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Karen Solomon is a vertern Bay Area insider and self described certified Cheap Bastard. She writesabout San Francisco and consumption for San Francisco Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Bay Guardian and numerous other local publications. She is also a contributor to Chow! San Francisco Bay Area: 300 Affordable Places for Great Meals and Good Deals. She has lived in San Francisco on a shoestring for more than a decade.

Introduction

Comedy: CHEAP SHOTS

Food: CHEAP EATS

Shopping: BARGAINS FOR THECHIC CHEAP ELITE

Introduction

“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.”

                                                                        —Benjamin Franklin

  
When I moved to San Francisco in 1996, I had the good fortune to arrive just as the wave of dot-coms was beginning to crest. Money was sloshing in every direction, and I quickly landed on my feet with an insanely lucrative writing career and more cash than my post-graduate self knew what to do with (almost all of which is long gone, now that writers’ salaries have returned to normal).

What I remember most fondly from that time are the launch parties—the copious, over-the-top, insane displays of wealth to announce the world’s arrival of FiveMinutesAgo.com (how did we ever live without it?). I saw Devo play for free. I watched pig races on Treasure Island for nothin’. I drank a frat house worth of booze every week and never had to leave the tip. People traded guest list status (“I’ll take you to Kaboozle.com’s launch on Tuesday if you bring me to iGazoontite.com on Thursday!”). Web sites like SFGirl.com, Oliver’s List, and Scrounging.net opened the floodgates to free booze and high-hog living for those like me who were cheap at heart. Never in my life have I supped on so many

raw bars, drank so many top-shelf cognacs, or draped myself in so many T-shirts, watches, and other schwag on someone else’s dime.

The freeloading heyday came to a quick end. As the party machine rusted and clogged, the festivities became fewer, further between, and less impressive. You know . . . more like a regular party, not a bacchanalian free-for-all. Eventually they went the way of the dodo.

But one thing has remained with me from this second Bay Area gold rush: the ability to find the party and to push my way to the front of the line for the free open bar. This gorgeous and generous city has heaps to offer the fun-loving tightwad if you know where to find it. In a town where the average apartment costs as much as the GNP of some small countries, any amount of savings is welcome. As I sit here in my hand-me-down hoodie and homemade hat, refusing to put on the heat, typing away on my keypad that I found in the street, and looking at the monitor I’ve had for eight years, I know that I am not alone.

I have friends who have roommates in a studio apartment. I’ve seen more than one MUNI passenger flash a bus transfer with a thumb over the time. And I have waited in line with hundreds of other bargain hunters for theater tickets, museum entries, and free film screenings just because we can.  There’s a tremendous satisfaction in beating the herd, feeling as if you’re getting something for nothing. I am a firm believer in patching, reusing, and making do. If the American economy depended on people like me, we’d rank as high as Greenland on a global financial scale.

The knowledge I have accrued dyeing my own hair and in decades of scouring thrift shops has paid off in the form of this book. I am the self-proclaimed queen of the giveaway, the free trial, the sample, and the discount. My nose has been known to twitch when a “street score” yields a new bookshelf, a set of drinking glasses, or someone else’s discarded knitting supplies. My friends and family think that I’m cheap because I just don’t see the point in paying full price, but little do they know that I am more than that. I am a Cheap Bastard. Oh, the pennies I have pinched.

In no way does this book take advantage of anyone offering anything that she can’t afford to lose. I do not advocate theft, mau-mauing, begging, or persuasion toward the acquisition of free or low-cost goods or services. I have avoided resources solely set aside to help those with low incomes, those who are disabled, the disadvantaged, or the elderly. Every resource listed, unless otherwise noted, is located in San Francisco proper and available to the public at large. Most freebies listed here are events and items that your tax dollars or philanthropic donations have already paid for. A few are free trials and tastes dispensed in the hopes that you’ll come back and pay for more. Many are free just because students need practice, such as those who study massage or the culinary arts. Some things are free with a catch—which I disclose. Still other listings in this book are for things that are ridiculously cheap or such a bargain that you’d want to know about them. Cheap Bastards appreciate that sometimes to get a true value, you must part with a little green.

Being a tightwad is a revolutionary act. Kicking our own Gucci butt down a few rungs is a way to remember that the things that are really important in this world are ripe and available for the plucking by anyone, regardless of how much cash lines his purse. In these pages are great tips for things like free babysitting and no-cost tap dancing classes, and for sources of free house paint. But what’s in between these frivolities is a manifesto of what it means to live free of the shackles of a thing-driven society. More money may make us happy short term. But taking the time to appreciate all that is offered to us, which may result in losing less cash, is a long-term method of striving toward bliss.

I’ve learned a lot doing the research for this guide. I am even more in love with San Francisco’s kindness and generosity, because its depths are deeper than I’d imagined. The kindest words that you could offer this tome is that you feel you’ve gotten your money’s worth. From one Cheap Bastard to another, I can appreciate what a compliment that truly is.

 
Karen Solomon

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