Facing the challenge of having a whole day and night out in Leicester on just £20, I was initially feeling slightly apprehensive. As a woman who can easily spend that much in 10 minutes in H&M I was more than a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to make it stretch. So faced with the first decision of how to get into town, I opted to walk. Living not far out of the centre, this only took twenty minutes yet I still managed to break it up with lunch on the way (I’m not a very early riser).
My first spend of the day was therefore at Al’s Diner; an American theme restaurant situated on Narborough Road. I arranged to meet a friend there and we made use of the jukeboxes on the counter, which for 20p a song were in keeping with my bargain day. Whilst listening to such anthems as the B52’s Loveshack, we took pictures of each other posing by the Elvis wall painting and I enjoyed my ‘Classic’ burger, which was washed down with a Dr Pepper. Total cost of visit £5.60.
Waving goodbye to Al and my friend I headed off into town to the City Gallery, which was housing part of the ‘Slideshow Leicester’ exhibit; running throughout April in the city. Entry was free to the exhibit, which was entitled The War Room and consisted of a large board with maps and reading tables, the purpose being that visitors could view and leave information in the room. The City Gallery, along with other gallery sites in Leicester continuously run exhibits like this one and access is often free.
In keeping with my creative start to the day, I then ventured off to the Phoenix Arts centre on the other side of the city. The Phoenix primarily showcases independent and foreign films, as well as the odd play, but they also frequently run creative workshops and today they were operating an Adult Writing Class. During the class we were lectured about different writing exercises to help with motivation and developing our own ‘voice’ as a writer. Between talks we were asked to perform such exercises independently then we could recite our material to the group if we wished to. The class ran for two hours and cost £5, with no special rates for concessions.
After the class finished I met up with my boyfriend and we decided to go and play pool at Rack and Roll, or Leicester Square as its also known. To play on a normal size table it only cost £1 per game (compared to £5.90 for the American size, i.e. gigantic tables). In keeping with the theme of the day we therefore chose one of the normal size tables and played just one game. Which I lost.
Deciding it was time for a drink, we then headed up to Las Iguanas on Granby Street, which I knew from past experience offered 2 for the price of 1 cocktails. Feeling slightly peckish, but remembering the budget, I opted to get some chips on the way. Clearly this wasn’t going to be the healthiest of days but it wasn’t my fault. It was the budget. Arriving at Las Iguanas I convinced my boyfriend to have a raspberry martini, as the offer only applies if you have the same two drinks. Ideally we would have liked to have got 2 each, but at £4.50 a go it was cheaper to just order one, get the other one free and split the price.
With just over a fiver left in my pocket and not many hours left in the day we decided to head down to the Charlotte music venue. The Leicester Mercury Showcase was on, which is usually held a couple of times every month and features a number of local bands. Admission was £5, which is about average for the Charlotte unless a more established band is playing. Sadly this meant I had no money left for a drink, but thanks to my womanly powers of persuasion I convinced my boyfriend to buy me bottle of lager, which helped warm me up for the walk home.
Total cost of the day:
Al’s Classic Burger: £3.80
Dr Pepper: £1.40
Jukebox requests: £0.40
Gallery: £Free
Adult Writing Class: £5.00
Game of pool: £1.00
Chips: £1.10
Cocktail: £2.25
Entrance to the Charlotte: £5.00
Total: £19.95