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Monday, December 20, 2010

My First Groupon! And a Good Gift Idea: Museum Membership

One of my colleagues who is kind of a shopaholic told me about Groupons (group coupons, but you probably know that). As someone seeking the attainment of TRUE--as opposed to FALSE--frugality, I tend to shy away from advice offered by indebted people who discuss how they "saved" $1000 on children's clothing (while spending how much?).

But I joined anyway, just to check things out. Groupons offers deals by your locality--hence, restaurants, massage therapists, and so on, will offer a discounted price IF (and only IF, as my math teacher used to say) a certain number are sold.

So far, I have deleted all offers without opening the email. But today came an offer for an inexpensive membership to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. We've been meaning to do this anyway. In addition to its exhibits, the Ogden hosts Ogden After-Hours on Thursdays, with musical performances.

The membership should help us in our quest to get out and about more.

To tell you the truth, museum memberships are always worth the cost. Whether art museums (I have been a member of MOMA, Chicago Art Institute, and others) or children's museums or anything, the membership makes you go more. That's a good thing. Even if you don't go--shame on you!--you are supporting a cultural institution.

What a great gift too!

Are you a museum-o-phile?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We love museums, but tend to only visit when we're in a city. There's only so many times you can visit small town museums. :)

Groupon isn't available in our little town. Whenever I visit Budgeting in the Fun Stuff's page, she's trying to get me to buy doughnuts (the groupon-clone advertisement picture) from a town that's over an hour away.

Jane said...

I used to buy a yearly membership to our local Pioneer Village (about $30) and useable all year round. It was the best $$ I ever spent - my daughter and I loved it.

Shelley said...

I've not used Groupons as they are generally for things I don't want. How do they work? What happens, for example, if the IF doesn't get met? I Googled this but only came up with Groupon adverts...so basically useless.

Frugal Scholar said...

@n/m: I like museums more than donuts. Little museums are fun if you have little kids.

@Jane--Sounds great. We did the same with the Children's Museum--unfortunately, an hour away.

@Shelley--This was the only thing that enticed me. I'm hoping more cultural events show up. Restaurants and massages--not so thrilling to me. I guess if the minimum isn't met, the offer is rescinded...I don't know. I was the tipping point on the museum offer--or so I think!