I had a great time last night, and it only cost me eleven bucks. A friend asked if I wanted to join him to watch the Portland Timbers, our local minor-league soccer team. “Sure,” I said, though I wasn’t expecting much. We sat with the rowdy die-hards behind one goal, and I had a great time soaking up the enthusiasm and listening to their raunchy cheers and songs.
I’ll remember that evening more than I would if I’d spent $11 to see a movie! I feel like I got some real value for my money, which is what frugality is all about. Speaking of frugality:
“Follow your frugal bliss!” admonishes Carrie Kirby at Wise Bread. Don’t believe that you have to heed every frugal tip you read. Pick and choose the stuff that fits your personality and your lifestyle. Strive to save money whenever you can, but don’t make it a chore. (Kris and I love to grow our own food, for example, so we make that a priority.)
Meanwhile, CNN has a story about secret spending. Author Diane Mapes explores what happens when people keep their spending secret from their partners. This reminds me of our discussion earlier today about spending addiction.
At Zen Habits recently, guest poster Paul Michael asked, “Is our addiction to low prices destroying the real America?” Are we so focused on saving a buck at the grocery store that we’re putting the local produce stand out of business? Is it so important to us to save five cents a gallon on gasoline that we no longer go to the local service station? Does supporting local mom-and-pop operations even matter? Just how important is it to get the lowest price? Thought-provoking stuff.
Finally, here’s a 2006 profile of the gentleman grafter from Vanity Fair magazine. “By night, Joe Ades dines with his fourth wife at exclusive restaurants, sips Veuve Clicquot at the Pierre, and goes home to a three-bedroom Park Avenue apartment.” By day, he sells vegetable peelers on the streets of New York. How can you make any money selling something for a few bucks? “You sell a lot, that’s how.”
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Thanks for the link to the Paul Michael piece. I enjoyed reading it. But I think you don’t necessarily have to spend more to buy local. I went out yesterday to get some small gifts to celebrate my wedding anniversary. Instead of the “mall” I went to the local independent gift shop, the local indepenent book store, and the local independent soap etc store. I have no idea whether I bought things that would have been less expensive at Barnes and Noble, the Body Shop, and a chain department store. I did stay within my own budget, so it doesn’t matter — except that I felt good about keeping my money local and supporting people who live in my community.
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Glad to see you had fun for $11, this week I thought, I was going to have fun at the movies when I wasted $10.50 on the new Vin Diesel movie, my goodness, the producers should have subscribed to your blog and saved a few bucks by not making the movie.
-Tabs
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J.D. – Portland Timbers – so cool. My husband often gets free (yipee!) tickets to see the Rochester Rhinos. We have watched many a close game between the Rhinos and the Timbers. Small world!
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Local minor league teams are under-rated. Those players are a bit like college players in my mind, because they are still working hard to get to the next level. If you want to see players that really want to win, I think the minor league teams are a pretty safe bet. And, generally, frugal.
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The key is to think outside the box. THe most expensive thing is not always the best thing. You just need to be creative with what you want to do for entertainment. Most people go to the movies because they can’t think of anything else to do.
I would love a post on things you could do for $11 for fun?
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I love going to watch the football here in England – the atmosphere is often the best bit. I’m intrigued to know what the attendance was, and how it would compare to lower league football over here.
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As for the Paul Michael piece: its definitely an interesting read. I don’t dispute that people have a tendency to buy from chains, but I don’t think the problem is “addiction to saving”. (Lets face it, saving isn’t one of America’s addictions!) I think it can be attributed to many other factors:
* Because chains rely exclusively on (inexpensive) hired help, they are open longer hours and are therefore more convenient. If a small business is run exclusively by its owners, it just isn’t possible to provide that.
* Brand recognition: If I see an AppleBee’s sign, I have a pretty good idea what to expect when I dine there. I’m not saying AppleBee’s is anything great (or that its bad), but my expectations will very likely be met.
* With regard to the produce stand: I can buy all my groceries at a grocery store. So why would I spend the time getting my meat from a butcher, my produce from a produce stand, etc.? I’m not saying its a bad idea, just that its not a time investment I’m in a hurry to make.
I respect local small businesses, but business is business and I’m not necessarily going to either pay more or inconvenience myself to frequent them over big-name chains.
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Here in Florida, the grocery stores produce aisle consists mainly of fruits shipped in from Mexico and South America, or at best, California. This is truly disappointing because some of the best tasting citrus and tropical fruits including mangos, passion fruit, etc. are ALL locally grown here!
To inflame this situation, some of the local growers of some of these fruits insist on charging absurd prices for something that should be costing nickels and dimes. Why should you have to pay $4.00 for a good sized Kent Mango when you have trees that produce them prodigiously, almost like a cancer? In my mind, local produce should never have to cost this much and goes against the idea of buying locally.
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The Timbers fans are awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJri0CfH4RQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra6NXfpnudU
Portland deserves an MLS team just to keep the Timbers / Seattle Sounders rivalry going.
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I really enjoyed the piece about the “Gentleman Grafter” selling potato peelers. I always like hearing about interesting ways people have made a lot of money outside of the usual mainstream routes.
There’s some videos of him on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ia7TF2yVQU
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A movie used to cost here in Toronto more that $12. Due to heavy competition from illegal downloading sites, Cineplex Odeon cut it to $10 and every Tuesday it’s $4. I believe you guys have same deal(discounted price once a week) in the U.S. This is a great way to save money.
A Dawn Journal
http://www.adawnjournal.com
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I for one love movies (I’m an independent filmmaker) and there are ways to see movies for cheap. My employer offers discounted tickets, I just have to have the cash on me and remember to stop by HR, which I rarely ever do. I also like to go to film festivals. I’ve bought tickets to the San Diego Film Festival for $50 which included 5 days worth of movies plus all the parties. I’ve also volunteered at other fests, including CineVegas where they pay for my hotel room if I do all 9 days of the festival. It’s a cheap vacation in Las Vegas (unfortunately in June) and you get into movies and parties for free. Plus you support independent filmmaking by attending festivals.
As for non-film stuff, we have something going on here in San Diego every weekend. As I type this, thousands of people are riding bikes across the Coronado Bay Bridge to Coronado Island as part of a 25 mile ride. It’s rather historic since the bridge is usually closed to bicycles and pedestrians. It’s just a matter of doing a search to know what’s happening, most cities of any size will have something going on most weekends.
Farmers markets are good for other things than just buying your produce, we have a number of them here and there’s usually also music, local artists and other things to make it a fun way to spend an hour or two for free.
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A week ago, my wife and I went to a local university’s football (Div. I-A) season opener. On our way in, we found someone whose group had bought a ticket block far bigger than they needed in order to save money (regular price = $9, block of 50 = $3/ea.) and we bought our tickets for $2.50 each. We also bought a little food from the concession stand, but our total cost for more than 4 hours of fun (home team won 52-0)was about $10!
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Thanks for the link to the Paul Michael article. It led my family and me to enjoy a trip to a nearby produce stand we’ve always wanted to visit. (Even posted about it on my blog!)
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