Free Tickets

With some company coming into town this weekend I went looking for coupons, discount tickets to various places around town. After touring the internet for an hour or so, it was brought to my attention that the best place to get free tickets is at your local library. I didn't believe it so I went and checked it out.

The local libraries do in fact have free tickets to tons of stuff. It works just like checking out a book. They have a stash of 5 or 6 of these "ticket" things and you walk up and check it out just like a book. Most of them were admission for 2.

Regular Prices are below, you can save quite a bit

Minnesota Zoo - $16 - The most popular, everyone was out

Como Zoo - its free already but they like donations

Science Museum - $17

Walker Art Center - $10 - its free every Thursday

There were several more museums. I believe they had admission for anything "educational" in the Twin Cities.

Being Green, Saving Green, Stopping Crime

Yep- Nate and I did all of that in about 30 minutes tonight! Okay, actually all we did was stop by a local Used Book Sale whose proceeds went to the Bloomington Police department to help crime prevention programs.

But I did get 4 books that I am super excited to read. See, being green, by re-using someones old book. I actually get 90% of my books from half.com, which is buying someones used books, but they are usually about $5 by the time you pay for shipping. Tonight, each book was only $4 - See, saving green. Since we are going on vacation soon, and I need to have books for the trip, I would have needed to buy a new book or two anyway. I did see some really cool Better Homes and Garden's Decorating books - too bad they were from 1991. Home decor was just as bad as fashion that year!

Nate bought some great comedy DVDs - good old school comedians. Should be fun to listen to!

If you are in the area, you should stop by the book sale. There were so many books we could have looked for hours! It goes until June 20th :)

Lifetime Fitness

Ever since I moved to the arctic I've been a member at Lifetime. Original thoughts were this is a yuppy club that charges way too much, is way overcrowded, and will be under utilized. So it turns out that maybe only the latter is true (need to get motivated!!!).

Lifetime costs Meg and I about $100 a month. With the aid of our health insurance providers and 12 trips per month each we can bring that down to $60. Still kind of pricey and I'm sure other local joints would beat the price with the insurance discount. However, a few months back I started paying attention to all the advertisements at Lifetime. Soon we were saving 10% on our T-Mobile bill. Then we were saving 10% on our auto/home insurance. This summer we can get 2 for 1's at most golf courses around town. They also offer discounts on gift cards to places all over town; restaurants, movies, etc.

Overcrowded?!? I haven't had any problems getting a machine, the only problem I've had is finding a parking space.

Motivation = $$$ The months shortly after the wedding I was a slacker but since then have picked up the pace and am getting back after it. Ripped, tore up, swole; probably not words that describe me and never will. La Casa Salsa and Red Vines are an issue...

So if your new budget may have you cutting out the gym- you may be able to let it pay for itself. (I tried so desperately to add something about cutting out the fat there, but i just couldn't put it together)