Entertainment books are okay if you live in the sticks and go to mostly chain places. If you live in a major city, get a membership at your local public radio or TV station, which often provides you with lots of good merchant/restaurant discounts. In L.A., $50 a year gets you a KCRW membership, and you can save $500 or more in a year without even trying. Plus you're supporting the station.

I've bought them over the last 2 years for the savings on Boston Bruins tickets (in the Boston area version, naturally). Between those and a couple of restaurants I actually go to, it's easy to justify the buy.

There is a way to purchase the coupon book for only five dollars to begin with using money saving websites along with cashbaq.

That said, they do have some good deals.

If you only need a few coupons from the book you can get them for free. Entertainment offers a free trial: [www.entertainment.com]

They work best if you share with others. My sister's family and mine would buy one and share the coupons. The trick is to be able to look through the whole book before buying. After moving I discovered that not all coupon books are built the same.

I got one in the Kansas City area last year and my wife and I used it some, enough to earn back what we spent on it but not much more.

If you go out a lot, and are willing to try new stuff, it could save you a decent chunk of change. We just don't go out that often, so we didn't use it much.

I've had good luck using the book the past two years. They have 2 for 1 golf at most of the golf places around here, and the restaurant punch card is good at many nice restaurants (can visit each once and get 2 for 1 (they subtract one of the entrees.))

Also they usually have two good radio shack coupons.

But...if you buy one, at least go to fatwallet.com first and buy from their site - you get $5.50 in cash back, plus you can get it for 35% off the price (until the end of Feb).

I have bought them in the past and they have had some oil change discounts and what not. You really have to plan around the book to make it worth it.

My problem with this is that the ones I've seen around where I live (Athens, GA) only have coupons for places that are in Atlanta, which is about an hour away. Even if it is a chain, it is usually only redeemable in certain Atlanta locations. I'm sure this is an issue in other cities as well.

Even if you have the book, you got to be somewhat selective when using it. Recently I found that with a National Hotel Chain, it was cheaper for the room using the their online registration discount compared to the 10% discount that entrainment subscribers get.

On a side note: The one we have, has a lot of local restaurants in it, and sometimes we will randomly pick one just to try something new.

@DarkKnightShyamalan: The Columbus book is just the opposite, very heavy on independent places. It's somewhat suburb heavy, but then no more so than the Columbus restaurant scene.

The big thing this year for me was 4 coupons for $5 off Meijer brand groceries. I buy those anyway, so that $20 paid the full price of the book.

My wife and I have gotten these for years, they really are a fantastic deal. They cost $15 locally, and you can easily make that money back in savings almost immediately.

I got an entertainment book for $20 once. The cover said that 50 cents went to the charity, which seemed like a huge ripoff for the charity. I used a couple pizza coupons and some other things but then my girlfriend used the free oil change coupon and that alone made it worth the price. I still have more coupons left but they're worth less.

yeah, you really have to live in a major city or spend a lot of time in one to make it work for you, but in the Los Angeles book, there were coupons for $5 off each month at the supermarket, anything else we used was gravy after that

@Gaambit: Exactly. I live near Denver (about an hour), and our book is 90% Denver. If you lived in Denver, it could be a fantastic deal, but we only go into to Denver 2-3 times a year to eat. There used to be 20-30 restaurants in my county also, but over the years, the book has become more and more Denver centric, to the point that we don't bother buying it any more.

The best value in the Entertainment Book is the discount code for American Airlines.
They offer 5% off for up to six passengers on the same itinerary over $150.
I saved $50 on my last flight using this and that was traveling alone. If you were traveling with a group of 5 others, that's $300 in savings!

My charitable organization put together a local version, sold for $20, all proceeds to the charity. (Printing costs covered by the companies in the book.) It's around 100 coupons, virtually all locally-owned businesses, and we've certainly made back our $20 just in restaurants (typically buy one entree, get 2nd entree) ... but it also has local photographers, pet groomers, spas, tchotchke places, etc.

I went through and folded up so they stick out all the restaurant coupons we're likely to use, and folded down the stores/other services I'm likely to shop at. The restaurant coupons get far and away the most use. The others I just hope I'll remember if we decide to get photos done or something. :)

We use to use buy and use our local Entertainment book every year and would by Entertainment Books for our vacation destinations. However, a couple of years ago the offers started to fall off or became far less attractive. It got to the point where it was difficult for us to get benefit from the book without more effort than it was worth.

I keep lookikng them over online but, so far haven't been enticed to buy another book for over 2 years now. Many of the BOGO offers have been replaced with 20% off offers to places that aren't all that attractive to us. I have also had offers in those books refused as the business did not renew their offer but, the Entertainment book kept printing it anyway.

Whilst perusing a Chicago Street Fair last summer, I bought one of these...[tinyurl.com]

$20 and it comes with 52 $10 off coupons for some of Chicago's best restaurants. Many of them were on my list to visit anyway, so it really was a no-brainer.

The caveat is that most of the restaurants are (relatively) expensive. But still, $10 is $10.

I work for an competitor to Entertainment that also sells coupon books. There are lots of similar regional companies out there to consider buying from when someone comes to by with a fundraiser. Most of them are pretty good, and buying from a local company keeps more money in your local economy.

@Eyebrows McGee: (We've cleared more than $6000 so far towards building a children's museum. Yay!)

@Gene Gemperline: Rather, here's there website. [alacardchicago.com]
Seems like the decks are normally $30. Mine must have been $10 off because the year was halfway over.

I'm mixed on whether they're worth it. I had a friend who was such a pinchpenny that he bought one of these and actually carried it around with him - in his hand - everywhere he went. He would show up at my door, Entertainment Book in hand, and hang out for a while and then leave with his book.

We ended up going out sometimes just so he could use a coupon, which kind of defeated the purpose of saving money with the coupon because we wouldn't have gone to those places and spent the money otherwise. But he couldn't grasp that concept and he always believed he was saving money while he was spending money.

MasterCard used to offer many of the same deals from the Entertainment Book on their website; I no longer have a MasterCard so I can't log into the site but it is available here.

My cousin has a book and we go out to eat every Friday. Sometimes we go to a restaurant simply because she has an Entertainment coupon for that restaurant. Unfortunately, the food has not been good at many of the places we went to just to use the coupons, so we've been sticking to places we like and don't mind paying regular price for decent food.

I've bought the book the last couple years and I think it's a steal. I'm terrible of remembering coupons but you only need to use it a few times to make it worthwhile. I use the 50% off car wash coupons each month which is especially nice in Minnesota winters. That's a savings of about $9/month.

My favorite use was this winter when I bought a duvet from Macy's. The book offers $50 gift cards for $45, so I bought 4 to cover the cost of the duvet and the book also offered a coupon code for 20% off my purchase. When I combined them, I saved more than $80 on the duvet and shams.

If you actually made an effort to use it regularly, the savings could be huge!

Here in Colorado, they are worth it just for the lift ticket discounts. There are still a lot of BOGO coupons which add up quickly too. I think it is really worth it, especially the value you (don't) generally get from other fund-raising purchases

Best way to save money is to not spend it unless you NEED to! Stop JUST buying shit without a conscious thought.

I live in LA and the Entertainment book has a $5 off coupon for Ralphs, owned by Kroger, for each month at a total savings of $60 on groceries. I just keep the book in the car all the time.

The only thing you have to look out for is restaurants that suddenly decide they don't want to honor the coupons in the book anymore. They may pull out or had their account renewed without knowing it, but it always sucks getting handed a bigger check at the end of a meal.

We get them every year, and share the coupons we don't want with friends. I also see people sending out the coupons they don't want over Freecycle or Craigslist.

Our kids' preschool sells them (we're in northern Virginia), so we've bought them the past three years. I kept track of it last year--we saved $90. Not bad. It helps that there's $20 worth of Safeway coupons in it. Always going to need groceries sometime.

@Eyebrows McGee:

What an excellent project! And when you're the parent of a preschooler, you will really appreciate that museum.

I'm wondering if people have thoughts on whether the Entertainment books are worthwhile for people who don't eat out much. We are on a real penny-pinching budget due to husband's prolonged unemployment. I think I would end up looking for reasons to eat out just to use the coupons! Thus, counterproductive to our budgeting strategy.

@elloGov:

Yes; wise words if a little harshly phrased.

In Tacoma, WA it's great. My favorite local Italian restaurant, Pomodoro, does not have a coupon in it, but used the card that certain places will punch. It's a buy one get one free dinner basically (up to 12.99 so I guess I spend 3 bucks on the second meal usually). But the awesome thing is that they do not punch the card. So I go to this restaurant maybe once a month. I definitely get my savings out of that restaurant right there. I don't know about other places, but the Tacoma, WA Entertainment book does a good mix of big chains and local places. Don't use it as much as I should, but enough to get good use out of it.

@DarkKnightShyamalan: I have the L.A. book and it pays for itself + an extra $35 a year just from shopping at Ralph's, where I go anyway. On top of that there are tons of coupons for independent places at all levels cost. Sure, there's also McDonald's, Chevy's, Subway, and Tony Roma's, but most of it is independent places.

Also, save money by using books as entertainment. ;)

Also, as the year goes on, the price of the Entertainment book in my part of the country gets cheaper and cheaper because the length of time until the coupons expire is less.

I used to buy them every year- my area was saturated with places to use the coupons. I didn't really even need to plan- if I was out/about I'd be able to find a coupon for nearby all the time.

However, in the past few years I'd take a coupon to a place and they'd say that they don't accept them. Sometimes it wasn't even like a franchise that didn't have all participants- it was for places that were solo shops! All kinds of excuses like they were in the book last year but didn't want to be in this year, etc.

So this, plus the fact that you can find good deals by yourself, made the books not worth the trouble.

@ElizabethD: Well first, only about 75% of the coupons are for food. There's a LOT in there from movie theaters to car washes.

With that said, it made eating for us very affordable. Most of the restaurant coupons are buy one get one free, so you'd be able to go get meals for cheap. Often cheaper than eating at home.

@kilde: We frequent two restaurants from our are that doesn't punch the card. It's awesome. We buy the book just for that!

I've been buying Entertainment books for the past few years and find it pays for itself pretty quickly. One rental car upgrade and a visit to our favorite restaurant pretty much does it. Anything else we use after that is sheer savings.

The coupons we use are insane, from a person who doesn't use coupons.
My sister gives us one every Christmas, Last year it just sat there unused. This year we started using the new one. January we used the Ralph's $5 off monthly coupon along with the coupons in the Sunday Paper and the bonus Coupons they mail us. That visit to the Grocery was $143.00, with $65.00 off! It could have been $70 off, but I lost one of the $5 coupons. This month was a little less, we saved $56 on our trip using this coupon and the Sunday Paper, about 1/3 the total. We've used the Papa John's Pizza, Gun Range and even one for Ice cream. It's only February and I think we saved a couple hundred bucks.
It's really worth it to us for the Ralph's coupons, I've heard stories of people doing it, but it's insane to walk into a grocery store and only pay for half the groceries you get! Thanks Sis!
I should buy another ENT BOOK so I get $10 off Ralph's each month! I think I could do much better if I actually looked for and saved coupons.

I got one for the first time a couple of weeks ago. In our area, most of the restaurants are local, and some of them are quite nice. We only go out to eat once or twice a month, but when we do go out, we like to go to decent restaurants, and with 2 adults and 2 teens in the family even a single dinner out can be expensive. It won't take many BOGO entrees to pay for the cost of the book.

I bought the Attractions coupon book through a school fund raiser last year and I LOVED it. It saved me well over $200. I really need to get my 2009 edition!

@ElizabethD:
Check my reply below, $5 off each month in Groceries at ralph's In Los Angeles. We almost never eat out and find it useful. We did order Pizza, so that one was good.

[www.tradeentertainmentcoupons.com]

I found one at a Goodwill while my wife was browsing the clothing. It didn't have the card in it that lets you get discounts at nicer restaurants, but it did have all the coupons for lower-end places. I picked it up for $2.95, and the first 2-for-1 at Culver's made it worth it.