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As we proved on Saturday, you really CAN do movies on the cheap.
You just need to keep your eye out for the right deals and know when to combine them.
Our original plans for Saturday included an outdoor 4th of July event. As the temperature and humidity just kept climbing, we bagged that idea and decided to do something indoors instead. We took Lily Bean to see Cars 2 and she LOVED it. Actually, we all enjoyed it – it was really cute.
We took our family of three to the movies for – wait for it – $12. That includes food.
Here’s how:
Tickets for 3 = $5 total: Lily was free because she is under 3. Then for Biker Bob and I, we used the free Cars 2 tickets that came inside the movies on that Incredibles/Cars deal a couple months ago (no longer available). The free passes were good for tickets up to $8.50 and our local Regal charges $11 so we just had to pay the $2.50 difference for each ticket… $5 total.
Large popcorn, small popcorn, gigantic soda bigger than my head: Bob and I each had a free small popcorn via text coupon on our phones (still available!). They let me upgrade to the large popcorn (normally $8!!) for $2. So we got a large popcorn for $2. Then Bob used his coupon for a free small popcorn and bought a ridiculously large soda for $5. I tried to argue with him that the soda was so big, it was nearly sinful. We would never drink it all – not even close. He started up with the “it’s a BETTER DEAL to buy the bigger soda – it’s just $.50 more than the medium and it’s SO much bigger.”
Sorry, didn’t realize that Bob is now hawking deals for the movie theater.
Anyway.
Free popcorn and $5 spent on soda for him.
Grand total of $7 spent on 2 popcorns and one drink. That’s $1 less than the price for ONE large popcorn.
Free popcorn for next time: If your local theater has a customer loyalty program, I HIGHLY recommend signing up for it. We have a Regal Crown Club card which we had over when we buy tickets or concessions. Yesterday when we bought our tickets, it spit out a FREE small popcorn coupon that doesn’t expire until 8/31/11. We saved that and will probably use it when Bob and I go see HP7.2 (!!!) in a few weeks.
There are also various summer movie programs for kids offering free or super cheap movies throughout the summer. For example, the Regal Summer Movie Express is offering $1 movies on select weekdays every week.