Free
money.
The only way I've managed to
make the time to write fiction, make music and do my other stuff over the last
six or seven years is by only working at 'proper' jobs part-time. Obviously this
means living on a low income, but over time I've found ways of still having a
good quality of life despite being relatively skint. The idea of this page is
to share some of those ways with you. Most of the information is
► Free stuff.
Gigs.
Me and my mates used to bemoan
the fact that the gig circuit had become top heavy and that small clubs and
venues that gave exposure to new bands had died away. Over the last year or two
that's changed. I don't think there's been a better time to be seeing new bands
for ages, and a few of the better venues have free admission. Current favourite
is Artrocker's night at the Buffalo Bar near Highbury and Islington.
They feature two or three excellent 'new rock and roll' bands every Tuesday.
There's a relaxed, non-posey atmosphere and it's free to get in for members.
You can become a member for free by visiting their website.
Also free and consistently
good is the Saturday afternoon
Tate Britain is currently running a series of live
music nights under the heading Late at Tate. These are on the first Friday of
the month from 6 to 9pm. As well as getting in to see the music free, you can
get reduced admission to their current exhibitions. A rare free gig in central
Nearby, the Spitz
has free gigs, often on a Sunday and a Monday, but beware of the extortionate
bar prices. The venue has an email list which you can sign up to. Club Motherf*cker run a variety of club and gig nights. Some of these are
free if you're on their email list and bring a print of the email flyer. You
can join the list at their
website. Further north
there's a new free monthly club night, Club
Hedonistic, at the
The people who run Urban75 website also put on a monthly
free gig called Offline at the
Dogstar in Brixton. This is an excellent night featuring music, spoken word and
DJs. The date isn’t fixed so check the website
for details. Also in
Festivals.
The heyday of the free
festival may be over but there are still a few around. You can find out about
both free and paid admission festivals at the Efestivals website and
sign up for their newsletter.
Poetry, spoken word,
acoustic open mic gigs.
Frankly a variable experience,
but it gets you out of the flat. Among poetry and spoken word gigs the best is
definitely Walking the Dog. Run by the Radge Poets, this night of open
mic variety tends to appear and reappear in a number of venues around
Acoustic open mic gigs come
and go around
Films.
Odd as it might sound, the Imperial
War Museum near the Elephant and Castle regularly show some interesting
films. I saw the Pianist for nothing there, although more usually it's
weird little wartime documentaries that get shown, which can be worth a look
for their curiosity value. The layout of the Museum's website is pretty
piss-poor so you're better off doing a search of what films are showing through
the film pages of the Guardian's site. Tate Britain regularly shows free films, usually on
a Sunday afternoon. Stuff on offer ranges from the very obscure to the slightly
less obscure. The National Portrait Gallery has free one-off screenings
of films on a regular basis, usually on weekend afternoons. You can sign up to
their events email list by visiting their site, but as the mail-out only refers you to the website, you're better
off picking up a leaflet. My Eyes, My Eyes are a
Classical music.
I never used to listen to this
stuff unless I got put in a queue when I phoned a call-centre, but more
recently I've started going to a few classical gigs. All the major music
colleges have free concerts, and mostly you can just turn up without contacting
them in advance. The main ones I know of are Trinity College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama.
Guildhall also put on some free drama performances.
Education.
If you fancy getting a taste
of learning a subject without taking the plunge and splashing out on a complete
course of evening classes, you could try a taster session run as part of Adult
Learners’ Week. This runs in May and you can check out details at your local
library or via the relevant website.
The Dana Centre in
► Cheap stuff. There's loads of other stuff you can do that won't set you
back more than three quid.
Films. Two really good cinemas have affordable
prices. Prince Charles Cinema near
Gigs. A really good venue putting on gigs around the
£3 mark [sometimes £4] is the Windmill in Brixton. Listings of what's on
are updated frequently on this site. A crew called the Lifestyle Athletes
put on monthly gigs called Up the Down
Escalator in a couple of venues. The one they run at the Macbeth in
Travel. Just
because you’re skint doesn’t mean you can’t have something resembling a
holiday. For travel, I recommend going by coach. If you book a bit ahead you
can go to most
Shopping and miscellaneous. A few other tips that don't fit
elsewhere. Charity shops are a fantastic source of decent cheap
clothes but it's worth being aware of how much difference it makes what sort of
area the shop is in. I live in Deptford and the prices in charity shops locally
are miles cheaper than in better off areas; jeans from £2 and shirts from
£1.50. Libraries have moved with the times a bit. Most now have free
internet access, and videos and DVDs for hire at much lower prices than High
Street chains, and usually for longer loan periods. You can also request items
for a small charge, either from existing stock, or to be bought in. Borders might
be a bit of a soulless corporate chain of bookshops, but they do have a special
refund scheme where if you return a book in as-new condition within 28 days of
purchase they'll give you your money back. Result!
A Skint
Manifesto.
All of this isn't just about
being a bit tight. There is something like a set of principles behind living
cheaper. For a start it allows you to work fewer hours. Most of us earn a
living doing stuff we don't particularly enjoy. Whose interests does it serve
to work ridiculously long hours and end up too shagged out to do the stuff you
love? You can also argue that there's less unfairness and waste involved in,
for example, shopping in charity shops. It's a form of recycling, and although
I know charities aren't all whiter than white, they are at least accountable
for where their money goes. And I'd rather they got my dosh than some huge
multiple like Gap.
There's also an issue about
public money and where it goes. Places like libraries, music colleges, museums
and public galleries are funded by everyone, but the people who get most
benefit from them are usually drawn from a narrow layer of society. The more
people who get use out of those resources the better, I reckon. Otherwise all
the benefits go to people who already get opportunities thrown at them like
confetti. According to a report, 63% of Arts Council grants to writers went to
people who'd gone to Oxbridge. In the 1980s only 3% of people going to the
Finally, I think there's a
point to be made about encouraging creativity and new talent. The music venues
I've mentioned are encouraging a thriving ground-level music scene. It's
tempting to assume that just because admission's free or cheap, the bands can't
be getting much of a deal, but I know from playing round small venues in
London, that the amount a band walks away with at the end of the night is much
more dependent on the attitude and integrity of the promoter. I've done gigs
where the venue's been full, and at least a third of the crowd have come to see
the band I was in, and we'd come away with £4 between us.
If you want to learn more about life on the cheap, you could do worse than check out this site about frugal living.
► All content on the site is copyright Eddie Willson Ó 1994-2004. Don't reproduce any of it without asking permission
first. You can email me at eddiewillson2000(at)yahoo.co.uk
if
you've got questions or feedback about my work, or you just want to get in
touch.