Happy Friday: Spending the Day in Chicago for $30
Sent from reader, Vicky:
My name is Vicky and I am a fan from The Windy City, Chicago, Illinois and I wanted to share a day out that I had recently. It has been dubbed “Coupon Saturday” , and it was organized with all that I have learned from reading Hip2Save over the years, a watchful eye, and a dose of good timing.
Here is my story, it’s long but here goes…..
My birthday is onlineing up and I was looking for something to do. While reading the site, I learned about free museum day, so I registered for a ticket for two people to visit the Musuem of Contemporary Art. With tickets in hand, a friend and I started our day with Starbucks lattes. I used a $5 reward I earned from Kellogg’s Family Rewards, making the total of two grande lattes $3.
Parking in a big city would make this deal almost worthless, but I managed to find a website that lets you prepay for a spot in advance at a huge discount. I also used a code because it was my first time using the service and paid $13 for all day parking, right across the street from the museum.
When we arrived at the museum, we were given COUPONS for two free postcards from the gift store, which we selected upon leaving. When we were done we took a long walk (no cabs for us) to get to Millenium Park where we snacked on inexpensive fruit & cheese. While there a girl collecting for charity offered to take our picture by The Bean (Cloudgate) so we donated $5. We then took an even longer walk back to the car, being more about the journey than the destination.
By the time we got back and headed toward home, it was almost dinner time. After following the advice in recent post about watching your mail, I received a postcard from a local mall which directed me to bring it to the service counter to receive a $20 gift cart to one of five places in the mall. I chose a BBQ restaurant, which happened to have a frequent diner program. A few days after I registered, they emailed me a BOGO entree coupon that could be used in conjunction with the gift card. Two rib dinners with cornbread, coleslaw, and a loaded baked potato cost us (with tip) $10.21.
Now you can’t have dinner without dessert! Once, while at Bundt Cake store by my house, I signed up for their frequent program as well. My email contained a coupon for a free bundtlet for my birthday. So total cost for an awesome day in Downtown Chicago with dinner in the burbs cost us a whopping $30.21!
HAPPY FRIDAY!
Do you have a funny, “Hip”, or unique photo to share?! Email us at [email protected]. Every Friday, we post one photo, submitted by a Hip2Save reader, that gives us a glimpse into their frugal lifestyle or simply makes us smile. If your photo is published on Hip2Save, we’ll email you a $10 Amazon e-card!
