Watching Movies For Cheap (The Sequel)

Golbguru over at Money, Matter, and More Musings had a great post yesterday about watching movies for cheap. I loved the list and started to leave a comment. And as I typed I noticed that the list was getting quite long. So, I decided to post my list here. Consider this the sequel to his post :)

OK, so here are the additional options for watching movies for cheap (If you haven’t already checked out Golb’s list, here is the link again. It opens in a new window, so go ahead, click it.)

For watching movies in a theatre:
Go for the shows before 6 pm. Where we live, regular shows are $8.00 for adult ticket. But the matinee tickets for shows before 6 pm are only $6.25.

Check if your town has a "dollar theatre". They usually run movies that are about 3 months old. Also, the theatres themselves are quite old, so no stadium seating here. But if you are a large screen cinema junkie like me, then you just can beat this deal. We pay $1.50 for adult admission before 6pm and $2.00 after 6pm! It’s a great way to catch up movies that you missed or to put off movies that you are not in a particular hurry to watch right away.



During summer, when the schools are out, many theatres (not just dollar cinemas) offer highly discounted screenings of popular children’s movies for kids. Don’t forget to check out your local listings. It’s a great way to treat your kids to big screen movies very often, for less than the cost of a small popcorn on regular days!

For borrowing movies:
Check if your apartment has a dvd library. I was surprised that the relatively shabby apartments that I lived in school, actually had a free dvd libarary for the use of its residents! Since there were students from all over the world, they even carried a selection of foreign films!!! After the better half moved for work, we noticed that this was quite common in most of the nicer apartments we looked at. One of the apartment complexes also had a small movie screening room which was available on a “first come first serve” basis for its residents (unless it was reserved)!

Another option not mentioned by Golbguru in the main post, but was pointed out in one of the comments is borrow it from the library. I have noticed though that the selection in the public library was very out dated, but our university library had a decent selection.

For buying movies:
You can get dvds, videos and games, for really cheap in garage sales & flea markets. Generally, it is not the best of selection, but if you find some old fave, you can you usually own it for about a buck.

I have sometimes seen dvds listed on craigslist as well. It is not as good a deal as you would probably find on the student network, like golbguru mentions, but it is still a decent deal. Especially if you find someone moving and wants to sell his whole dvd library!

I think the local half price book stores carry dvds too. I have not bought any though, so I am not sure if the price is good. Generally, their books are very well priced, so I would suspect, the dvds and videos will be quite inexpensive as well.

Now you know why I decided to make a post, instead of leaving a comment :) But in spite of the long list Golbguru created and the list here, I am sure we have missed a few. Please feel free to leave a comment here or on Golbguru’s original post if you have any more ideas for watching movies for cheap. Or if you have a long list, you could write your sequel, to the sequel, and we will make this a 3-post boxed set :)



If you like this article, you can bookmark it or subscribe to the feed.

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, ISPF. I think public library's are coming around to carrying more updated movies. My wife and I have been able to find some really good current movies at the library. If they don't carry a movie you want to see, make a request for the library to start carrying it. They usually get it.

ispf said...

Thanks, Brett. I must admit that I have not been to the public library in quite a while, since it was much more convinient to just go to the university library. Now that I am no longer a student and don't have access to university resources, I should give the public library a try again.