Your no-frills source for Portland bargains, freebies and money saving deals

We are back and just missed the FIRST WINTER SNOWSTORM (naturally in all caps, just like all the local news stations but we have no cool graphics to add). We are happy to return home and will respond to your emails and submissions as we re-acclimate to our NW weather.

Here’s a quick run-down for this weekend:

- Nicknamed “The Granddaddy of Them All,” the Rose Bowl game this Friday features the Oregon Ducks vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes. 1:30pm, catch the action at numerous venues around town including the McMenamins’ screens.

- Bank of America Museums on Us is this Saturday and Sunday with free admission to the Portland Art Museum & Pittock Mansion. The catch is that you must present your Bank of America ATM, debit or credit card to get in free. This is also the last weekend of Pittock Mansion’s holiday decorations in honor of the 150th anniversary of Oregon’s statehood.

- Sunday, January 3rd get admission to OMSI for just $2 per person. Sunday is the absolute final day for their ‘Scream’ exhibit; we toured two months ago and had a blast (though we did dare to face our fear of electric shock).

- Beginning this Saturday the 2nd until January 11th, the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland’s Chinatown/Old Town waives their admission charge to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Free admission for ten days, there’s no excuse not to go!

- Willamette Week’s new cheapskate deals include the aforementioned free admission to the Chinese Garden, free midnight chocolate buffet, a cheap spa, a free concert and a ‘hangover recovery brunch.’

- More freebie weekend activities can be found at Aroundthesunblog

- We can’t pass this one up: Restaurant.com is offering 80% off their $25 gift certificates and customers also get a free $10 gift certificate. Use the code CHEER at check out and pay $2 now until midnight 12/31 (and if you happen to read this after the fact, we’ve become accustomed to the web site extending their offers a few days so it is worth a shot). To redeem the free $10 Gift Certificate, a code will be emailed to purchaser within 24 hours of initial purchase.

Spotlight: New Year’s Eve Festivities

Here’s what we have gleaned for some last-minute ways to celebrate to welcoming of 2010; please note that not all parties are free or low-cost:

- PDX Pipeline lists 30 plus events including the major promotions and less well-known parties

- Willamette Week offers up a few picks to celebrate midnight

- McMenamins locations around the area lists these free music and events

- New Year’s Eve party planner by Oregonlive.com. Also check out their calendar of multiple events here

- LivePDX.com online picks for New Year’s Eve celebrations

- Finally, celebrate in your own style like we used to do as kids: watch Dick Clark on TV and at the stroke of midnight, run around the neighborhood banging on pots and pans. Here’s a quick look of televised celebrations and their celebrity hosts by USA Today.

And there you have it….Happy New Year!

**Use code CHEER at checkout for savings and bonus $10 gift certificate**

Weekend Stuff To Do:

Aroundthesunblog has you covered, but be sure not to miss out on these:

- The Carhartt Store celebrates the weekend with a grand opening event Friday – Sunday complete with free BBQs, Carhartt Scratch-Its to the first 500 customers each day, live radio broadcasts, free prize giveaways and much more. Find the Carhartt store across from IKEA at Cascade Station.

- It’s the 58th Annual Greek Festival with live music, dancing, handicrafts, children’s activities, tours and of course their famous Greek dinners and pastries.

- Friday night is the Central Eastside Arts District First Friday, with multiple venues showcasing art openings. The Children’s Museum offers up free admission between 5:00pm – 8:00pm Friday; and also on Friday, check out “Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel” at Powell’s City of Books in downtown at 7:30pm. Too cool!

- Saturday and Sunday, get free admission to the Portland Art Museum and/or the Pittock Mansion by showing your Bank of America ATM, debit or credit card as part of BoA’s ‘Museums on Us’ promotion.

- Sunday is OMSI First Sunday, and that means admission to the museum is just $2.00 all day.

- Sunday is also the Portland Marathon—go out and cheer on the runners and walkers, or volunteer to help out at the aid stations, this is traditionally one of the nation’s most organized and family-friendly marathons (and if you want to run it, sorry, registration is closed so start training for 2010!).

- Willamette Week’s new Cheap Skate Deal box features free ‘Diplomat’ sandwiches opening day at Portland Meadows; buy one, get one free pies for students at Stone Pie Joe’s; a free rock concert; and cheap drinks.

POTC Spotlight: Free Night of Theater

You gotta get in on this!! The title explains it all, go see quality theater around the Portland area for absolutely nada! This is the fifth year of this fantastic promotion to encourage people to see and experience live theater, and this year the lineup of shows is once again impressive. Pick and choose from performances such as:

- A Chorus Line
- Blithe Spirit
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Death of a Saleman
- Oliver!
- Ragtime
- You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
- and many, many more

Shows are offered in Portland, Hood River, Vancouver, Lake Oswego, Hillsboro and Beaverton throughout the month of October. Of course, the free tickets are limited and shows will sell out, so be sure to get online at 11:00am October 1st (um, that’s today!) and pick your show. It’s a very simple process, all you really need is an email address and you’ll get a reservation confirmation by email that will get you two admissions into the show.

We did this last year and were exposed to some wonderful theater that we would not have seen otherwise. It’s a great opportunity to try out a different company or a different style of performance with no strings attached—the hope for the organizers, Theatre Communications Group , is that you’ll step up to support the theater arts with frequent ticket purchases, but of course that is all up to you.

And if you get shut out by this first day of free theater tickets, do not fret…tickets will be released on October 1st, 4th, 8th and 15th, so keep checking back for additional opportunities.

Make it a cheap date night or let your friends know about this and make it a group outing—Portland is rich with talented performers and theater and this is your chance to experience it. Hopefully we’ve sold you on this, go reserve your tickets here now, thanks for reading and enjoy this first weekend of October.

Here is your preview guide to all great things free or low-cost happening in April 2009! Please check back at our main site portlandonthecheap.com as we will continue to add more content in the days and weeks to come.

First off, a big thanks to all of you who have discovered our little web site and have supported us by bookmarking us and sharing via your user submissions, message boards or letting your friends know about us. We humbly ask for your help in spreading the word even more: this month, we are giving away two pairs of tickets to the Portland Art Museum’s NW Film Center, with an expiration of January 2010. To enter:

1) Email to contest@portlandonthecheap.com with subject line ‘NW Film Center tickets’;
2) cc or bcc another recipient(s) like a friend or family member;
3) include a short message along the lines of “Here’s a local website that you might find interesting.”

And that’s it! We’ll randomly draw from all entries on April 20th and will contact the winner via email. The winner will receive a total of (4) regular adult admission tickets to the NW Film Center (we’ll send it snail-mail). Thanks again for helping us to share the Portland savings!

We’ve recently added more updates to our content, including PF Chang’s happy hour menu, CouponTom.com to our Shopping Coupons, Dania Furniture to our Shopping Outlets, the Portland Beavers season promotions and Hidden Portland’s small museums to our Activities & Attractions. If you have anything else to add, please submit!

Now, on to this month’s deals!

First off, our last 2 days of March brings us these deals: Last Monday History Pub lecture at McMenamins Kennedy School, PSU artist lecture, faculty percussion recital at Lewis & Clark College, the last season races at Portland Meadows, Habitat for Humanity LEED home tours and Restaurant.com 70% off savings for the $25 gift certificates (use code ‘SAVE’ at checkout and get them for just $3!).

And in April:

- Forest Grove First Wednesday

- Portland First Thursday

- Discounted preview performance of El Grito Del Bronx, 7:30pm @ Milagro Theater on Thursday, April 2nd

- Free 19th anniversary dinner from 7:00pm – 9:00pm at Santa Fe Taqueria on Thursday, April 2nd

- Children’s Museum first Friday free admission from 5:00pm – 8:00pm on Friday, April 3rd

- First Friday Central Eastside Art Walk with opening receptions at Artful Goods and at Nemo HQ, Friday April 3rd

- Woodburn Company Stores outlet mall celebrates their 10 year anniversary with sales, music and cake all weekend long April 3rd – 6th

- Ever After Resale – Name Brand Children’s Consignment Sale, 9:00am – 3:00pm on Saturday, April 4th. If you can wait it out until 1:00pm, many items will be discounted 30%. Tigard.

- First Sunday, April 5th is $2 admission to OMSI

- 15th Annual Spring Beer & Wine Fest, Oregon Convention Center, offers up free admission from 12:00pm – 2:00pm on Friday April 10th and Saturday April 11th

- Tuesday, April 14th is $2 Tuesdays at the Oregon Zoo

- Wednesday, April 15th is free ice cream cone giveaway at Maggie Moo’s at Washington Square

- The Portland Beavers baseball squad opens up their home 2009 season with weekend games and promotions April 17th-20th.

- Ben & Jerry’s annual free cone day happens on Tuesday, April 21st from 12:00pm – 8:00pm

- Looking for a job? On April 21st, from 10:00am – 4:00pm come to Career Connections, Urban League of Portland’s 17th Annual Job Fair, “Bridges to Sustainable Jobs at the World Trade Center downtown.

- Stop in for a free breakfast at Portland Habitat for Humanity’s ‘Hope Builder’ fund raiser breakfast, 7:30am @ the Convention Center on Wednesday, April 22nd

- We love our video arcade games! Be sure to check out Ground Kontrol’s Classic Arcade Free Play Party, 5pm – close on Wednesday, April 29th. $5 gets you in!

- Finally, the Portland Timbers and their Army begin their 2009 season home opener with a match against the Carolina Rail Hawks on Thursday, April 30th.

For more events and happenings, go to our main web site for our ‘Sweet Bargains of the Week’ or click on ‘Calendar’ for more!