As far as religion is concerned in the true sense of the word, I am not really a religious person. But if the ideology of saving money were one day declared a religion, I would consider myself a devout follower 
. If that were to indeed happen and us money-savers were to choose a holy book for our religion, I would positively vote for the Entertainment coupon book!
I was introduced to this holy book sometime last year, when a friend of mine recommended it to me. And what can I say, the experience made me feel like I was a born-again money-saver !
What is the Entertainment Book?
It is basically a coupon book. If you remember one of my earlier articles about saving money online using coupons codes, this is a very similar concept. Except that these are physical coupons that you can use at stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc.
The good thing about the Entertainment book is that there is a different book for each region. For example, I live in Rhode Island and so I have a book that has coupons exclusive to Rhode Island stores and restaurants. The advantage to this is that there is a good possibility of finding a coupon for that local authentic Ethiopian restaurant that you love so much. To give you an example, there is this one Vietnamese restaurant in Cranston, RI called Minh Hai that my wife, friends and I absolutely love to frequent. Since it is a pretty small and cozy family-owned and managed restaurant, I never expected to find coupons for it anywhere. Lo and behold, the Entertainment book for RI had a buy one-get one free coupon for any entrée at this restaurant. That one coupon alone saved us $10.
Can I check what kind of coupons the Entertainment book has for my area?
Yes you can. Just go to the Entertainment.com website, enter your zip code and you can view all the discounts available in your area.
So the book must be pretty expensive right?
Wrong!! If you order it online, the book only costs about $30 . In most cases, if you were to redeem just 3 or 4 coupons from the entire book, you could recover the value of the book. And the book easily has over 200+ coupons. I cannot begin to explain to you the tremendous value of this book.
Do you expect me to lug this big fat coupon book with me everywhere I go?
No, you don’t have to. I just leave the book lying in the back seat of my car. Anytime we decide to eat out, watch a movie, go bowling, or shop at a retail store, I take a quick glance at the book to see if it has any pertinent coupons. All in all, it takes a couple of minutes. A couple of minutes to save a whole bunch of dollars? Sounds like a good deal to me!
So what kind of coupons does it have?
As I mentioned earlier, everything from restaurants (fast food and local) to retail stores, to movie theaters. You name it and there’s probably a coupon for it in this book. The good thing about it is that it has an alphabetical index of stores on the last couple of pages so that you can search for coupons by business name. It also has an index of stores grouped by their neighborhoods if you want to search based on a particular locality. There is another index of stores grouped by business type (restaurants, retail stores, services, entertainment).
Sounds good, but give me some examples.
Besides the example of the Vietnamese restaurant earlier, I saved about $50 on a car repair service at Firestone. I have also saved at least another $20 in fast food purchases. Most recently a group of friends and I saved $30 by using two coupons at Boston Billiards Club, a sports bar and billiard hall that is quite popular here in Rhode Island. So considering just these particular examples, I have saved a total of $110. If you run the numbers, the book has already paid itself 3 times over. And I still have enough coupons remaining to pay for it at least another 2 times over.
Sounds like a great deal! Where can I get the book?
Just click on the link below to proceed with your order. Remember that Entertainment comes out with a coupon book every year, with each year’s book having coupons that are valid until November 1st of that year. So right now you would want to get the book for 2009. They currently have a special offer where they provide free shipping on your order, so hurry up! Here’s the link:
But remember: you control the book, not the other way around!
One very important thing to keep in mind is that as far as possible, you should use it only for those purchases that you would have made whether you had the book or not. Oftentimes, the coupons have a tendency to tempt you to make unnecessary purchases just because of the exciting discount offers. It is in such a moment of absolute truth, my fellow mortal, that thou shalt resist the temptation put forth by Lucifer himself (Money-savingism Genesis 12:34-56). The goal is to use the book to help you save money on things you would have purchased anyway. If it makes you buy more than you need, then it goes against the fundamental principle of saving money.
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