I am a money saver to my core, so even on staycation we enjoy ourselves, but keep our expenses low. I’ll share with you what my family and I do each day of this staycation to make our money last longer while we enjoy the sights and sounds of a Minnesota summer.
What was on the docket for us today? The Mall of America.
How did we save money at the largest (or one of the largest?) shopping mall in the United States?
Brought our own bottled water. A few weeks back I bought two 24 packs of bottled water for just $.99 cents each. We don’t normally drink bottled water, since it is more expensive than filtered tap water, but I bought it with this staycation in mind. I knew we would be out and about almost every day and often in the bright sun. I knew that we couldn’t buy an individual bottle of water for 99 cents, let alone enough water to hydrate all of us for less, so a little thinking ahead and stocking up when the sale was hot saved us money today.
Used buy one, get one free coupons for our food. Believe it or not, we fed lunch to all four adults, two teenagers and my two year old in an expensive food court for $19. Yep, pizza and pop for those who wanted it $19. How’d we do it? The Entertainment book. It has a number of coupons for fast food style restaurants within the mall. Unfortunately, they aren’t clearly delineated as “MOA coupons” or even conveniently listed as participating retailers in Bloomington. Nope, most are listed as being located within Minneapolis. A number of participating restaurants include: Villa Pizza, Orange Julius, Dairy Queen, Tropicana Smoothie, Nestle Tollhouse Cookie, and Karmelkorn. (If you pre-pay a 2010 Entertainment book here you can get a 2009 book free. The 2009 book expires on October 31).
We used four buy one slice of pizza, get one free coupons for Villa Pizza. Three of those coupons come with each book and I have multiple books. That gave us 8 slices of pizza. For the pop we used a buy one menu item, get one free coupon from Orange Julius. We got two large pops and the cashier graciously gave us some extra cups so we could split the pop amongst those who wanted it. Those who preferred water drank the bottled water we brought along.
Avoided the rides. I know there are “$7 off all day pass at Nickelodeon Universe” coupons at many Subway and Dairy Queen locations, but we didn’t have those with us and decided to forgo the rides since we have a trip to Valleyfair planned later this week.
Stuck to window shopping. Yes, we were at a shopping mall and didn’t go into many stores. But, truth be known, we bought something in almost every store we did enter. Good thing we didn’t go into that many. Our purpose wasn’t to peruse the contents of the mall as they exist in each store. Our purpose was to experience the ginormous size of the mall and provide exposure for my Brazilian family to diversity of products and services sold in the United States. Walking the corridors, pointing out store unique niche stores and window shopping provided that experience. No stuff buying required.
Your turn: I know the tips I have mentioned and that the Mall’s movie theater has free movie Saturdays, kids eat free at many restaurants on Toddler Tuesdays and Underwater World frequently has coupons in the Sunday paper. What can you add to the list as great ways you money saving folks enjoy the Mall of America?
About Carrie Rocha
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A lot of the local radio/TV stations use this site. I watch all of those sites for upcoming deals as some of those sell out super fast. By getting the “weekly tooter” you might get a gem sometimes. One time there was a deal for 1/2 price MOA wristbands that were being sold by a site in South Dakota. Because the deal was in my zip code info, it showed up on my update. You can also search by zip code on that site so if you are going on vacation or looking for a gift for someone who is out of town you can find deals in other cities. We have saved on hotels, attractions (skiing, waterparks golf etc), restaurants (fast food and fine dining) and more,
I would like getting coupons