Around Memorial Day, Mr. A (my husband’s name on this blog- I may think of a better name later) and I went to a bar-b-que hosted by his frat. I met a young woman who is in the movie industry- she makes them, she doesn’t act in them. Being into the arts she is knowledgeable about different events going on in the area.
She shared this great site with me and as true gifts keep giving, I’m sharing the link with ya’ll. If you live in Vegas, NYC, Chicago, L.A., the Bay Area, San Jose, San Diego, Orange County, or Boston this link has discount and sometimes free tickets for all forms of art, many shopping events, cocktail boat trips, dancing, spas and more. The great thing about this site is it also provides listings of the many activities occuring in your area. It is free to join and I get a $1 credit for all who sign up using this link.
Mr. A., the woman who gave me this link, her husband (Mr. A’s frat) and I are scheduled to go to a musical event this weekend. We got tickets off the site- at a great discount. The couple we are going with are both in the entertainment industry, the husband is a writer. Those professions occasionally spend portions of time unemployed, so they are more likely to budget like we do, meaning they won’t suggest we have a $400 dinner prior to the main event.
We often go out with our older friends/family that own their own businesses who recall what starting a business was like. Because they are established, when they invite us out for $1000 excursions or $400 meals, we know and they know, they are footing the bill. In those situations we do pick up the inexpensive items, like drinks, parking, cover charges, and/or green fees.
Around Father’s Day, a childhood friend of Mr. A’s invited him on an 2-day ocean fishing trip. The trip was that same day. The cost was something like $1000 per person. Mr. A. paid a portion of that and offered his friend’s father some free business services to pay for the rest. Mr. A. is like the 3rd son to his friend’s father, so the father would have been fine if Mr. A. paid nothing, but why pay nothing when you have skills?
The next week, Mr. A. went to do the free work and the friends father was so impressed that he hired our company to do more work. The father owns 6 fast food franchises and some other businesses. He is also the president of the franchise group in So. Cal and will be taking Mr. A. to the next meeting and telling the other owners how Mr. A. has helped increase his business efficiency and that they should hire our firm.
Sometimes you may not have the money to play with the monied but that doesn’t have to eliminate you from being in the game. You have something to offer. Offer it. Mr. A. also made us a new set of couple friends while on the trip. The husband of the new couple is newly self-employed and the wife is a reporter for a national news group. They live just a few miles away from us, which is nice if we ever wanted to visit or meet up.
Most of our same aged friends are self-employed like us. Having a group of friends all striving toward similiar goals and facing similiar challenges, makes things nicer. It is also a great network. One of Mr. A’s friends is some sort of film tech at a studio. When we got our projector and screen, that friend brought out his equipment, and helped Mr. A. set it up. We had been getting crazy expensive set up quotes from private companies. We paid his friend a couple hundred dollars and save a whole lot of cash. On occassion - when filming in our neighborhood- that friend has invited us to watch tapings of videos. That’s like a free personal mini concert. We get lots of offers for free or low cost entertainment, which is another benefit of city living. We also have friends in diverse fields, who are connected to various things and regularly invite us to them, that also makes this a cheaper place to live.
We have access to free movie passes at The Grove. We’re equi-distant from Magic Johnson Theatre which is cheap and The Grove, which is pretty expensive for movies. The Grove has HD screens and when we saw Oceans 13, the wrinkles in Brad Pitt were just frightening. I don’t think I’m ready for HD movies. I love the Grove, so unless we are feeling a desire to see a movie with our people (because there are some movies where half the fun is the experience of hearing folks that have already seen it 4 times and have it memorized say the lines, or say “go head girl” “whoooo hoooooo” “umph”) we go to the Grove for an inexpensive/free afternoon or evening out.
You don’t have to be wealthy to enjoy what big cities offer, you just have to be active and get to know people. People are interesting. I love talking to (most) new people and finding out where they are from, what they do, and how they chose to do it. I learn so much. One good thing about a big city- its easy to find people who have an interesting story or a dream they are pursuing or some interesting profession. It pays to be social and being social is free.