Hello there, if you’ve arrived here from Lifehacker. Thank you, Wendy B., for the nice mention on that site - I occasionally read Lifehacker as well for the great tips there. I have to apologize in advance for not writing more just at the moment, but see the post below for an explanation why (ouchee shoulder). If this is your first time here, welcome, have a look around, and I hope you find some interesting Cheap Eats to read about!

Whoops, I nearly forgot… today being July 11 it is 7-11 day all around the nation. Yes, time will indeed stop for you while you head out of the office at lunch to pick up yer free Slurpee drink. Just remember that the sizes they give away are the tiny ones, the 7.11 ounce slurpees. I’m going to be passing on this one although there is a 7-11 within walking distance (too much brain freeze lately), so let me know how it goes…

I completely goofed and forgot to post this yesterday. I wanted you to all get fair warning about picking up a FREE Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Cone. Yep, it’s that time of year already.

They’re celebrating 28 years of making their ice cream. The shops should all be open from 12-8pm. I actually have never partaken in this yearly ritual, though I know there are quite a few people who do. It hasn’t been hot enough here lately to get ice cream, but then again I guess who needs a heat wave to enjoy some?

Make sure to check which Ben & Jerry’s stores are actually participating in this giveaway. There are definitely more than a few, say in California where I live, which aren’t giving it away. I looked and for the most part, it’s mostly those which are in amusement parks or baseball stadiums. Yeah, if they honored the giveaway in a stadium full of people they’d go bankrupt.

Price: Free Ice Cream Cone
At: Ben & Jerry’s
Cheap Eats Score: 10/10

Hi there fellow Cheap Eaters. Well, the old timers will probably have noticed by now that the Cheap Eats site looks a bit different. I’ve been wanting to redesign the site for months. And now that I got all excited about that a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been dealing with these shoulder issues. That’s been preventing me from working on the site and writing about cheap food.

However, you know the old “play through the pain” saying that sports coaches like to drill into their players heads? Yes, hello. Ouch.

But I’m not stupid. I’m taking it slow, which is why it has taken so long to put up this first redesign. I say “first”, because you can expect further changes to popup along the way as I’m able to get to them. I’m actually also hoping to introduce a new feature or two, but it all depends.

So for now, let us bid a fond farewell to the Cheap Eats mascott that has been the header graphic for over a year now. Bye, bye bangers ‘n mash (approximately $2.00 to make), but we need to make room for other cheap eats like the new header graphic which is Mexican food leftovers. Gotta love those leftovers.

Apparently, it is not enough to just enjoy a Chili Dog every so often anymore. No sir… all the big diet kids are switching to the high flying, high risk,Chili Dog Diet at Wienerschnitzel.

First, the gory details about Wienerschnitzel in case you don’t know about them:

Wienerschnitzel was started with the opening of a single hot dog stand in 1961. Today, we’re the World’s Largest Hot Dog Chain with over 300 restaurants in ten states and Guam. Besides our signature chili dog, we’re also loved for our delicious corn dogs, chili cheese fries and chili cheeseburgers….

As recent commercials would have you believe, Atkins is out and Chili is in. The one I saw features a Wienerschniztel customer saying something like “Hey, I’m not hungry anymore because I enjoyed a chili dog for breakfast, a chili dog for lunch and then a sensible dinner of two corn dogs and a side of chili cheese fries. I am NOT hungry!” What he neglects to mention is that he’s not hungry because he can no longer hold down any solid food and is spending his teatime on the toilet contemplating the aftereffects of too much chili.

But seriously, I like chili as much as the next person. Chili Fries at The Hat are a transcendental experience. Well, it used to be anyhow. I’m not going to get into an argument over whether chili needs to have real meat in it or whether it can’t have beans in it (Texans, stop giving me that eye). I’m here to actually tell you that you can get a Free Chili Dog by signing up for their “Schnitz Fan Club”.

Have I signed up already? Not yet, primarily because you’ve gotta enter a bunch of personal info and my email box is already filled w/ offers for “hot dog enhancement”. Hehe, that was a good one. But hey, in return for signing up you get that free chili dog (valued at what, a dollar?) and access to special Schnitz “download and clips”.

I don’t know what downloads and clips entails, but if it’s anything to do with a naked hot dog with legs running amuck in downtown Los Angeles, I think I may pass just this once.

Price: Free
Available at: Weinerscnitzel “Schnitz” Fan Club
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

Ah yes, Domino’s Pizza. The other day I was super lazy and decided to order some food for dinner to be delivered. This is generally not a good idea for Cheap Eats as it’s cheaper to make your own food and plus you are generally expected to tip the driver some extra moola for the convenience.

The only delivered food I usually make an exception for is Pizza. One of the reasons is that unless you have an extremely large stomach capacity (or a bunch of people with extremely large stomach capacities are at your house), a single pizza can be dinner, then lunch and then sometimes dinner again.

When you divide the cost among all the meals, it comes out much cheaper. Anyhow, for pizza delivery, I usually choose among the two biggies around here which are Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut.

I haven’t ordered from Pizza Hut in a long time, but the difference between their standard pizza and Domino’s (I know you can get both deep dish and thin crust for both companies, with varying results) is that I feel Pizza Hut is a bit greasier with thicker crust that is sometimes almost “cake-like”. Domino’s is more of a standard flat pizza with crunchier crust, at least from my experience.

One of my fondest memories of Domino’s Pizza is the “Dorm Pizza Sneak”. What is this? For those who’ve lived in dorms you probably know about the unwritten rule that any large quantity of hot food is automatically subject to community “sharing” by all members on that particular floor. Occasionally, this sharing can extend to R.A.’s and members of OTHER floors as well. You may not appeal this decision as well.

The end result is that you only get one slice of pizza for your $10. Suck ass. So we used to try and sneak the pizza into our rooms. This was accomplished by exiting the elevator, looking both ways, and then making a mad dash to the designated “pizza room” with the pizza tucked under your arm like a football.

The only problem was this is Pizza Topping Slippage. This happened often, because the Domino’s Pizza near my campus was not known for their crust to topping adhesion properties. So tipping the pizza sideways and then running with it like a football was pretty disastrous for the pie; all the toppings and much of the cheese slid off into on corner of the box! Still, it beat having to share the mess with everyone.

Continue reading “Dominos Pizza Coupons” …

If you watch any of the cable or DTV sports stations, you’ve no doubt seen a billion of the same commercials replayed over and over by now. For sports, I guess they are really marketing to the correct demographic because the commercials never seem to change. I’m extremely tired of the farking “Hemi” commercials by now, but for fast food commercials I’m semi-willing to let them pepper me with those for a bit because they can be funny and we’re always interested in cheap fast food.

Anywho, the current Del Taco commercial featuring those Four for $4 combos seems to have wormed its way into my brain, because the other day I decided to try one out. It’s a good thing that the Del Taco near me is difficult to get to; it’s on the opposite direction of a busy street so I’ve got to make an effort to get there (same with Jack-In-The-Balpha, by the way). Otherwise, I might eat there too often.

I’ve got a lot of good memories from eating at Del Taco in the 70s. I think we used to get the red or green chili burritos quite a bit, as well as the tacos. We pretty much switched off between Del Taco and Taco Bell equally. McDonalds and other hamburger joints didn’t get as much patronage from us.

So, I already knew that 25 percent of this combo would pretty much be a waste. Getting a soda as part of a combo meal is near the top of the Cheap Eats no-nos, especially if you’re taking out. Still, the way the portrayed the meals on TV, they made it sound like the average 6 foot tall 200 pound guy could get full on one of these. I’m a five foot 4 120 pound weakling and I could tell that this meal wasn’t enough just from taking it out of the bag.

The size of the burritos at Del Taco have certainly shrunk over the years. I couldn’t believe that they were calling this was a Del Beef Burrito. I think my mistake was getting the Del Beef Burrito and Taco combo. There are two other four dollar combos that I know of, including one that has a Big Fat Chicken Taco and Chicken Soft Taco and one featuring a Spicy Chicken Burrito and Chicken Soft Taco. Those seem more promising. It’s just that I ate all this poultry recently for Thanksgiving!

One other thing. In the commercial, they also mention that you can a free movie rental if you “up-size” the meal… this might be a good deal for some but I haven’t rented a movie from Blockbuster or any other place for years. I’d rather see more food in the combo meal than a stupid movie rental.

Continue reading “Del Taco Four Dollar Combo Meals” …