Nashville for Free

Nashville is just nuts about food trucks – this is a fact that no one can dispute with a straight face. Two years ago it seems like it was just Mas Tacos, but now we have everything from Milkshakes to Grilled Cheese being served up by some very crafty individuals.

Don’t get this FEASTival confused with fEASTival. They’re two completely separate events. fEASTival is a celebration of East Nashville that has a lot of potential to be one of the coolest festivals in East Nashville, while FEASTival is brought to you by Wanderland, the folks who are really really good at organizing food trucks for events (which, I imagine, can be quite a task). Yes, it’s confusing, but just make sure you check that first F.

The Wanderland FEASTival will take place this Saturday in Germantown on the corner of Rosa Parks and Jefferson St. It’ll go from 11am to 9pm, so you can eat from the food trucks all freaking day. Bring friends to help you eat the food and help them eat their food.

There’s no mention anywhere of live music or other activities, so this may very well simply be about stuffing your face with food truck gourmet. Still, this is Nashville, so if anything a lack of music would shock me.

Eat well.

-Emily

Being in college has so many perks, namely the discounts you get all over the place just from flashing your student ID. You get cheaper movie tickets, free nights at the Frist, and a host of other awesome deals.

It’s a little late in the season, but I figured it was about time I got you all wise to Nashville Predators College Night. College Night falls on every Thursday home game, tonight included. You can stop by the box office anytime today (it opens at 10am) and can buy up to 4 upper-level seats for $15 each or 4 lower-level tickets for $25 each. On top of that you also get to enjoy half-priced soda and draft beer through the first intermission, and your ticket will come with a coupon for a free crunchy beef taco from Taco Bell. And if the Preds own the Avs like they did on Tuesday and score 4 or more goals you can take your ticket stub to Wendy’s for a free Frosty!

If you have a .edu email address and you don’t want to have to run down to the box office earlier in the day then you can buy tickets to any of the upcoming games here.

Go Preds!

-Emily

Gift cards have a pretty bad reputation as far as gift-giving goes, and I don’t know why. Unless it’s to Movie Gallery or Hustler or some other place that I straight-up will not or cannot go to I’m pretty jazzed. Other than music related gift cards my absolute favorites are restaurants, especially Mexican restaurants. And you know what, I don’t feel particularly bad about giving gift cards either.

If you’re looking to do a bunch of your holiday shopping via gift cards I highly recommend hitting up Chipotle, and not just because I personally love Chipotle. It’s because they’re currently running a promotion where if you buy $30 worth of gift cards you get a free entree. Spend $60 and get two free entrees, and so on! The promotion runs until the 24th of the month, so all of you procrastinators can rejoice.

Because really, the best Christmas gifts are ones that are also gifts to you, right?

-Emily

I don’t have a lot of money to buy a lot of fancy gifts for friends and family this year, and if you’re reading this blog, chances are you don’t either. Boyfriend, you won’t find a an iPad or a phone that works under the $20 fake unlit Target Christmas tree this year. Roommate, I did not buy you/us an awesome turntable. Mom, I did not get you that really expensive Elvis Costello Spectacular Spinning Songbook Box Set. Sorry folks, it’s not happening.

That’s why I love events like the Porter Flea Handmade Holiday Market. It’s an artisan market that will take place this Saturday from 12-8pm at the East Park Community Center. You’ll find over 70 local and regional artisans and designers selling awesome unique things that you can gift to friends or yourself.

Some things will be cheap (roommate, secret santa), while others will be more expensive (wife, mom), but at least you’ll know that what you’re getting that special someone isn’t being mass produced. Also, you’ll be helping to “promote the indie craft movement, encourage sustainability, and support artists, small businesses, and non-profits in Nashville and beyond.”

C’mon, that has to make you feel better than you would buying a bluetooth keyboard.

Even if you just come to window shop you’re still going to have a blast. Food trucks will be there and three live DJs will be spinning sweet tunes all day. But if you actually attend and leave the Porter Flea without buying something then dang, you have way more self-control than I do. But that’s mostly because I love me a fancy apron.

-Emily

The first Thursday of every month is a great day for art lovers. It’s the night of Art After Hours and the Hillsboro Village Art Crawl, two of the best monthly art crawls in Nashville. Art After Hours takes place in and around The Arcade downtown where there are several fantastic galleries that sell different styles of art. There is also plenty of free wine and cheese and great people to talk to.

The Hillsboro Village Art Crawl focuses more on the neighborhood. There aren’t as many galleries, but so many of those businesses, including The Belcourt and Jackson’s, have rotating art collections by locals. There are also areas where vendors can set up and sell you things like paintings and beautiful aprons (great holiday gifts). I can’t find my press release for this month, but they also feature a specific local business every month, usually a restaurant.

Enjoy your art.

-Emily

Here’s the thing about Black Friday – you go to places like Walmart and Best Buy instead of local shops and less of your money stays local. I totally understand why we do this. That dirt-cheap TV is so tempting, and DVD box sets are such an easy gift to get someone. Also, it’s pretty much one-stop shopping, whereas if you want to buy local chances are you’re going to find yourself driving all over the place.

If you’re as tired of the cut-throat bloodbath that is Black Friday at the big-box retailers as I am then I’d like to present to you a few options for your holiday shopping today: Grimey’s and the Green Wagon.

Let’s start with The Green Wagon, or 5 Points in general. Local retailers will be slashing prices for the day, which is pretty standard, but at this Black Friday, I’m sorry, 5 Points Friday event there will also be live music, local beer, a local home brew contest, a home brewing 101 lesson, and some awesome local restaurants. You can feel good about yourself too, because 5 Points Friday will be raising money for Promise Neighborhood, a new program of the Martha O’Bryan Center.

Oh yeah, and the Grilled Cheeserie will be celebrating their first birthday by dishing out free gooey cheesy wonderfulness to their first 100 customers of the day. Are you sold on 5 Points Friday yet? By the way, they’ll start serving at 11:30. The whole event runs from 9:30am-11pm.

And now to Grimey’s! The folks who put Record Store Day together have assembled a bunch of new limited edition records and singles from some awesome artists for your purchasing and listening pleasure. But it wouldn’t really be Black Friday without a sale, right? Well, Grimey’s is making you work for your discount this year. You’ll get 15% off all non-Black Friday specific titles only if you bring in 3 non-perishable food items. Also, if you buy any 2 “sale” LPs or 7″s, you’ll get a 3rd sale LP or 7″ of equal or lesser value. Grimey’s opens at 10am and will close at 8pm.

In addition to the special releases and the sale, at noon Brendan Benson will be in the Basement signing copies of his new record, which was recorded live at our very own United Record Pressing, and hanging out with fans. Man, I love Nashville.

-Emily

I am writing about this event because of two things: free cake and Jimmy Buffett trivia.

Yep, Margaritaville is celebrating its first birthday downtown with an old-fashioned birthday party. Well, not too old-fashioned, I guess. There will be food and drink specials all day as well as live music, but the fun REALLY starts at 6pm with a cake-cutting ceremony thing. All customers will even get free cake while it lasts. And, like I mentioned before, there will be Buffett Trivia.

Also, you can enter to win your very own Frozen Concoction Maker. Yeah, that’ll class up the old duplex!

-Emily

It really wouldn’t be the holiday season without several thousand donation drives. From canned foods to small toys to children’s books, there’s no excuse to not give when people and organizations make it this easy for you. And hey, if you give sometimes you even get something in return. A dollar of admission to a movie or maybe you get out of a class, enough to give you something extra on top of that warm, fuzzy feeling.

Adventure Science Center is going above and beyond in that something extra this year. Every Monday from Nov. 14th – Dec. 19th they’ll offer one free child admission for each new children’s book to support Book’em, a non-profit that provides books to needy children throughout Davidson County.

Make your child (or niece/nephew, grandchild, kid you’re babysitting) happy while making a child in need happy as well? Sounds like the ultimate win-win.

-Emily

Some people spend a lot of money on Halloween costumes. I mean really, some people are SERIOUS about it. They go to Performance Studios and have their makeup professionally applied so they can be the most bad-ass-looking zombie in the room, but other people either completely forgot about Halloween until Halloween or are flat broke. And since the theme of this blog is pretty much being flat broke I decided to visit the costumes some of my friends wore this Halloween.

A few years ago I blogged about my $5 gnome costume. I thought that was pretty good, but my friend Stephen taught me what was what and paid a whopping $3 for his costume.

Now, this requires a little back-story to understand. Basically, his friends are in a band called Blown Stag – a caricature of an 80s hard rock band, and he got them a gig on Halloween so they decided that he should be their fake German ridiculous manager named Phoenix Lamburg. However, this is better than vampire or devil because you can literally do whatever the hell you want. We strolled down to the Goodwill Outlet, picked the brightest, most ridiculous clothes we could find, found a random prop, and wrote his fake name on his shirt. Oh, and drew a silver lightning bolt on his crotch.

It was a big hit, and it cost $3 and about 2 minutes of decorating. Even if you don’t know the back story you’ll at least find it hilarious.

But wait! There’s more…

(more…)

Sometimes it’s the little things (or little trips) that are the most exciting. Things like transportation to Atlanta or Chatanooga for as little as $1. Other than bumming a ride off of someone or hitch-hiking that HAS to be impossible, right? And free wi-fi and outlets for your computer, that’s just not a thing, right?

Wrong! Well, starting next month you’ll be wrong, because the Chicago-based Megabus is coming to Nashville! That’s right, the company that will get you from one city to another for between $1 and $20 depending on how much you procrastinate is adding a hub in Atlanta and, as a result, is coming to Nashville!

I’ve never taken Megabus, but I have taken the very similar Bolt Bus, and it’s a pretty solid experience, especially when you consider how cheap it is (compare that to $54-$70 on Greyhound). There is even free wifi and there are electric outlets for your laptop or whatever, which makes the trips go by so quickly. Well, if the wi-fi doesn’t work then it isn’t as fast, and keep in mind that the buses are sometimes late. Hey, but it’s really cheap.

How is it so cheap? Well, for one, they don’t have a hub like Greyhound, they just pick you up on street corners or in shopping centers. In Nashville the pick-up points are from the Ramada at 303 Interstate Drive in east Nashville and the north side of Commerce Street at the corner of 5th Avenue North in downtown Nashville.

Oh, one more thing. To celebrate the new hub in Atlanta (which opens November 16^th), Megabus is giving away 10,000 (!!!) free seats for passengers who book online at megabus.com using the code ATL10K. And in case you were wondering where you could go from Atlanta, the answer is Birmingham, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Knoxville, Memphis, Mobile, Montgomery, and Orlando.