by Adam Dawson
Last week, my employer handed out a bunch of free tickets to a home game at the minor league baseball park outside of town. Since we are looking for ways to save money on entertainment, this seemed like a great option. I’ve always enjoyed going to live baseball games!
In addition to the free tickets, the stadium offers free parking to Lexus owners courtesy of the local dealership. Our Lexus is 11 years old with nearly 200,000 miles, and it is dented and dinged to pieces – this is NOT the Lexus the dealership had in mind for its free parking promotion! But we were happy to take advantage of the offer!
To top it off, it was $1 hot dog and soda night at the ballpark – which seemingly saved us lots of money on food, until we consumed about 18 hot dogs!
It turned out to be a beautiful night at the ballpark, and the home team won big! We had a great time, and on the cheap. It made me so thankful for my employer’s generosity.
If we are going to stay within our weekly spending budget, we will need to find more activities like this. What cheap/free entertainment activities does your family take advantage of?
We scour the newspaper and internet for free or very low cost activities. Concerts at universities, art fairs/festivals, docent led hikes and architectural walks, etc. are our favorites. We also have a membership to the major art museum and go about every 6 weeks which cuts the per visit cost tremendously. Of course we park on the street for free and walk. We also have a season subscription to a small playhouse. Last night we shared a $5 cup of gelato and thought it was a great treat. Of course we spend big on travel to see family but weekend entertainment is pretty low budget.
We look for free festivals and fairs either indoors or outdoors. Most cities will have either best of the best events, art festivals and community events that are free plus their are always freebies 😉
It’s hard to find free concerts or fairs around our area (orange county, ca) but they do exist. Usually, there’s a parking fee (usually $10), etc, tacked onto the “free” event.
We did spend friday night at my S.O.’s new job place where they had a “festival” for employees with free raffle (of course, we didn’t win anything) and FREE FOOD!
I think we were the only ones who took food home as well, ahha! I didn’t care as much that we were walking out with little to-go boxes after eating our fill because I sure didn’t want to cook lunch on Saturday and got to sleep in.
Congrats on your NPR interview!
A lot of museums offer free admission on the first Thursdays of every month.
Check your local city and community center for free concerts and activities. Our city sends out a weekly bulletin of upcoming free event.
The library will provide hours of free entertainment (books, movies, magazines) and a lot of them offer free concerts and talks.
Sometimes you can get Groupon deals for half off memberships for zoos and science centers – that’s a cheap way to keep you entertained for a year.
Parks – they are free! There are just too many to hit them all where we live.
On the cheap – our local baseball team has family nights and cheap seat nights for $5. Matinee’s are cheaper and a lot of time you can get $2 off your tickets if you can get one of those Entertainment books. Some areas have cheap movies theatres, like $2 entry or so.
We love to hike and there’s a lot of good trails around our area. We’re also an easy 2 hour drive to the mountains or the ocean in either direction, so except for a little gas expense, both are free.
They just built a brand new amphitheater in our town and offer free outdoor concerts, movies, etc.
If you haven’t already been, you should check out tubing on the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels and Natural Bridge Caverns in the same area. They’re pretty inexpensive and well worth the money!
Also just wanted to add if you haven’t checked out Bracken Cave, they give tours now to see the largest bat colony in the US. I can remember seeing bats flying around on any given summer night in Austin!
Potluck with friends, game night, movie night in, etc. Hiking and parks. Free community activities. Discount movie theaters, nickel arcade, inexpensive/small concerts. Concerts at Universities are always so interesting. We do also tend to buy museum/zoo/park memberships. Look for ones that have free reciprocity with other venues (more bank for your buck; plus you can just buy the least expensive one). We have zero memberships at the moment, but tend to usually have two or three. Usually 1.25 visits or so pays for a membership. A bike ride. A nice drive. A picnic. Star gazing. The internet probably has tons of ideas for things local you can do.
Not much in the way of free around here but the city does give out tickets through the library to the zoo and kid museums. We do subscribe to the local city magazine which always has the festivals and such. If I had a farm we would be cleaning the fish we caught and playing outside!!
There are great parks and bike trails throughout our area we enjoy visiting. Different weekdays have discount or freebies associated with entrance to museums, theatres and historical sites so I watch for these. Smaller theatre groups and the library will have kids performances either free or at really reduced rates that make for a fun and often educational outing. Annual family pass to the local zoo requires a bit up front, but when you make regular visits it makes the entry cost a bargain. Just bring your own snacks so you don’t blow you bargain with their high priced food!! Early in our marriage I remember my husband and I taking advantage of free or cheap food set out at restaurants in pleasant areas during “happy hour”. For the cost of a single drink each, we’d sit and enjoy the views and have a light meal from the buffet set out, then usually a walk in the local park.
Had a good laugh with your description of the Lexus parking. It’s a testimony to their durability right? : )
Do you have a college nearby? I used to have the fortune of living in a city with TWO colleges and there were always free activities going on – concerts / recitals open to the public, showings of movies, etc.
I love that you were able to take advantage of the free parking with your 11 year old car! That’s great. This time of year there are a lot of free/low cost activities, like fairs and festivals around. For us, we go hiking a lot. There are some great places that are only 10 minutes from our house. Then there is always riding on the bike paths near our home!
Fellow Austin-ite here. Love the Dell Diamond!