July’s Reddit Challenge: Find Free Events In Your City – Info Money Manage

Much of personal finance can be boring and repetitive. We tell you the same things over and over: budget, save, invest, and spend responsibly. But what about your everyday financial problems? Sometimes you want to have a nice day out and you don’t want to think about how much you need to put in your 401(k) this month, or if your budget can afford that large pizza you just bought.

Well, the easiest way to leave your financial constraints behind is to do things that don’t cost money. That’s why this month’s Reddit challenge is exactly that: Find and participate in a free activity in your area.

My fiancé and I stick to a tight budget and are perfectly happy to cook a fancy meal (it’s really just him cooking) and watch Netflix, but there are times where we need to get out of the house, so this challenge was perfect for us. But I’ll talk about that a little bit below.

First, let’s see what the challenge success criteria is this month.

Challenge success criteria

According to Reddit, you’ve successfully completed this challenge once you’ve done one or more of the following things:

• Participated in two different activities around your town.
• Set up or joined an ongoing activity (like a game night with friends).
• Found a free replacement for a current paid activity and at least tried it out. This could be anything from borrowing a movie from the library to attending a free yoga in the park session. Even if you decide to go back to the paid activity, at least you gave it a shot!

Finding free events

Now that you know how to complete this challenge, let’s talk about how to go about finding free events. Here’s a list of Reddit’s suggestions for finding free activities:

• Search your local community subreddit, website, or newsletter for free activities. These can range from free days at a local museum to free concerts in the park.
• Visit a local or national park and have a picnic, go for a hike, or walk a nature trail.
• See if there is a podcast/map for a historic walking tour of your town or a nearby town, download it, and make a morning or afternoon of walking the tour.
• Set up and run a game night or movie night with your friends.
• Volunteer for free admission. Many events will need help with everything from ushers to clean-up and will usually allow you free admission to the event as a reward for volunteering.

My experience finding free events

Luckily my city—Portland, Maine (no, not Oregon)—has a surprising amount of free events, and since I read the newspaper most days, they’re not hard to find.

Like many art museums around the country, the Portland Museum offers a free art walk on the first Friday of every month—which I plan on actually attending next month.

Besides the newspaper, a quick Google search leads to a ton of events. For example, I found free:

• Salsa dancing classes
• Yoga
• City wide scavenger hunts
• Concerts
• Poetry readings
• Lectures

In addition, coffee shops (of which there’s an abundance in Portland) constantly have flyers up for events all around town.

Other ways to save

While finding free events is a great way to spend less (or in this case nothing) on activities you like to do, sometimes the free events in your town just aren’t for you. That being said, there are a ton of ways you can save on nights out.

Get a cash back credit card

Cash back credit cards earn you money on purchases you were going to make anyway. If you’ve got good credit, you can apply for great cash back cards that can earn up to five percent cash back on select purchases.

For eating out and Uber rides, the Uber’s Visa® Card is great! With the Uber card, you’ll earn cash back in the following categories:

• Four percent back at restaurants, for takeout, and at bars, including the UberEATS service.
• Three percent back on hotels and airfare.
• Two percent back for online shopping, video and music streaming services, and Uber rides.
• One percent back on everything else.

Card Details »

Another great option is the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card. This card was meant for nights out. So, when you just need to get out and grab a nice dinner, take this card with you. You’ll get the following cash back:

• Unlimited three percent on all payments for dining experiences, regardless of where they are.
• Two percent earned from groceries.
• One percent for all other purchases.

Save in a bank that earns you money

In addition to cash back credit cards, opening a savings or checking account that earns you money is a must. Luckily, in the age of online banking, you have quite a few options.

Here are just a few of your options:

Use money-earning apps

Since most of us are constantly on our phones, downloading an app that makes you money just makes sense. Here are two of our favorites:

• Drop: Like cash back credit cards, Drop earns you money for making purchases you already planned on making. All you do is make an account, link a debit or credit card, choose five of your favorite brands, and use the card to make purchases in those stores. You’ll rack up points which you can redeem for gift cards. Here’s our full review here.
• SwagBucks: With SwagBucks, you watch online videos and take short surveys that will earn you gift cards.

Summary

We all like to get out of the house every once in a while. This month’s Reddit challenge wants you to do just that—for free!

It’s easy to find free events around town, just pick up a newspaper or do a quick Google search. If, however, you want to save money on outings other ways, check out our ideas above.

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