Idea #4: Lawn Seats @ Concert

Okay, so I’m fully aware of the fact that $60 for concert tickets in no way fits the general parameters of this blog (20 buck outing for two people), however, for a special occasion every now and then, I think a splurge is nice. 

The special occasion was Terri and I’s 1-year anniversary (two weeks early because that’s when the concert was) and a night with a questionable weather forecast. To help cut some of the costs, I purchased the tickets in advance and at the actual venue due to the markups of bullshit “handling costs” when you buy them on-line.

To surprise Terri and make the cheap seats exciting, I put the tickets inside a card which I slipped inside another card and then took that and put it in envelopes (like a Russian nesting doll sort of idea).  It took a while for her to open all the paper and cards which made for the great photo op seen here:

               










          So, although I spent more than my average of $20, I didn’t want to break the bank on one outing so we had the lawn seats at Riverbend Music Center to the Lady Antabellum show with Darius Rucker and Thompson Square as openers.  The concert started out really well.  Thompson Square sang their song that is on the radio called “Kiss Me or Not” and one other song and then Darius Rucker came on stage. 

Darius Rucker’s name rings a bell because he was one-half of the band called Hootie and the Blowfish. He was the ‘Hootie’ of the two. So Hootie played a fabulous set with all his new hit songs as well a couple from his career as the duo formerly shorted to “Hoot and Blow”.  (Okay so only I called them Hoot and Blow and only just now in this post.  Still, my point is that nicknames are fun). 

Sadly, however, at the end of Hoot’s set he did a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain” which sounds like this: “Puurrppllee rrrrrraaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnn”. And then his set was done.  Great, next!  However, there was a moment and then there was thunder.  Next, I looked at the skies and Terri took this photo of me:

and then another moment passed and then the skies opened up and the rain poured and the lightening striked (cue Garth Brooks song).  Finally everyone stampeded towards the limited number of exits in a way that makes you realize how people die at venues like this one.

In the end though, I wasn’t terribly disappointed.  We got to hear Hoot even though he was really suppose to be the opener and got to play in the rain.  I think lawn seats are extremely underrated.  There is an amazing camaraderie on the lawn.  I mean…who wants to sit in front row seats with back support if you can sprawl out on a blanket?!  Who would want to see their musician idol sweat up close if you can avoid that body odor by watching them on a BIG SCREEN T.V.?  Who, I ask, would want to be close enough to feel as if they are sitting in the woofer if they can listen to the concert from a comfortable distance without damaging one’s hearing? 

Enough of rousing the broke-ass masses, here is the cost analysis:

-Two Lawn tickets for Riverbend Music Center:just under $30/each or $60 total

-Two stupid expensive sodas- a sad $13
-two huge smiles like these: 

TOTAL costs for special event=$73

Idea #3- Broadway Play for FREE!

      So this is the second post in one week due to some awesome unexpected tickets that popped into my life…the other day, I had planned to roll into my sister’s hometown and spend a few hours with her.  But then the tickets came into my life….

      Anyhow, I’m sure all four of my dear, loyal readers are all like: “Jumpin Jellyfish! Get to the point of the free broadway tickets woman” and okay, okay, I will oblige.  So, rewind time…I was getting ready to leave my house for my sister’s when Terri revealed that she had scored FREE tickets to the Broadway show Billy Elliot.  It went down like this:  So Terri says, “Do you want to go to the play with me?” and I said something like “WOMAN!  What kind of question IS that?  Of COURSE I’d love to go to a Broadway play but we cannot really afford to do so” and then Terri says, and I’m parapharsing heavily here: “Ditch your sister…she’ll still be your sister tomorrow and come with me to said play because, muh lady, I got free tickets from work”.  Here I did emotionally hyper backflips with excitement, told my sister that I’d see her this same day but, like, who was I to turn down free broadway tickets.

      And so, at 7p Terri and I headed downtown (Cincinnati) to the Aronoff (link for venue is here:  http://cincinnatiarts.org/aronoff    ).  After circling the block for several stressful moments like Kentucky country bumpkins that don’t know how to park in a big, scary downtown area, we parked for free at a meter on Walnut Street.  (Parking was free because it was after 6p).  Then we spent about half an hour killing time in the lobby and finally sat down in our seats about 15 minutes till showtime.  The seats were in the first tier thing (as in not on the orchestra floor) but were still really, really decent seats and sincethe tickets were free, who was I to complain? We ended up sitting next to a co-worker of hers who’s name I kept thinking was “Kojack” but it wasn’t but that IS a fun 1990′s pop culture reference.
The pictures from the actual event are non-existent because I didn’t want to hassle with being told to take my camera back to my car but here are two pictures taken after the fact:

a picture of the tickets themselves




a hilariously awful self-portrait of me holding my ticket! (It’s hard to take a self pic!) 


      I am, naturally, aware that not every is dating someone who gets free Broadway tickets but there has to be some perk to her odd, hooker-like work hours.  But still.  Yeah.  Okay.  So how does one get free tickets for various events?  That’s a toughie but I want to make my blog ideas something everyone can access.  So here are a few ideas to getting free tickets.

Concert Ticket Free/Discount Idea List
1. Make friends in ‘high places’
2. Scan/Obsessively Vist or subscribe to deal sites such as Groupon and CincySavers.com and Livingsocial.com
3.  See #1 on list
Here is the immediate breakdown:
What:  Broadway Play – Billy Elliot
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
When: January 17, 2012
Cost Analysis: 2 Broadway tickets to Billy Elliot as a work perk: FREE, Parking: Free  (under budget” by $20!)

Idea #2- Coffeehouse Aucostic

      So  January 21st and 22nd, College Hill Coffee Company (music schedule is here: http://www.collegehillcoffeeco.com/music.htm) celebrated their 5th anniversary and hosted two of my favorite acoustic  folk musicians (Tracy Walker and Chris Collier on the 21st and 22nd respectfully).  The Tracy Walker show I had to miss because I needed to earn my $20 at work to spend on for this blog (lol/kjk) but on Saturday, I was a free woman.

      Luckily, I arrived to the show early to make sure I secured a seat at the front due to last year’s floor-sittin at this event being uncomfy!  So I settled in and asked Chris to sing her song about being her mother’s daughter.  (She obliged and I bawled like a baby!).  The rest of the set was also lovely and the sound engineer dude did a much better job than a show I was at recently for a different musician in Northern Kentucky!

      Since Terri had to work and because I decided to attend the show at the last minute, I was a singular broke girl today.  Anyway, the coffeehouse wasn’t as crowded on this anniversary as on anniversaries past so this made for the atmosphere to be expectantly calm and relaxing.  I sat down next to two delightful women that I didn’t know and had hilarious conversations.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t brave enough to ask for a picture with them for this blog but I did, indeed, get a couple pictures with Chris and Chris by herself as seen here:

Chris playing her song about her mother










Chris and I 



       I told Chris about this blog and how I was at the show alone but that my blog was called TWOBROKEGIRLS2012 and she said to tell my readers (whom number in the single digits so far but are apparently higher than ’2 readers’) this: “Tell them that you got me for cheap!” -Chris Collier.  So I suppose you could say that this was still a TWObrokegirls adventure given the quote and all

Here is the immediate breakdown:
What: Music Night at College Hill Coffee Company
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
When: January 14, 2012
Cost Analysis: 2 sharable two-cup coffee carafe @ $2.30per carafe ($4.60 for BOTH carafe) + pint of local Mango Sorbet $5.49  + $2 optional tip for performer =  TOTAL- $12.09        (under my budget (!) by $7.91!)

Idea #1- Women's Basketball Game Tickets (College-Level)

      Hey peoples! Today marks the first twobrokegirls2012 date idea. Today’s idea was Collegiate Women’s Basketball Game. So Terri and I ate before we left the house and packed a crap load of snacks for the trip down. (We did, to be honest, have a cheat and we ate at a diner. However, since this trip was done in a few hours time, I’m still counting it for TwoBrokeGirls2012 because day trips can be done without eating at restaurants).

      We pulled into Lexington with two hours until tip off and walked around Lexington in weather so cold it made for HNV (or ‘high nipple visibility’). After walking into the wind shoulders first like SWAT team members without the shields, we ate at the first diner we encountered called Tin Roof Bar (http://tinroofbars.com/Home/Lexington). The food was reasonably priced and fairly tasty but it was the decore that really ‘made’ the atmosphere.

 In the restroom people write entire paragraphs on the walls about cheating men and, in the case of this picture, who to call if you’d like to ‘cuddel’ (though I suspect they intended to spell “cuddle”):









This is Terri and I at the restaurant called Tin Roof UK pre- game huddle:

The UK Ladies v. TN ladies mid-game.

Mid-Game:

The Lady Wildcats A’dia Mathies drove the lane and scored in traffic with 4.2 seconds left for the winning basket. Final Score you ask?! UK-61, TN-60. GO LADY CATS!!

Here is the immediate breakdown:
What: University of Kentucky Women’s versus Tennessee Women’s Basketball
Where: Lexington, Kentucky/University of Kentucky
When: January 12, 2012
Cost Analysis: two general admission basketball tickets picked up at Will Call = $19.50 (Gas Money is not included in outing but at 160 miles round trip , 30 miles gal, gas was under $20 round trip and the food was also under $20)

Full Introduction

      I’m Jess and I lost my decent-paying, professional job in June of 2011. After I lost my job, I was utterly stressed about how I was going to make ends meet and as a result, I stopped going out and spending ‘fun’ money all together. If I did something fun, it was completely free due to my lack of moola. Rarely spending money any ‘fun’ money was getting to me because I felt like I was missing out. However, when I thought about spending money the way my employed friends did, I felt anxious and guilty. If I went out to lunch with a friend at a low-cost restaurant, I couldn’t stop calculating the number of Ramen Noodles packets I should have been buying with that money. Likewise, if I paid the entry fee for a park, I would use that fee to compute how those five dollars would have equated into a gallon and a half of gas and so forth. My feelings of spending money on anything other than basic, primal needs was racked with the guilt of a Catholic schoolgirl rolling the waistband of her skirt to make the hem shorter…


      One day, my girlfriend and I were talking about our respective financial information. In that discussion, we talked a bit about our budgets and how expensive it is to go out. We realized that we usually have ten bucks a piece for a $20 date on any given week. From there, I wondered how on earth anyone could go on a date with just $20 for two people…so I kept musing on this topic.

      And then, I had a turning point. I randomly remembered a class exercise I completed in one of my college courses for my degree in Social Work. In this class, we were often given a scenario of an individual or family with a social problem. This particular case study I remembered was one in which the family we were studying had limited funds, four children and so on. We were to develop a budget for this family and that budget had to meet all the family’s needs. Everyone in the class, myself included, completed the exercise and developed a budget. Our professor seems pleased because every student seemed to have completed the task. Then, as we spoke about how we were meeting our family’s needs for food, clothing, shelter and so forth, our professor pointed out that we had missed a huge need for this family. We had all missed the point. We had assumed that since the family had food and water and shelter, that our job was done. We were wrong.

      Our professor pointed out that since those basic needs were met for the family, we should have budgeted some time and limited funds for the family to have fun. FUN?! I was baffled as were many of my classmates. Sure everyone needs to have some fun but if you’re struggling to survive shouldn’t survival come first? The answer was that, yes, survival should come first absolutely. But with most of our families, there was about $20 left in every classmate’s budget that the family could use for fun. That was an interesting thought in my opinion. I read in school that some people in poverty are stressed to the point of physical ailments and then, what my professor was saying made sense even in a roundabout kind of way. I mean, if a family or individual in poverty has an outlet for stress (i.e.: fun), then perhaps they would be healthier and happier and perhaps even better in their jobs due to overall health and so forth.

       From the above events, this blog was born. The general idea/challenge for this blog is to have fun with a date or a friend for $20 combined. The rules of the game are this:
-I may not spend more than $20 total for myself and my friend (gas money not included).
-I may not eat out without including the costs of the restaurant meal in this $20.
-Have fun without breaking my budget
-Every post for an outing must include at least one picture from said outing
-And, finally, every post must have a cost-analysis breakdown by item/dollar (i.e.: movie ticket deal- 8.50/piece, etc)