out more often (I'm not).