Many Frugal Things -- Cheap in Seattle

My husband and I are having a fine old time in Seattle. even though the $75/day parking still stings. However, that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so I'm still going to enjoy my cheap endeavors.

We walked over to Seattle's spectacular Central Library to explore the structure, and chatted with various librarians (docents?) to make sure we wouldn't miss any of the important bits.

One volunteer directed us to an area which is painted seven shades of red, while another was able to dig up a free bookmark for me.

As I said to my husband, "With the right attitude, anything can be a museum." You know I love a free museum! Better than the normal $25-$30 admission price of a traditional museum.

I unashamedly brought some food up to the room from the included continental breakfast. The pastries became our mid afternoon snack and the apples and yogurts served as dinner, as we'd eaten a filling late lunch. The tea bags will follow us home.

We met up with a college friend at the big Goodwill, where I scoured the store for something/anything to resell to offset the predatory parking cost. Unfortunately the vast and crowded store didn't cough up any Faberge eggs or original Picasso prints. It didn't help that I distracted by conversation, which kept me from doing a proper inventory dig.

They had this "Barista Cart," which I thought was ingenious. I love that they're providing the opportunity to learn this portable employment skill for their employees.

I didn't find $225 of resalable items, but I did buy a $3.99 bag of what I'll call "standing still figures." They definitely stood out amongst the cutesy toys and I'm always on the lookout for the different and unusual. I'd hoped they'd be worth big money, but such is not the case. I learned that these figures are from Lakeshore Learning and I might be able to get maybe twenty to thirty bucks for them.

I also bought a nice $1.99 embroidered pillowcase and my husband found three major league baseballs for $7.99.

I've floated the idea of returning to the store this afternoon to continue my search for hidden treasure, but my husband is not enthused. We'll see . . . .

Tonight is the end of the month, which means I set a reminder alarm to go onto the Multnomah County Library website to scout for cultural passes, which become available at the stroke of midnight. I want to see the David Hockney exhibit at the Portland Art Museum, so fingers crossed!

My husband and I have fun plans for today, so I'll sign off and chat with you tomorrow. Do you have any fun/cheap travel suggestions? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."

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