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…