My Cheep Life

So we all know going to the movies these days is expensive, way expense. You can’t even use your student ID everyday for a discount, now only Thursdays are student designated days at AMC.   But renting a movie just isn’t the same. So I have found a few theatres that offer good deals.

3 words. Brew and View. You get to drink while watching a movie, it is the best executed idea ever! This is at the Vic in Chicago.  You pay $5 to watch two movies, the bar always has at least once drink special, and the popcorn is delicious.

Logan Square Theatre in Chicago. $3-4 for a movie, you really can’t beat that price even if the theatre is small and old.

Movies in the park are the best. They are free, yes I said free. Bring a picnic, blanket, and a friend. Grant park listings and if you don’t want that much of a crowd there are free movies in the park all over the city, some of them even have free popcorn.  Check them out here

From June 17- Aug 5th. AMC Theatres is doing a Summer Movie Camp where all proceeds benefit Variety – The Children’s Charity and the Will Rogers Institute.  Movies are ever Wednesday at 10:00 am for a $1!  Only problem is not all theatres are participating but a lot are, and you can find out which ones on their website.  Check out the schedule of movies.

Oklahoma City has Northpark 7, inside Northpark Mall. $2 per movie, and it has $1 Tuesdays!!  There is also one like this in Norman at Robinson Crossing. 

Cinemark has discount days, they are different for all theatres. So check out the local listings for a city near you.

Crest Cinema near Seattle has all day every day $3 movies.

If you feel like heading out to Brooklyn Tuesday and Thursday is $6.50 movie day at Cobble Hills Cinema

Denver has $.50 Tuesdays at Tiffanys 

The most awesome t-shirts ever!! (great grammar I know.) They are having a sale at the moment it ends June 10th. They have $5 and $10 t-shirts.  They are user submitted so they are very unique, and pretty popular in Chicago, I own like 5 of them.

So go check them out and then sign up for their email, so you can get updates on new shirts and new sales.  They make great Christmas and birthday gifts. Or design your own shirt and submit it.

June 5th, that is tomorrow is FREE DONUT DAY  with the purchase of a drink.   So go get your drink on and enjoy something sweet on the side!

Also there is an Egg and Cheese Wake Up Wrap for 99 cents and a hot or cold latte is 99 cents.

Don’t forget to check my  calendar (to the bottom and right of the page) and see what other “cheep” stuff is happening. This month in Chicago there are a lot of free museum days.

Fun, Free (donations), music, food.
http://www.do-divisionstreetfest.com/

One of the best days of the year!  For the third year now  every May my friends and I have participated in Zoo Day.  The Lincoln Park Zoo is free to the public and so we take advantage of that.  The zoo can be fun for all ages, especially when a few spirits are included.  We have a fun theme Rum and Rhinos, Beer and Bears, Wine and Wallabies and Mimosas and Monkeys.  And we bring a water bottle of our drink of choice and give the corresponding animal a toast. The first year we even made shirts with our slogans on them.  The zoo is so large and the animals are so fascinating that you always see something new.  This year was the first time we saw the otters, pigmy hippo, and giraffes.  But we also didn’t see many of the exhibits that we had seen before, this way we have to keep going back for more (hey that rhymed) and we never get bored.  Let me tell you about something I had never seen before this time around—- We were outside at the primate exhibit checking out a monkey.  Well the monkey got tired of looking at us and climbed up the fence, all of a sudden I hear a girl shriek.  I look up and realize that the monkey is pooing in his hand and then he proceeds to wipe it all over the fence.  Now this cleared the area and grossed a lot of people out.  But I was happy that he wasn’t throwing his poo at all of us, that might have ruined zoo day.  I encourage all of you to have a Zoo Day of your own, it is a fairly “cheep” activity, gets you outside, gives you exercise, you see things you wouldn’t see on a daily basis unless you work at a zoo, and it is good friend bonding time.

Monkeying around

Seattle Friends: Woodland Park Zoo Get $4 off admission every Friday at 4 till Sep 30th.  

Oklahoma friends: Oklahoma City Zoo  only $7 and parking is free. 

Kansas City Friends: Kansas City Zoo $8 on Tuesdays.

Dallas Friends: Dallas Zoo $10 every day.

Most of them allow outside food and drink and I just realized how much I like zoo websites!  They are so fun and informative!

below is a video of baby ducks (Cheep cheep!) with a big of a pigmy hippo sticking his tongue out

Untitled from colette shrader on Vimeo.

Hi all, welcome to my new blog site!  Below I have all of my post from the previous blog site , unfortunately all of your lovely comments did not come along for the ride.  Make sure you check out my calendar on the right hand side for cheep things to do in the city!

Walking.  It doesn’t cost anything, therefore it is CHEEP. It gets you out of the house, gives you exercise, you get your daily dose of vitamin D, and it’s fun. It is especially fun if you go on a walk with the right person.  It was a beautiful 77 degree day out today prime time weather for a walk.  It was also a smelly good day I noticed.  New flowers in bloom, lilacs filling the air, people bbq-ing, and I’m pretty sure I smelled baking.  Luckily we only smelled poo once.  Walking can be an adventure, you never know what you are going to see or run into.  With my trusty boyfriend by my side we started out on a stroll and ended up going to 3 yard sales. Yard sales are like treasure hunts, you get to look at peoples unwanted junk and sometimes you see the neatest things or find something awesome to purchase that you didn’t know you needed.  For example I found bookends with a worm coming out of them, a vase shaped like a curvy lady, bongos, and underwear.  I can see why the underwear was for sale, the skid mark style has been out for years! I didn’t purchase anything, I wanted to but kept reminding myself that I am moving in a month and that Ace Venture tape and bongos wouldn’t  fit into the cardboard box I might be living in.  We saw many a dogs, and a lady watering her house.  I’m not sure why, I felt the house was already tall enough.  We did get some tomatoes on our walk, free tomatoes!  Free sidewalk tomatoes!  There was a small bag with 3 perfectly fine tomatoes lying on the sidewalk, not wanting to waste food and realizing that the 3 second rule doesn’t apply here, we picked them up.  Our walk took us to Division street, Wicker Park is so hip. If you are looking for a good place to have a drink or eat outside, this is the street, any of the restaurants would be a perfect outside eating spot.  Quite a few of them have lunch specials, just make sure you go before 2:30 when they end.  We wandered into Renegade Handmade, which is now my new favorite store.  Super cute, artsy, fun underwear, and you guessed it handmade.

Lets recap- My Walking Adventure May 23: 3 garage sales, sweet smells, many a laughs, free tomatoes, quality time w/ the bf, vitamin D, exercise, and one mustache button purchased for $1 at Renegade Handmade.  Now I would say that was one fun packed cheep day.

• The new wing in the Art Institute is opening next week and to celebrate they are having free admission May 16-22.
• It also seems that on Thursdays there is free general admission from 5-8
• Free admission for holders one of 820 Chicago Public Library museum passes for up to four visitors
• Starting May 23rd the price of admission goes up, BUT that now includes all special exhibits.  Bring proof of residency and there is $2 off your admission. I did the math and I think we win.
• Also coat check will now be free.  Coat  check is a great thing to tell out of towners, especially if they fly in and can’t meet up with you until later, they can go check their bag at the Art Institute for free and don’t have to carry it around all day.
• The entire month of February is free
• Since it is getting nice out here are out door areas of the museum that are free of charge———-The North and South gardens  *  The new sculpture terrace on the third floor of the Modern Wing

I love going to the art  museum!  It makes me feel cultured  :)  You could make a big to do night of it. Get dressed all artsy fartsy or classy and then have a picnic of wine and cheese before you go. Or have grapes and cheese on the train ride there while you discuss  Mc Donald’s golden arches as one of the most influential works in modern art.  You then can use that admission $ you just saved to grab a slice of pizza, share an app, get dessert, grab a bottle of wine, or have some beers and tots.

See you there!!

For those of you with families or who frequent the museum a lot you might like to get a membership, which really isn’t too shabby of an idea. They start at $80 and include all children.  There are also student memberships for $40

Non Chicago Residents:

My Kansas City friends try the Nelson-Atkins Museum, For free admission then stop off at their cafe for a cookie and coffee.

Oklahoma City friends: OKCMOA Admission is $10 but check out the skyline roof top cafe.  The National Cowboy Museum is $8.50 for students and free parking.

My fashionable New York friends: the Met is $10 but will be worth it for the Model Exhibit.  The MOMA has Target Free Friday Nights

Game Night doesn’t require that you leave the apartment, although you can, there are a few bars that have a TON of board games in them to play.  Or you could have a scavenger hunt!  This will be next on my list of things to do.

Anyway, last night an impromptu game night happened at my place.  This cost me $0.  Although at some point I had spend money to purchase things used, but that money was already out of my pocket.

Let me start from the beginning…..

I decided to make 7 layer bars. This is an easy cheep dessert. Basically I use leftover sweets from previous desserts I have made; chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, health bar crumbs, coconut, and grahm crackers.  I have just saved them in my frig or freezer so I won’t eat them.  So I have gotten the 7 l.b’s all ready to go, it is time for the last step to pour a can of sweetened condensed milk over it all. I just barely get the can open when it oozes what looks like puss. Now for those of you who haven’t used condensed milk, it should look like a little thicker version of milk, white and creamy, NOT cream colored and as thick as pudding. SICK!!!!! Then I notice the date- best if used by Nov 2006.  Now what do I do?  Make my own, that’s what I do. I looked up a recipe and it is basically dissolving sugar in milk on the stove.  I give making your own condensed milk 1 cheep bc it isn’t that hard and it is cheaper.  But I did something wrong, I think I put too much of my homemade condensed milk on the bars, because they weren’t so much bars, you couldn’t eat them like a cookie, you needed a fork bc they fell apart easily. But boy were they TASTY!

Then a few people came over, we had 2 1/2 bottles of wine between us. And 1 1/2 of those bottles were free- gifts.  We played Apples to Apples whilst we drank our free wine.   Super fun game!  Now I bought this practically never been used game last summer at a garage sale for $3.  I was stoked, but when I got home I realized why it only cost me only $3, it was the junior version, Apples to Apples Junior +9.  Eh, it is still a fun game, just a dumbed down version, which kinda made it more entertaining.

So pretty good random night, only one glass was broken.  Game night is such a good cheep way to hang out with friends without having to deal with the annoying bar crowd.  You don’t have to have a board game, you could have cards, or dice, or sticks, or marbles, or spoons, or………

 Mother’s Day is May 10th, that is this Sunday people! Incase you had forgotten I have some easy and cheap things you can do!

1. card, they can be super cheap and if you don’t live in the same state it is the easiest way to go. She will be glad that you remembered.  You could even make a card!  Whether you go old fashion and use construction paper or do  a little computer/photoshop/indesign work, you will definitely rack up the points with that one!

2. Breakfast in bed!  Pancakes and eggs are inexpensive.  Revert back to when you were little, except it will be less messy this time, hopefully. And if you make breakfast at her house, you can use the food in her pantry.  One Mother’s day when my dad was out of town, we brought my mom corn pops on a paper plate in bed. We were afraid to use the real plates, incase we broke one, and afraid to pour the milk incase we spilled it.  We didn’t want to make mom mad.  She likes to throw that mother’s day in our faces quite a bit.

3. Flowers!  If you don’t live in the city, you should totally pick wild flowers.  I think my sister and I did that every mother’s day when we were little, we probably included weeds, but it is more thoughtful than buying because you took time out of your day to do something for her. 

4. Look at old photo albums or watch old home videos while sipping on lemonade or sangria. Get a cheep bottle of wine, some juice or club soda, a dash of sugar, chop up some fruit and you are in business.

5. Help clean around the house.

6. Don’t forget to tell her you love her.

7. Dead animals. Actually I don’t recommend this. But my sister and I thought it was so funny to wrap up dead birds and give them to mom, we liked to see her scream and run for some reason. One mother’s day we even put a deer head on a platter and brought it to her in bed.

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