The Entertainment Book: Good Deal?

I had always wondered about the Entertainment Book.  Was it a good deal or not?  Would I derive benefit from it?  Or was I just throwing money away?  Well, a couple of months ago, my mom and I were sitting in the parking lot at Taco Bell deciding what we wanted to order, when a lady walked up to the car.  She told us that she was from out of town, and they had bought the Entertainment book for our area.  They had spent the weekend here; however, they were not going to be back until after the book had expired.  She asked us if we would like to have it.  We accepted it and thanked her.  I was excited to finally see what this book was truly about that so many people said saved them money.

I have since spent some time going through the book.  It is divided into various sections to make for easier use – Featured Offers, Dining Out, Family Dining, Fast Food, Entertainment and Sports, Travel, and Retail shopping.  Overall, I was surprised at the number of vendors that participated in the book.  There were quite a few national chains such as Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, Sonic, Subway, and more.

When I looked through the various coupons, I found that my family frequented about 10% of the businesses; however, I had heard of about 75% of the businesses.  There was a nice mix of national chains, local chains, well known restaurants, and little known places.  There were quite a few buy one get one free coupons although some of the locations offered $5 off or $10 off certain sized purchases.  Only a few places offered a true “free offer”.  In my book, I found a free drink from Dairy Queen, Free order of breadsticks from Fox’s Pizza Den, a free cookie from Quizno’s, Free small seasoned fries from Rally’s, a free regular Italian ice from Rita’s Ice, and a free vanilla cone from Sonic.  So that was about $12 of free items in the featured offers.  The rest of the coupons were dependent on some type of purchase.

Overall, if you eat out or do a lot of shopping, the Entertainment Book can be a good deal.  If you rarely eat out or purchase entertainment type of items, then this would probably not be a good savings item for you.  I would encourage you to take a few minutes to look through the book in your area, see what they offer, and seriously consider it.  Also, see if any of the children in your area are selling it for a fundraiser.  In our area, some of the local schools will sell them as a fundraiser for various school trips.  If you can support a good cause plus get good savings, that makes it a doubly good deal!