Last Saturday I had the whole day to myself. I had the luxury of deciding whether I should do laundry or clean my apartment. Don’t be jealous.
However, I decided to take my chances with what was behind door number three: see a movie with my girlfriend. Not only was this a much better option, but it only cost me five measly bucks. What a deal!
Luckily, I live alone in my apartment and I was kinda sick this weekend, so Tag came over and helped me with my chores. However, for the unlucky (you know, married) guys out there, your wife probably had a whole honey-do list waiting for you Saturday morning. Going to a movie is a great way to turn a crappy Saturday into a pretty darn good one. And you can do it really cheap.
Here’s why you might want to see a Saturday afternoon movie, and some ideas on how to convince your significant other (if necessary).
1. See the First Showing
When is the best time to start doing chores on the weekend? Probably right around lunch time. That’s why the best time to go to a movie is the very first showing. It’ll interrupt the entire day of cleaning activities. Not only that, but lots of movie theaters have discounts for the first showing. Here in Dallas, it was just $5 a ticket for the early show. Talk about a deal!
Here’s how the conversation might play out:
Wife: “OK dear, you get started on the lawn while I pull all the Christmas decorations out of the basement to dust them. You know how it bothers me to think my favorite Santa figurine is covered in our dead skin!!!”
Husband: “My Lovely Beautiful Pumpkin Pie Sandwich, You know I would love to clean Christmas decorations in the middle of September, but I don’t think you need to be working so hard. It seems like all you do is work, work, work. Why don’t you let me take you to a movie? And better yet, it’s just five bucks a ticket if we make the early show!”
Wife: “You’re so sweet, and I’m so proud of you for being budget conscious. I have been wanting to see [insert chick flick here]!!!! We better hurry though, or we’ll be late!”
Husband (not audibly): “Perfect! Even watching The Notebook on repeat would be better than dealing with Christmas decorations in September.”
Result: Cheap movie tickets, and 2-3 hours of relaxation for a measly $10.
2. Brush Your Teeth Before You Go
If you’re anything like me, then you don’t think about brushing your teeth until you’re about to walk out the door. Some weird people do it when they get out of bed and then have toothpaste breath while they eat their Frosted Flakes. Gross! There’s nothing worse than eating right after you’ve brushed your teeth.
Which, as I learned this weekend, is a great deterrent against buying a $13 bag of popcorn at the movie theater. I brushed my teeth right before walking out the door, and when we got to the theater my usual appetite for popcorn swimming in imitation butter was eliminated. In fact, this principle applies to any time you want to force yourself to have a little self control with eating.
It might play out like this:
Wife: “Babe, hurry up! You convince me to take a break from chores to see a movie and now you’re brushing your teeth when we should be walking out the door!”
Husband: “You’re right babe, I’m sorry! I was just thinking if I wanted to sneak a kiss or two in the movies… you know, like we did that one time *wink* *devilish smile*, I don’t want my breath to ruin the moment.”
Wife: “Awwww. *blush* In that case, I might need to freshen up a bit myself.”
Result: Both you and the wife won’t want to ruin your fresh breath with outrageously priced snacks. Plus if the movie is really boring, you might get some throwback movie theater action!
A Perfect Saturday Afternoon!
So there’s how I spent my Saturday afternoon at the movies without spending a bunch of money. I mentioned before that I don’t have any husbandly responsibilities, but if I did, I would sure as heck pay $10 to avoid them on a Saturday afternoon. Then if the movie is good, that’s just icing on the cake.
Now if you really want some good tips on how to save money at the movies, check out this fantastically useful post at Wealth Informatics. I was going to write a post like this, but did a Google search and realized it’s already been done. Enjoy!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Thanks for the early show tip, I haven’t been to the movies in months because I have been trying to cut back on expenses, maybe we can catch the occasional show now.
There are actually lots of ways to get cheap movie tickets. Check out that link I threw in at the end of the post, lots of different things!
I am not sure how I missed that link, but thanks for those as well. I also found out when discussing this with a few fellow firefighters, that a local movie theater gives us tickets for a buck if we present our ID badges. I was surprised to hear about that.
I usually try to stay away from the theater because of the expense. Although, I was able to find on living social a deal of two tickets for $9. 🙂 Used it for Harry Potter 7.2
I was forced to watch Harry Potter 7.2 by my girlfriend. While I won’t say I dislike Harry Potter movies, I definitely dislike Harry Potter books. (I probably just lost half my readers with that comment)
We discovered a theater that charges $1.50 for a movie. These are movies that were first run movies a week or two before at their other theater. On Monday’s it’s just a dollar for seniors, and on Tuesdays it’s a dollar for anyone. Other days you have to cough up full price of $1.50. Sometimes it pays to live in an economicly depressed area! We always eat a meal before we go so we’re nottempted bo buy snacks. We saw “Super 8” there the other day & really enjoyed it. Talk about a cheap date!
There was a theater like that near where I grew up. I never went because I was told there are bullet holes in the screen. I’ll pay the extra $3.50 per ticket to ensure my own safety. I hope your $1.50 theater is less dangerous!
Kevin, fortunately it’s a pretty safe neighborhood. The screen did seem to have a couple of defects in it though. Hmmm . . . . I’ll have to look at the screen more closely next time! lol
Very cute. The only part you left out is when you arrive home from the oh-so-wonderful movies….and find your husbandly duties still there, waiting on you! (If you were husband, that is….)
There you go taking my article to the next logical step and ruining all the fun!
It’s true, that stuff doesn’t just go away. But putting it off until later feels pretty good!
Haha, how funny that you and I wrote about brushing our teeth at the same time! I totally brush my teeth the minute I get out of bed, and then immediately coat my mouth with coffee, giving everything I eat or drink for the rest of the day a nice “coffee” flavored sheen.
That sounds horrible. I don’t like coffee to begin with, but just thinking about toothpaste flavored coffee makes me a little sick.
Haha — It’s not bad. The coffee is so overpowering I can’t taste the toothpaste at all.
My big, big dislike is toothpaste + orange juice. Bleh!!!!
@ Paula – minty coffee – nice! 😉
Glad you enjoyed your Saturday Kevin! The movies definitely beat doing the laundry, even I can’t argue with that.
We usually go to a late afternoon feature. We bought group discount tickets at $6 each (reg $11.75 admission). Then we go out for an inexpensive meal avoiding the popcorn and stuff at the movies.
I enjoyed reading tor article.. This is why my husband brush his teeth before we go to movies.. ha ha!
Sounds like a fun day. Especially since you avoided chores and husband like duties. Never heard of that toothpaste tip before. Clever. Popcorn and soda is modern day robbery! What movie did you catch?
I agree with Buck that popcorn and soda is quite expensive. It works out well when you have 6 kids, though. At our theater, popcorn refills are free so we can get a popcorn buffet for all of us for the cost of one large popcorn.
I miss our local cheap theater. It used to be you could see a movie several weeks or months after the initial release at a re-run theater. This was back in the late 90’s.