When my daughters ask me what I'd like for a birthday or Christmas present, I almost always say that I just want to spend time with them. So, for the past couple of years, they've each given me just what I've wanted, a girlfriend date. This year, as I mentioned yesterday, one daughter arranged for tickets to a special exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum in the downtown area, along with lunch out. If you live in a major metropolitan area you know how expensive it can be to visit the downtown of the city. Seattle is no exception.
My daughter is somewhat frugal by necessity, which means finding a way to do this sort of outing inexpensively was a must. This is how we achieved that goal.
- We took the bus into the city instead of driving and finding parking. The other daughter gave us a ride to a nearby park and ride so we didn't have to take multiple buses. Parking in the city for for 4 hours would have cost about $20. Gas to drive to the city and back would run about $5, for a total of $25. Our bus fare for both of us came to $16, not super-duper cheap, but a savings of $9. The bonus is we didn't have to do the driving, but instead rode in a nice double-decker bus on the top level with great views. The museum was a 5-7 minute walk from the bus stop downtown.
- We brought some trail mix to snack on during the bus ride, so we weren't ravenous once we got downtown or while at the museum. No cost and likely saved us about $5 over buying some sort of pastry or treat before even seeing the exhibit.
- My daughter bought tickets for a "first Thursday," meaning the cost of the ticket was reduced by $20 each. Viewing this exhibit on any other day of the month (besides the first Thursday) would have cost $29.99 each. Instead, my daughter paid $9.99 each. This is really the smart way to go. We went during a week when there were a lot of holiday crowds in the city and yet I never felt overly crowded in the museum, despite the cost savings for all of us attending this exhibit. If you've been in any art museums in major European cities, any day of the month is super crowded. With that in mind, the SAM on a first Thursday actually seemed pleasantly crowded. So, on the tickets, my daughter saved $40. And, we stayed for our full allotment of time of 2 hours, so I feel we got our money's worth and don't need to come back another day to finish the exhibit.
- I wanted some sort of souvenir from this visit. The brochure actually makes a lovely souvenir and didn't cost a penny. In addition, I brought a camera and took several nice photos of works that I particularly enjoyed. For 39 cents, I can take my USB stick to FedEx and print out a 4 X 6 of my favorite photo from the exhibit, if I am so inclined, for an additional souvenir. The gift shop on the premises offers lots of wonderful books, which of course, as an art history buff, I would love to own. However, I think I'll check my local library for similar books first. Then if I find one I especially enjoy, I can add it to my birthday wish list and hopefully anyone shopping for me will order the book off of Amazon, a used copy hopefully, and save about $10 off of the publisher's price.
- After we viewed all of the works, my daughter treated me to lunch in the cafe on the premises. They offer bowls of soup with bread for $6 and small cups of coffee for $1.75. Considering this is downtown in a major city, I thought this a pretty good deal. The cafe is artistically-appointed down to some of the small details, including some sculpture-worthy seats near the window and the boldly-colored cutlery. As a bonus, they offer complementary lemon-cucumber water. We each had a bowl of hearty Moroccan lentil soup with sourdough bread and I had a cup of their drip coffee, for a total of just over $15. Eating in any other cafe in the area would have cost us about $25 for the two of us. If we had wanted to eat at the McDonald's that is a couple of blocks away, we likely would have spent that same $15 (with their inflated inner-city price structure) and not enjoyed pleasant surroundings, service, or unique dishes. Also, I ordered the least expensive coffee on their menu, the drip. I could have ordered one of the pricier espresso-based beverages for double or triple the cost. The drip was quite tasty, I thought. (You may know this already -- Seattleites are coffee-snobs.)
- When we finished our lunches, we headed back to the bus stop, which happens to be right next to a See's Chocolates shop. In case you don't know this, when you enter a See's shop, the candy attendants offer a free chocolate to each person in your group, even if you're "just looking." We got to our bus stop 5 minutes early, so we hopped into See's and each received a full-sized chocolate candy, which served as our dessert.
So, that's how two of us enjoyed a very delightful winter day in downtown Seattle while keeping to a budget. It wasn't free or even near-free, but it was an affordable treat and nicer than any other gift my daughter might have bought for me this Christmas.
Seattle is gaining notoriety as being a very expensive urban center. It's expensive to get into the city, park, attend events, dine out, or shop, let alone find housing in the city. And yet, aside from the software engineers and other highly-paid tech employees, many people here don't earn enough to regularly enjoy the offerings of the city. My family has always sought ways to minimize the cost of our pleasure-excursions into the city, yet still make a day trip special. We utilize public transportation when it makes sense, visit free or reduced-cost venues, pack lunches, snacks, and even beverages then find public park areas to picnic, and mostly window-shop. If this is how you regularly enjoy your nearby city's attractions, just know that you are not alone. There are many of us who maintain our frugal lifestyle while savoring moments in the big city.
