In general, I don’t bother with using coupons. What?! you cry. And you dare call yourself a cheapskate?!

I find that it’s generally cheaper to buy store brand stuff than name brand stuff, with or without coupons. Now, there are people who successfully play games with double/triple coupons, and I’m certain this can be profitable, but in general I find it just isn’t worth the bother. So I guess that’s why, although I knew that there were these huge coupon books with hundreds of pages worth of discounts floating around, I just kind of ignored them.

Nonetheless, I recently found one of these huge coupon books – called an Entertainment book – on display at Walgreen’s. I flipped through it and it seemed to contain a lot of useful discounts, but the price was $30. A bit salty for my taste, I concluded.

I went home and got on the internet and found that after applying a couple of discounts to the price of the book itself (there’s something really satisfying about that), I could order one for around $15. I did so. Since then, the books have gone on sale, and $15 is the base price for one book when purchased online.

So far, I’m glad I bought the book. I’ve used a couple of coupons in the dining section and have received free entrées at two different restaurants, so the book has already more or less paid itself off.

Each region of the country has a different Entertainment book with a bunch of specific regional discounts in addition to the big-name national ones which appear in every book. Since I live in LA, I did the obvious and bought the LA Entertainment book. Here are a few of the more useful discounts found within:

- Free lunch or dinner entrée with purchase of a second entrée at a bunch of different local restaurants

- Buy one pretzel, get one free at Auntie Anne’s (yum!)

- A whole ton of coupons for free stuff at McDonald’s with purchase of other stuff

- Free single scoop cone with purchase of second single scoop cone at Baskin Robbins

- 5% off any airfare worldwide with American Airlines

- A bunch of hotel discounts which I doubt are really very useful

- $20 off any airfare at Hotwire.com

- $6 movie tickets at Pacific Theatres (sadly, this is a huge bargain in Southern California)

- Free LA Dodgers ticket with purchase of a second ticket

- $4 off San Diego Zoo tickets

…and on and on. In my opinion, these books are a good deal. If you’re really, really cheap then I guess you don’t eat out or go to baseball games or anything like that. Even though I’m cheap, I do like to do these things sometimes, so I think this book is a good deal for me.

Entertainment books are available at retail outlets like Walgreen’s, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, so if you get a chance, stop by and take a moment to flip through one. If you conclude that purchasing one will save you cash, go home, get online, and whip out the coupon codes.

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