Frugal Fun in the City

City living comes with a lot of high costs, but the city offers a lot in the way of entertainment. At times when we had little money, we were able to fall back on lots of free sources of entertainment to keep us from being bored while we were trying to stabilize our finances. Small towns offer some of these things too, so even if you live in a small town, look into some of these options.
 

* Go to any free festival you find interesting. Over the years, Trucker and I have gone to countless festivals and have never paid a penny to get in. Big cities often have fantastic festivals, and rarely charge admission. In my experience, mid-sized cities are more likely to charge admission, although there are free festivals to be found. I love going to art festivals or blues festivals. Sometimes, I go to other festivals just to broaden my horizons and experience something new. It's a great way to have fun without spending a ton of money. It can even be free if you eat before you leave and bring beverages from home.

* We love to get out deep into the woods for an all day hike, but sometimes car trouble or gas prices keep us from making the journey. On those days, we make a day of walking and exploring in the city. We'll pick a direction or a street and venture out. I pack a snack and a couple water bottles for the journey and we'll usually have a bit of spending money, although we leave the cards and big bucks at home, just in case. A couple of weeks ago, we walked to an ice cream shop to get $.50 cones before walking home. Other times we'll walk to get coffee and then walk home, foraging for wild berries as we go.

* Find out about free access to museums. In Chicago, you can check out passes at any library branch to get into different museums for free (up to 4 people). In my current city, there is no such option, but most of the museums have some option. One museum is free one (very crowded) day a year, another is free every Sunday (with free concerts in the summer!), and a few small museums are free every day. The summer reading program at the library offers a couple one-time free passes for two small museums after you read 4 books during the summer. These are great options for the curious city-dweller, with or without kids.

* Sign up for newsletters with local events. One trendy local site sends out a newsletter with every kind of event going on each weekend. Many of these are way beyond my price range, but there are almost always a few free events going on. Sometimes the events aren't up my alley; sometimes they are the perfect thing for a fun weekend.

* Enjoy the arts. Go to a gallery opening or hop. Watch an art demonstration. Take a long stroll through a neighborhood with a lot of galleries.

* Check with your local theatres. One theatre near us has free symphony performances a few times a year. Another had a free documentary viewing and a meet and greet (with free gourmet ice cream) with the local actor who made it. Yet another has $10 symphony tickets for several shows each year.

* There are likely more movie options in the city than in a small town. You have several theater chains to chose from, so call around for the best matinee prices. Maybe you even have a discount theater. Our's charges $2.25 admission; on Tuesday's it is $1.50! The fancy theatre downtown has a summer movie program. When you buy a strip of 10 tickets, it is only $2.50 each for a really nice experience. Lots of local parks have drive-in movies, so there are lots of movies to chose from. Bring your own popcorn and beverage.

* Art in the park. Many cities offer concerts and plays in the park. These can be fantastic. At one park in my city, it's an all-out thing. People bring short tables and pile them with fine food and pop open a bottle of wine. It's fantastic and costs nothing to get in.

* Find some coffee house culture. Poetry readings or concerts at coffee houses are incredibly frugal events. Often there is no cover, and you can sip your coffee while you enjoy the entertainment. Cost out can be as low as $1.50 a person.

* Go to the library. Not just for books, movies, CDs, magazines, internet, and ebooks (although, certainly check these out while you're there!), the library can be a fantastic source of entertainment. Ask about concerts, movies, lectures and classes at your branch or nearby branches. In one city I lived in, there was a month of financial classes for free at various branches around the city. We bused it out to several events to learn as much as we could. Made for an educational night out and gave us things to talk/dream about on the bus ride home.

* Go to book releases at coffee houses or book stores. These are great fun, depending on the type of book. The best book release I ever went to was for a true-crime mafia book (Trucker and I are obsessed with Mafia movies, so the real-life stories of people we'd heard about was fascinating).

* Take a walking tour of your downtown or a historic neighborhood. Do your research before hand, then venture out. Make sure you know some good trivia to impress your date/interest your kids. Try to hit places with fascinating stories, intricate architecture, or vibrant street art. Stroll around interesting little stores (unless you've got kids that would get bored or destructive) or maybe hit a tiny, very localized museum. If you'd like, take a bit of pocket money to pop into a candy shop or grab ice cream cones if you'd like.

* Visit an ethnic neighborhood for fantastic grocery shopping. I love to visit Chinatown to stock up on my favorite herbal teas. The prices are great, and it's fun. This can also help to kick you out of a cooking rut. Since you're just grocery shopping, it doesn't really cost anything out of the entertainment budget and if you do it right, can save you on your grocery bill.

Even if your expenses are high in other ways, city living does offer some great ways to economize in other areas.

Share your favorite frugal city fun tips in the comments.

Date Night Calendar

I've been wanting to be more proactive about planning exciting dates for Trucker and I. It's far too easy to fall into the routine of Chinese food and a movie, or a favorite bar and pool. Often, these can provide relatively little pleasure for the money spent, since it is a routine thing. When we go on "new" dates, we end up having a lot more fun and we are creating new memories together. The problem is constantly coming up with new ideas, or remembering what is going on the particular day we want to go out. I've solved this with my date night calendar.

I use Google Calendar. As I find out date ideas, whether it is a concert in two months or a regular event in our price range, I add it to the calendar. If the event is a regular event, say every Thursday or the first Saturday of the month, I add the event, set it to repeat and make it never end. That way I don't forget about it and can see at a glance whatever is going on.

I am always looking out for fun dates and there is no shortage of them. I find fun date ideas in all sorts of places, some unexpected.

Some museums have a regular free day or at least one a year. If they are every week, I add it and set it to repeat weekly. If it's once a year, I'll try to look early in the year to find what date it will fall on, so don't forget about it until it is past. All year, our art museum is free on Sundays, and during the summer, they have free concerts as well.  As soon as the concerts are announced, I add them all to the calendar. If I hear that a city within a reasonable drive has a free day, I will add it as well, so we could make a day trip around it. Don't forget about hole-in-the-wall museums in small towns.

Zoos sometimes have free or discount days as well. One day a week county residents get a discount. Around the holidays, they put up holiday lights. This year, they had a benefit day for the local food bank. For that night, if you brought 5 non-perishable food items to donate, you got free admission and parking.

Two local fancy grocery stores have wine tastings once a week. It is 5 wine samples for $5 (the other is 7 wine samples for $8) and, of course, no tip necessary. Each of these also offer food tastings along with the wine, and lots of samples as well. Between it all, it would be a light meal. While not the best on ambiance, it could be a fun way to try some new wines. This would be particularly nice if there was a concert or other free event nearby that you could walk to after.

A couple of coffee houses offer free concerts. One has an open mic on Fridays and a jazz, blues or folk concert on Saturdays. We tried the open mic, but it was a bit too crowded with school-age kids for us. We occasionally go to the Saturday night concerts when a musician we enjoy is playing. At this coffee house, they offer one free refill, so our date night, with tip, will cost around $6. Also look out for poetry slams.

Wineries also offer free concerts, usually jazz or singer/songwriter. If you can keep it to one glass of wine, and perhaps an appetizer to share, it can be a relatively cheap date. Some of them have a happy hour that ends when the concert time starts, but there is no reason you couldn't get there twenty minutes early, order your drinks and appetizer and nurse it. Some bars also have free concerts, in all genres. The website will usually have a calendar, and you can add all the concerts that sound appealing.

I love the symphony, but $50 tickets is a bit steep for regular attendance. However, my local theatre has some bargains. They have a happy hour event a few times a year intended to introduce younger people to the symphony. An hour before, they have drink specials and free appetizers; admission is free. One concert series offers $10 tickets for basically the worst seats in the house; that being said, this theatre is so good that no seats are horrible. Another concert series designed to teach newbies about classical music offers $15 tickets for any seats.  When they release the new season's shows, I check for each type and add them all to my calendar.

In the summer, a local theatre troupe offers Shakespeare in the Park. It runs Thursday through Sunday. For any performances that interest me, I add it to each day that it is going on, so if I have something going on Friday, maybe I can make it Sunday.

Also, many parks departments put on concerts or drive-in movies in the park during the warm months. Add the event for any movie that interests you.

Add small town or city festivals, cruise-ins, or flea markets, as they interest you. Again, look within a reasonable driving distance so you could make a day trip out of one that is farther out.

Two movie theaters offer once-a-week discounts. One first-run theater sells $5 tickets that include a small popcorn. A second-run theater usually costs $2.25 each, but one day a week (a different day than the other theater) has $1.25 admission. Add it to repeat weekly, and if you want to see a movie, you can look up showtimes.

Now, whenever we want to have a date night, we just look at the calendar and pick whatever sounds best at the time. Or, if we've been slaving away at work and home, we might look for the next "fancy" date that we can go to to have something special to look forward to. Most of these dates are $20 or less (and many are much, much less), so by planning ahead, we get to enjoy our regular date without wrecking our budget.

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Cheap Date Night

If you've ever felt that dates were too expensive, or if you are saving for a big goal and need to cut costs but don't want to cut out the romance, or if there is just too much month and not enough paycheck, this list is for you. Here are some of my favorite free or affordable dates.

* Check out a movie from the library. Pop popcorn on the stove top or in an air popper.
* Have a campfire in the backyard. Roast marshmallows and snuggle under a blanket.
* Take a long walk through the neighborhood (provided you aren't saving money by living in a dangerous area). It's a great way to spend time talking and be active together.
* Call area museums and ask about free days. Some museums have free days weekly, monthly or annually. Have fun, get a bit of exercise while walking around and learn a little something.
* Go to a concert or poetry reading at a coffee house. Unlike a concert at a bar, you can get away with buying one drink and nursing it through the evening, or get a bottomless cup of regular coffee. For $5 you can have a night out.
* Look for special promotions for area restaurants. Some that we've enjoyed: free coffee at a chain coffee house on Earth Day when we brought in reusable mugs, free coffee and samples at a cafe when they were rolling out a new menu, $.50 iced coffees on the first day of summer at a fast food restaurant, free small lattes when McDonalds was starting McCafe, $.25 kiddie cones on Wednesdays at a chain ice cream shop, $1 coffees at another chain one day each week.
* Go to a second run theater for special promotions. My area theater sells tickets for $1.25 one day a week and $1.75 all other days. Skip the popcorn and soda.
* Go to the beach for swimming, tanning and playing.
* Have a do-nothing day. Don't get dressed. Don't run errands. Simply hang out at home, cuddle, talk, eat junk food, take a bath, whatever. Relax and enjoy each other.
* Go for a bike ride.
* Make a good meal together, especially a labor intensive one. Trucker and I like to make Chinese food together. He'll chop the veggies and meat for stir fry while I'm assembling egg rolls and crab rangoon. We get to talk and giggle together while preparing the food, and the cost and taste are far superior to what we find at our area Americanized Chinese buffet.
* Go to an antique mall and explore. There are many things to amuse or awe you. We look out for antique kitchen wares that are affordable and in good, usable condition. You don't have to buy anything though, so this can be a free date.
* Take a drive. While high gas prices make this less of a good deal than in previous times, this is still a fun date. Drive out of the city to explore the countryside or drive through the woods during autumn for a color display. A favorite of ours when we were saving for our house was to drive through different neighborhoods and discuss whether we would buy a house there and why.
* Take the bus to a new neighborhood with a set amount of money in cash, say $10, and see how long you can make it last. Explore the neighborhood on foot. Stop in every store and look around. Spend your money on small things, like the $.50 rack of books outside the used bookstore, penny candies, or a bagel to split from the small corner bakery.
* Go to a used book store and look around. Look for bargain racks or clearance sections.
* Look for coupons in the Sunday paper for restaurants. Once, I found Buy One Get One Free coupons for Caribou Coffee. I dived a recycling bin for extra coupons and for months we had $1 dates (Two regular coffees using coupon, plus additional money off for bringing reusable mugs and correctly answering trivia questions).
* Sign up for thrift store newsletters and text alerts. A few times a year, our favorite thrift store sends out coupons for $5 off a $10 purchase. We go to the thrift store and try not to spend over $10 so we can get half off. We score some great finds, but don't fall into the trap of buying a ton of stuff because it's so cheap.
* Go for a hike/nature walk. Most cities have a decent metro park system and you can find lovely walking trails. Take your camera for nature shots and silly pictures. Look for interesting plants or weird bugs.
* Have a picnic in the park or the backyard.
* Go to a free concert or play in the park. In my city a theater troupe puts on Shakespeare in the Park. Some people go all out, bringing little tables in and setting up elaborate picnics complete with wine.

What are some of your favorite affordable dates?

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The Welcoming House Welcoming Wednesday

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Happiness is Recreating Memories

Tonight Trucker and I recreated a date night we had over 5 years ago when we had just moved into our first apartment together. We were hard up financially. I'd just moved from two states away and didn't have a job lined up yet. We had spent what little money we had stocking up the pantry with some of the basics, filling in the gaps with cleaning supplies and buying a new bed. So even though we were young and crazy in love, we didn't have any money for fancy date nights.

One of our early evenings in that first little apartment, I was craving smores. We didn't have a yard, let alone permission from the landlord to start a fire on his property. So we grabbed marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate and chop sticks. We roasted our marshmallows over the flame on the gas range and giggled and talked while we ate our delicious snacks.

Now we're living in our first house together. And while our income is a little higher, we're spending every little bit of extra money painting the bathroom, putting up shelves in the laundry room and all the hundreds of little things that need done. And so tonight, we grabbed our marshmallows (on sale for $.79), graham crackers (generic brand $2), chocolate ($1) and chopsticks and made our smores over the gas range and talked about how far we've come.

Romance doesn't have to be costly. Sometimes the very best date nights are the ones where you spend nothing but time together.

Shared with: Penny Pinching Party

Longing for Poverty

I am not rich. My income is in one of the lower brackets. However, I'm making more money now that I have in the last few years. Truth? I kind of miss being poor.

Sure, I know that I'm in a good place. I have stability and am saving for a house of my own. I own my truck, and am not without anything I need. I suppose I should be glad, but I still long for some of the aspects of my lower-income life.

When the stock market crashed in 2008, my business failed and Trucker's hours were cut back. Once I got a job after 3 months of looking, I still only got 15 hours a week. Trucker was working 25. Since we were living in Chicago, rent was high. We had very little money left after paying rent and our utility bills. I only had $10 a week for groceries and had only a few bucks (literally) left for fun money. We were really happy.

We had lots of time to explore our city and spend time together. We played board games, went swimming in Lake Michigan, and used the library extensively. -

We had dollar date night twice a week. It wasn't anything particularly grand, but we had some of our best dates during that time.  For example, McDonald's rolled out their McCafe and gave away free 6 oz lattes on Mondays. We would walk a mile to the nearest location, each would get a latte and we'd purchase two pies for $1. We would sit and laugh together or walk around the neighborhood. Other times, Baskin Robbins had 59c ice cream cones on Wednesdays, or Dunkin Donuts would offer 25c iced coffee. During the worst month, we would walk to the grocery store and get a 25c soda from the vending machine to split as we'd take a two hour long walk.

We would spend one of our many days off by walking to the Chicago Public Library and check out a museum pass. We would walk or bike several miles away to enjoy the displays. We went to nearly every free festival in the city, from Blues Fest to Celtic Fest. We went to the free movies in Millennium Park.

We didn't have money, and sometimes did without the things we needed (such as new socks; ours were darned over and over). We weren't saving for future goals, and we weren't very secure. But we had something that is too easily lost: time. What we lacked in funds, we more than made up in creativity and innovation. We weren't bored and it was the time that we first really got to know each other and became incredible friends.

I may never be in such dire circumstances again, and I should hope to never be so close to the edge. However, I try to find a balance, somewhere between enough time and enough money.