There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there are cheap and/or free things for you to do every single day in Wel­ling­ton. Because Wel­ling­tonista not only loves Wel­ling­ton, but also YOU, we’ve com­piled a bit of a list for what you can do every day.

Monday:
If you go to Chow, you can get two-for-one on many of their dishes. As an example of the sav­ings this means, last night three of us dined on a cock­tail each, a bottle of wine, two appet­isers and four main plates for $36 each. That’s a good time.

Tues­day:
Tues­day means ladies get in free to Mer­maids. Wahoo!

Tues­day is also cheap movie night at most of the movie theatres in town.

If you’re after free booze, now is the night to plan ahead, and check out a quiz night some­where, be really brainy and win a bart­ab for next week. You’ll find the cheapest jugs (heh heh jugs) and cheapest girls are up on the hill in East­side at Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity.

Wed­nes­day:
The best booze is free booze, and if you get to pre­tend that you’re classy while you’re guzz­ling it, then all the bet­ter! This is why the free wine tast­ings at Con­crete are recom­men­ded.

If you’re happy to pay, head back to Chow for two-for-one cock­tails.

Oth­er­wise, for ridicu­lously good value any time from Sunday til Wed­nes­day, head down­stairs to Good Luck for two bottles of bub­bly for $28. It’s not the greatest bub­bly in the world, but it looks vaguely French. Plus, the atmo­sphere at Good Luck, with the excel­lent table ser­vice makes it worth­while, espe­cially since you’ll be drink­ing bub­bly and there­fore not blow­ing your rent money on their delect­able cock­tails.

Thursday:
Con­crete Bar does $8 cock­tails. That’s pretty damn sweet. If you can­’t stretch that extra three dol­lars out of your wal­let, the Sports Cafe on Cour­tenay Place is advert­ising $5 cock­tails too, but this mem­ber of the Wel­ling­tonista would rather gouge out her own eyes than set foot in there, so there are no guar­an­tees about qual­ity.

Blend on Wake­field St is advert­ising free bubbles for ladies between 5 and 7pm on Thursday nights. Sure, it’s St. Aubyn­’s, and there’s only 100 bottles of it and they usu­ally go pretty fast, but the eco­nom­ic­al drink­er will get there early and get a couple of glasses in before the masses show up. And gen­tle­men, if you’re feel­ing dis­crim­in­ated against, just think of it as drinks you did­n’t have to pay for…

Fri­day:
If you were that way inclined, the best way to get free drinks on a Fri­day for girls would be to head down to Dock­side – or as many call it “the dry clean­ers – where you go to pick up suits”. Oth­er­wise you’re prob­ably on your own.

Sat­urday and Sunday:
Hide your hangover under a pile of cori­ander with Yum Chow, or per­haps a Sunday Roast at The Realm in Hataitai, where you get your choice of meat & three vege for $12, $15 with a pint or $18 with a pint and dessert.

Every day:
The Tast­ing Room at the end of Cour­teny Place has week­day lunches for $15 includ­ing a pint of Mon­ti­eths or a coffe. Their steak sand­wiches are huge, and are served on gar­lic bread, so make sure you take a mint after­wards.

Also worth check­ing out any time of the week between before 7.30pm are Logan Brown’s bis­tro menus. For $35 (the aver­age cost of a main) you get three courses includ­ing bread and cof­fee (and all the handtow­els you can stuff in your hand­bag!). The por­tions are small but the food is amaz­ing. And should you over­spend, well there’s always the fire exit con­veni­ently loc­ated next to the bath­rooms…

Wel­ling­tonista would like to sug­gest that the bis­tro menu at Logan Brown fol­lowed by a couple of bottles of bub­bly would be an ideal mid­week date – you’d have to eat early which would leave plenty of time to get drunk in the dark and sexy con­fines of Good­luck. If you need someone to go with, you know where to find us…