Discount book a passport to exhaustion

How would you like to save $15,000 — or $14,722.50 to be exact?

Just buy the annual Entertainment book, chock-full of good deals, brimming with coupons, awash in discounts. For a cheap person like me, it’s a godsend.

For many years, my wife counseled me not to pay the $25 for the publication. It was her contention that we’d never use the coupons — and if we did, we’d either go on the wrong night or end up at the wrong place, or the coupon would have expired. I consider this user error and decided that with proper management of my discounts, the result would be monumental savings. So back in June I said…

“Here’s the plan, Mary Ellen. For the next few months we are going to go to every place in this book, all 569 of them. Think of the money we’ll save. Think of the fun we’ll have. It will be like a second honeymoon, only this time we’ll get two one-topping pizzas for the price of one…as long as we buy a liter of Pepsi and we don’t have it delivered.”

With that, I laid out on the kitchen table an elaborate chart detailing the itinerary — our cost-saving journey through Central Indiana. My wife was not impressed.

“I don’t mind dinner at the DQ, but do we have to play a game of Laser Tag the same night?”

“First of all, it’s not one game, it’s two. It’s the second game that’s free. How many times do I have to explain this to you?”

“According to this, Dick, you want to get up early Sunday morning and go duckpin bowling.”

“Yes! Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I just think we’ll be tuckered out from the two hours of paintball on Saturday night.”

Mary Ellen had a point. The first couple of weeks were pretty exhausting. Morgan’s River Rentals in Brookville may have been an especially bad choice. To get the discount we had to rent two boats, and I’m sure we’d have had more fun and been less tired if we were in the same canoe.

We were like kids the first week: trampolining at half price, wall climbing at a fraction of the cost, and go-karting at reduced fees. At the batting cage, Mary Ellen swung at 70 mph fast balls, which got us two rounds of putt-putt, which we hated-hated. But they were free-free.

When it came to dining, we had lots of choices — over 150 restaurants to choose from, 100 of which were fast food. Lots of pizza places, too. About 25 of those had gone out of business already.

We had some fun days: the Muncie Children’s Museum (two for one), the Basketball Hall of Fame Museum (buy one admission, get one free) and the aquarium in Newport, Kentucky. I’m not sure why that last one was in the Indianapolis book, but it said you got a free kid’s ticket, if you bought an adult ticket. The problem was we forgot to bring a kid. If it weren’t for the Burger Kings in town, the trip would have been a big waste of money. There are still two free Whoppers in my glove compartment.

Overall, we’ve had a great summer. We saved about $1,200. And it only cost us $3,000.