As you may know, I am in Toronto for Social Media Week. Being a crafty student, I’ve been creatively finding ways to minimize my expenses throughout the week. Here is a bit about my first two days of frugal living in an expensive city like Toronto.
The first move was buying a weekly transit pass, setting me back 36 beans. Considering it is a hefty $3 per trip, the pass will pay itself off pretty quick.
I’ve been to nine events so far, mostly at different venues. I’ve done a decent job of navigating through the city, only getting lost a couple times. Luckily the Torontonians are very receptive to helping naive visitors find their way.
The quality of the events has been pretty good. Some had engaging speakers with some great insight into the trends of technology and social media. Other speakers tend to push their company brand a bit too much for my liking.
One event in particular was a complete bust. I candidly sat through an hour long sales pitch for a product that the speaker continually claimed to not be associated with… Having heard the groans from others as we were leaving, I can say that we all felt practically violated after the painful lip service.
Complimentary food is a nice perk of some events. I use the term “some”, very loosely. Most of the morning events are sponsored by Chobani yogurt (I hadn’t heard of it either). I’ve personally taken down nine complimentary greek yogurt containers for breakfast over two days. Black Cherry is a palate explosion.
The rest of the food is pretty hit and miss. Some events leave a spread of pastries or fruit and some coffee, while others have a full complement of food. You will be happy to hear that I have only spent $8 on food through two days. Yes, I am that guy grabbing platefuls of fruit and dry muffins prior to the event.
One event in particular was a huge disappointment for eats. You would think having the word ‘lunch’ in the title of an event would foreshadow a hearty meal upon arrival. My hearty meal in this case was a bottle of water and some digestive cookies. The deception was cruel.
I have resorted to listening on twitter to prospect the food at each event going forward. I think this will allow me to plan out my meals a bit better for the rest of the week. I will let you guys know how that goes.
Do you have any tips for frugal living in Toronto? Anything I need to see before I leave?
Great eats at the loose moose, hockey hof is a given, madison house is a really sweet bar.
Walked by loose moose today after the raps game. Where is madison house?