How to Save Money On Entertainment

1. Cancel your magazine and newspaper subscriptions. All of that info is available online.
2. Familiarize yourself with these two lists of inexpensive dates: List 1 – List 2
3. Have a picnic in a park.
4. College student centers/college bookstores sometimes sell reduced price movie tickets (though you might need a student ID to purchase them).  These are not reduced price tickets to a particular movie, but instead are reduced price tickets to a particular brand of theater (i.e. you’d buy a 5-pack of $6 tickets to Regal movie theaters instead of buying $11 tickets individually at the theater).
5. Stream music instead of downloading it. Don’t pay to download music (I’m not saying you should download it illegally); instead save money by streaming music for free from Pandora.com, Musicovery.com, GrooveShark.com, etc.
6. Visit Meetup.com, a site that helps groups of like-minded people coordinate gatherings and events.  There are Meetup.com groups for nearly everything, and many of the groups organize inexpensive entertaining events, like hiking or reduced price wine tastings.
7. Borrow CDs and DVDs from your local library. Many people don’t know that local libraries often have much more than books and they can be utilized like a free Blockbuster.
8. Use Restaurant.com to buy huge restaurant coupons for restaurants in your area.
9. See what your local college has going on for entertainment (performances by student groups, visiting lecturers, other public speakers, etc.).  Many of these events will be open to the public.
10. Don’t buy fast food. It’s not a meal out in the sense of “going out” (both the quality of the food and the atmosphere are subpar) and, as cheap as it, it almost always costs more than preparing your own meal.
11. Host a potluck. It’s possible to entertain on a budget; hold a potluck dinner, a dinner in which each guest brings a dish and all of the dishes are shared. This is one of the most enjoyable ways to save money and bring people together.
12. Visit your city’s website, particularly at the start of the summer, to see if there are any festivals/concerts in the area.  Festivals and concerts planned by municipalities are generally quite cheap and often free.
13. Don’t buy an individual copy of a magazine (like Glamour for $4-5).  If you’re going to do so a few times a year, just get a subscription… but don’t do that either; all of that information is available online for a much lower price (free).
14. Don’t buy a TV (or sell yours if you have one and get rid of your cable contract).  You can get most of your favorite shows for free and legally on sites like Hulu.com, CBS.com, Fox.com, ABC.com, NBC.com, MTV.com, etc.
15. Evaluate the costs of your hobbies. There isn’t enough time for all the things we’d like to do.  With that in mind, choose those that you’d both like to do and are cheap.  Go hiking, visit national parks, visit museums, etc,
16. Before you go to any restaurant (or really any store, doctor’s office, etc.), always check Yelp.com, a site that aggregates consumer reviews of restaurants.  That way, you’ll be sure you’re really going to get the quality you expect.
17. Alternate babysitting with a friend instead of hiring a babysitter when you go out.
18. Rent movies from Netflix.com. Don’t rent more expensive movies from rental stores like Blockbuster (in addition to higher prices, renting from stores like Blockbuster will cause you to spend money on gas going to and from the store and you’ll occasionally incur late fees).
19. Use StubHub.com. Buying cheaper sports, concert and theater tickets from other fans on StubHub.com is one of the easiest ways to save money.
20. Large wholesale stores like Costco often sell reduced price movie tickets. These are not reduced price tickets to a particular movie, but instead are reduced price tickets to a particular brand of theater (i.e. you’d buy a 5-pack of $8 tickets to Regal movie theaters instead of buying $11 tickets individually at the theater).
21. Rent video games from GameFly.com instead of buying them. GameFly is often called the “Netflix of video games.”