When I Grow Up…

When I grow up…I never want to break the bank for a good time

In the past year,  I’ve won more than 10 concert tickets (including Goodie Mob, Slick Rick, Alice Smith, Nneka, Black Milk, annnnd Lizz Wright tonight!!!), a gorgeous purple silk dress, and a beautifully boxed chess/backgammon set(I know, random). I’ve also attended countless free events from plays, sewing classes, film screenings and more.

All my winnings and no cost entertainment have my friends wondering just how I make it happen. At first, I chalked it up to luck – which is partly true – but I realized that it’s definitely a bit more than that. In the spirit of sharing all that is good and free, I’m giving up the “secrets” to not coming out of pocket for fun.

• Sign up - What are you interested in? I absolutely love music and dancing, so I’ve signed up for several e-newsletters (Brooklyn Bodega, Giant Step and Fusicology) that often have offers for albums, concert tickets, and events. Find websites that cater to your interest and sign up for their newsletters.
• Get Organized - I live by Google Reader! It keeps all my favorite websites in one place, making it easy for me to stay up-to-date. To manage my subscriptions I’ve created folders that group together sites that are similar, for example all my food blogs are filed under “Yummy in my tummy” . Also, I make sure to keep my email inbox organized by using filters, labels and Gmail’s Priority Inbox, which identifies your important email and separates them into sections so that they’re easy to find.
• Read! – Subscribing and getting organized are big first steps but reading the information is even BIGGER. So that I don’t get overwhelmed, I put aside 30 minutes every morning to check the e-newsletters and Google Reader subscriptions that usually have time sensitive information like NYC Daily Deals, FreeNYC and GothamList.

There you have it folks,  happy contest and deal hunting! Let me know what you find and win!

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