Not long ago, museums around the country had a Museum Day. Now theaters are getting in the act.

October 16, a Thursday, is what's being called Free Night of Theater 2008. That said, some dates, on Friday and Sunday nights, for instance, are also being offered for free.

Theaters in more than 100 cities around the country will offer a night of drama for free. When I got wind of this, I hopped on over to the web site, looked up Cincinnati and promptly groaned. Every play, except "Death of a Salesman," is currently sold out. If I had known about this earlier, I might have scored some tickets to "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat." Argh.

But, hey, maybe the rest of you folks out there will fare better. Check here for show listing sites by city.

It's one reservation per person, and frankly, I'd go look now and sign up because these tickets are going fast. I looked around in various cities, and a lot of places are sold out, but there are still gems open, like August Wilson's "Radio Golf" in Kansas City, Missouri. So get over to the web site, whether you love theater or theatre and try to find a free seat.

And as they say backstage: Break a leg!

Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

There are some things that it really pays to spend extra money on; houses, beds, and bicycles. But there are some things that we buy that are simply money drains. Here are five purchases where it pays to be cheap.

1. Car. A depreciating asset, you lose money the minute you drive it off the lot. And then they continue to depreciate. I buy cheap, used cars with about 30,000 miles on them. I try to pay no more than $12,000 or so and I still think that is too much. My next car will be a hybrid of some sort with gas mileage 50 MPG or more. If I need a van for a trip, I will rent it.


2. Higher education. Unless you are going to Harvard or one of the big name schools, it really doesn't matter. Most of us can get a great education at our local state schools for a whole lot less money. Especially for a general liberal arts degree, it doesn't make sense to be $100,000 or more in debt to get that bachelors. Save your money for the masters or professional school.


3. Household products. Save a fortune every year by buying all household products in bulk. Cleaning supplies, detergents, bathroom products, paper goods and kitchen staples can be bought cheaply at one of the large stores. Stock up for 1-3 months at a time to save money and gas.


4. Children's clothes. Kids grow so fast, especially when they are little. Take hand me downs, shop thrift shops and buy at cheaper stores like Target and Kohls. You will find high quality at reasonable prices. As they get older and want nicer clothes, have them earn a part of the cost so they appreciate the value.


5. Hotel rooms. I travel all over the country for speaking engagements and all the hotel rooms look the same. Unless it is a five-star hotel at over $500 per night, I rarely notice a difference between expensive and cheap rooms. When traveling on your own dime, look for the cheap rooms and spend the extra money on a nice dinner out.

Barbara Bartlein is the People Pro. Join her for her new webinar on relationships. For info see: Webinar

In great news for cows but another blow for vacationers, the cruise vacation giant Royal Caribbean has elected to charge $14.95 to anyone who orders New York strip steak in the main dining room. Eat all you want, the line says. Just not that.

Much of the fun of taking a cruise has been that everything's included in your fare. You can swim, pig out on the buffet, dance, splurge on lobster, and get somewhere interesting all for the same price, which on the major lines pans out to be between $100 and $200 a day. Here we have a cruise line deciding that your $150 doesn't include steak. So much for feeling like you can indulge.

If serving steak is such trouble, you have to wonder why Royal Caribbean doesn't just raise the price up the cruise by $10 or so. (Or better yet, ease up on the mountains of uneaten food at the afternoon buffets.) Then everyone can have their steak and eat it, too. The cruise line collects money from people who would never order a cruise line steak, and customers will come away with the illusion of value rather than with the bitter taste of nickeling-and-diming in their mouths.

For months, I've been hearing rumors and tales about incredibly cheap housing in high-foreclosure markets. In Detroit, for example, a house that cost $65,000 in 2006 recently sold for $1, and it's apparently fairly common to find houses in the $300 range.

As in the case of the $1.75 house that Joanne Smith bought in Saginaw, Michigan, many of these super-cheap foreclosures come with a tax bill that is in arrears, but even with the $850 in back taxes and cleanup costs that she will end up having to pay, she's gotten an incredible deal.

Searching through various foreclosure listings online, I decided to check out some of the places where I've lived. In Roanoke, Virginia, where my wife and I briefly contemplated buying a home, the cheapest place I found was running about $1,000. Meanwhile, in Blacksburg, where my wife and I worked, even HUD homes used to run in the $140,000 range. Right now, "motivated sellers" and banks are dropping properties at fire-sale prices.

Don't fret if you didn't celebrate Museum Day, the round-the-country free-admission extravaganza arranged by the Smithsonian on September 27. Several corporations have been stepping up so you can steep yourself in culture, admission-free, on other dates.

If you carry a Bank of America card, you're eligible for free entry to more than 70 museums on the first weekend each month. The lineup includes museums in 18 states, but those living close to the coasts will have better luck finding a participating venue nearby. The only states in the country's interior represented are Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and Texas.

This promotion, begun in May, lasts through next April. It's a vast expansion of the bank's sponsorship in years before, which was limited to a month. Either a Bank of America credit or check card gets you in.

Every year, millions of people spend billions of dollars on funerals. While much of this money goes toward overpriced caskets and sprays of flowers, a large part goes toward the embalming of corpses.

This process, which many states legally require as a prerequisite for open-casket funerals, uses pricey, toxic fluids, various artificial foams, heavy cosmetics, and non bio-degradable plastics, to maintain a look of freshness and health. The end result is a corpse that is preserved, not for millennia, as in the case of King Tut, and not for decades, as in the case of Vladimir Lenin, but rather for a few days, just long enough to organize a funeral.

Considering the high price and questionable returns on embalming, I was particularly interested in the case of Karen Hanrahan. An Illinois food educator, Hanrahan has kept a McDonald's hamburger in a cabinet for 12 years, occasionally taking it out to show classes as an exemplar of the incredible amount of preservatives that are used in American food. While the burger has gotten a little cracked and shriveled, it hasn't decomposed, and the bun is completely free of mold.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for the humble donut. Long years after the cappuccino and croissant became the preferred breakfast of young urban professionals, I would always sneak into the little donut shop on the corner for my glazed twisty and cuppa cheap coffee. Then Starbucks came on the scene, and I never looked back.

Now venerable donut chain Dunkin' Donuts is beckoning again. The chain is offering 99-cent cafe lattes in the afternoon hours, hoping to lure cash-strapped consumers who've shirked their $4 Starbucks afternoon fix.

The lattes, which normally sell for between $2.59 and $2.79 depending on the market, will sell for 99-cents at all stores between 2 and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. As Homer Simpson would say, "Woo-HOO!"

Listen up, girls! Not everything you buy to help you look your best has to cost a lot. Here are some exceptional finds that only cost a buck each.

1. A large emery board at Wal-mart costs .97 cents. At the dollar store, you get a pack of two the same size for $1.

2. The manicure set I saw at Wal-mart came in a travel case and included a nail file, tweezers, fingernail clippers and cuticle scissors. The price? $7.97. For $6.97 less, you can have a manicure set that includes tweezers, both toenail and fingernail clippers and cuticle scissors. No case included but is a case worth all that extra cash?

Unsure what to do this weekend? Let me plan it for you.

Don't take me too seriously. I can hardly handle navigating my own weekends, and I'd break under the pressure if even one or two readers asked me for help. But I do have an idea, which I found on a fellow writer's blog, Atlanta On the Cheap, just to give credit where credit is due. And it's a web site that any WalletPop reader living in Atlanta should know about.

But I digress. This Saturday is Museum Day, sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine and the esteemed Smithsonian Museum, arguably the greatest museum ever and a must-see anytime you visit Washington, D.C.

It's still too early to know how deep the room rate cuts will be, but we already know they'll be significant, and they're happening in a city where average folks could most use the price break. Last month, the average hotel room rate in Manhattan stood at a staggering $350, up $50 from just 16 months earlier. That price level is unheard of in most parts of America, but in New York's tight room market, the cost was buoyed by big-spending businessmen hitting town to schmooze with the likes of Lehman Brothers. Some estimates say Wall Street accounts for a fifth of Manhattan's economy.

The occupancy rate before the meltdown was a healthy 90%. Hoteliers know that's in the past. Not only are there fewer titans to feed that kind of traffic, but there's also the fact that surviving companies, particularly ones in the financial sector that feeds the city's hotel industry, are seeing the light and are seriously tightening their belts. Last month, hotels were projecting a six percent increase in rates next year, which was already about half as vigorous as usual. Now, they are already predicting that for 2009, room rates will largely hold at 2008 rates, if not drop a bit.

Black Friday, for those of you who have yet to be initiated, is the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and it is marked by huge sales at retailers and lines that stretch around the store. During these sales prices often hit rock bottom and this year, thanks to many of the major retailers eschewing rebates for instant savings, retailers will be setting records for low prices. Dan de Grandpre, CEO of dealnews, is an admitted techie who with his team of experienced bargain hunters has compiled their predictions for Black Friday 2008!

There are too many categories and deals to list here but here are a few that tempt me to do something I detest: wait in line!

• Small portable laptops starting at $199.
• 42" and up plasma and LCD TVs starting at $499!
• Blu-ray players from $149.
  
• Flash drives, routers and more free after rebate.
  

These are just a few of the deals the dealnews team is predicting. If you are in the market for any kind of electronics this year you should definitely check out the full breakdown of Black Friday items that made the list.

Normally you won't find WalletPop bloggers pushing a large purchase but it's evident to me that those of us who are frugalists still need to purchase big ticket items from time to time and the thing we love most about it is getting the best price. If a good deal isn't enough to convince you to head out on Black Friday then maybe you should check out Buy Nothing Day which takes place the same day and advocates 24 hours of consumer abstinence!

As many WalletPop users have already demonstrated, while there's a lot of fun in coming up with great ways to save money, the real fun is in passing the ideas around. With that in mind, I was very impressed by New York State's "Stretching Your Dollars Effort" (SYDE).

Basically a bare-bones clearinghouse of thrifty ideas, SYDE allows New Yorkers to post their tips for saving on gas and groceries, as well as ideas for cutting the costs of home food prep and household expenses. It features text-based suggestions, as well as video and audio clips, some of which are a lot of fun to watch.

While a few of the ideas are specific to New York, most of them can be widely adapted to any setting, be it urban, suburban, or rural. More to the point, as good old-fashioned thrift has become a thing of the past, it's nice to be reminded of all the neat tricks and clever shortcuts that can add up to serious savings!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. SYDE reminds him of the wise, thrifty, and nurturing grandma that he never had.

I love Steve & Barry's. The clothes aren't exactly the nicest you'll find, but when almost everything for sale is under $10, you can really go nuts without feeling guilty about running up a credit card bill. The nearest store to my house is about an hour away, so I only get to shop there a few times a year. I was really looking forward to my latest trip, too, until I arrived at the store and saw all the going out of business signs, and almost no inventory left.

My (semi-) local store is one of 103 Steve & Barry's locations that are closing their doors, after the company was purchased out of bankruptcy last month by private investors. Following the liquidations, about 170 stores will remain, so I'll still be able to get my $9 pants and college sweatshirts, but with the cost of gas to get to the next closest store, I might as well pay the $40 the college bookstore wants for the same shirt. It's a real bummer for customers, but there's a positive spin for other retailers.

JG Resources is the asset liquidation company conducting store fixture liquidation sales at 49 Steve & Barry's stores in 22 states. CEO Jim Grimwade says that by selling store fixtures to other retailers at a fraction of the cost of new fixtures, these liquidations will "help fuel the local economy's growth. It could also help retailers create new jobs by cutting costs from their bottom line." Ah, the power of positive thinking. Let's be honest -- saving a few bucks on lighting fixtures isn't going to free up the cash to hire all the people who lost their Steve & Barry's jobs with the closures, or bounce back from a weak sales quarter, but hey, savings are savings. The fixture liquidation sales are open to the public as well as other businesses. View all 49 selected store locations, sample inventory lists, and fixture photos here.

I guess pipe dreams can come true, too. This afternoon, in a balloon-smothered luncheon at New York City's Times Square, Disney announced its big marketing push for 2009, and it has the Mouse doing something it almost never does. It's letting people into its parks for free.

The gist of its new ad campaign (mark your big anniversary or birthday with a "celebration vacation" at Walt Disney World or Disneyland) is nothing spectacular. But the centerpiece of the promotion is noteworthy: During 2009, you can get into its parks for free on your birthday.

And like Disney's previous push, the Year of a Million Dreams, implementing it won't cost the company much in the way of infrastructure. Next month at Disneyland, Disney property Miley Cyrus (pictured, with generous rodent) will have a 16th birthday party to help kick things off (she'll give the best present: the gift of P.R).

Mind you, this is a company that starts charging children the "adult" price at age 10, and at Walt Disney World in Florida, that freebie can mean a $75 savings on a one-day pass (Disneyland in California is $69). For kids under 10, the savings will be $63 in Florida and $59 in Anaheim. Disney's parks always did give a few extra gimmes to guests of all ages on their birthdays, including self-congratulatory buttons, balloons, and oozier-than-usual smiles from "cast members." But Disney's parks are notorious for rarely discounting tickets to the general public, and it almost never gives passes away. This economy, though, is seeing lots of stalwarts cave.