Let’s start with today, Monday:

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Per CharlotteOnTheCheap.com,  “KFC is now offering boneless chicken, and you have a chance to sample it for free at KFC’s Boneless Happy Hour! Be one of the first 100 customers at any participating KFC location today, Monday, May 6th, 2013, from 2pm to 4pm, and you can get a free piece of Original Recipe Boneless. You have to say “I ate the bones.” If that makes you feel a little awkward, you can just request your free piece of boneless chicken. White or dark meat is at the manager’s discretion. You don’t need to make any other purchase and you don’t need a coupon. You just need to say the magic words.”   Now you know what’s for lunch!

Now Tuesday:
Both Mint Museums invite you by for free admission on Tuesdays after 5pm. Tomorrow both of the Mint Museum locations will present a free ArtFusion program  from 6pm until 9pm. This week’s program is called ‘Of This Land,’ where you can learn about cultural identity and the environment through gallery talks, poetry and take part in an interactive workshop.

Wednesday:

(Photo by Chris Hondros)

Chef and author Emeril Lagasse is hosting a cooking demonstration at Belk Southpark, in the first floor home department, from 6pm to 9pm. Get a free autographed copy of “Emeril’s Kicked Up Sandwiches” cookbook with any Emeril product purchases of $75 or more during the event. For more information, click here.

Thursday:

Carolina Place is the place to be!  They’ hosting ‘Mom’s Night Out’ from 6pm to 9pm in Center Court. Per CarolinaPlace.com, “Mom’s Night Out  is a night of fun, fashion, fortune and freebies. The event includes fashion tips, free gifts and special offers designed to pamper Mom. Guests can participate in a fashion workshop and learn how to dress their body shape with the hottest spring trends to flatter their figure, with featured clothing from Buckle, The Limited, Belk, Dillard’s and Macy’s. Plus, enjoy a fortune cookie that might include a chance to win one of many prizes!

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Also enjoy:

• Free massages and chocolate specialties at the Select Comfort Store.
• Refreshments from “A Taste for Life” and “Nestle Toll House Café.”
• Music and numerous special offers from mall retailers.

Friday:

(Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images)

Cinnabon continues to celebrate ‘Nurses Week’ by giving nurses a free Cinnabon Classic Roll or Minibon Roll through Sunday, May 12th. No coupon or purchase is required. Just show your healthcare ID badge. Click here for a location nearest you.

Saturday:

Moms can visit Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens  free on both Saturday, May 11th, 2013, and Sunday, May 12th. The first 250 moms each day also receive a free potted plant! Each hour, starting at 10am, there will be a complimentary 30-minute Yoga session in the White Garden.

(Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images for Amtrak)

Saturday is also ‘National Train Day’. Events are scheduled all around the country to celebrate the role trains have played in our history and life today. Imagine what our lives would have been, and would be without them – can you?   Besides all of the festivities, many kids’ fares are $5 on May 11th!

Check out these events in our area:

The Amtrak Station in Charlotte at 1914 North Tryon Street

• Will have a model train display from 11am to 4pm. Also have a slice of ‘National Train Day cake’ and refreshments.

Amtrak Station in Kannapolis at 201 South Main Street, Kannapolis, NC

• Festivities start at 9am,  with the Sandy Ridge AME Zion Church Boy Scout Troop will lead the Pledge of Allegiance and City of Kannapolis Mayor, Bob Misenheimer, will extend greetings. Enjoy games  provided by the Kannapolis Parks and Recreation Department.  Share in train stories and songs provided by the Kannapolis Branch of the Cabarrus Public Library. Enjoy ice cream & National Train Day cake! Also, enter to win roundtrip tickets on Amtrak.

North Carolina Transportation Museum at 411 S Salisbury Ave, Spencer, NC

• Enjoy free shuttles from the Salisbury Station when trains arrive. Train rides, model train displays, and round house tours. National Train Day cake and refreshments. Enter to win a free trip for two on Amtrak to any NC destination.

Salisbury Amtrak Station, at 215 Depot St, Salisbury, NC

• The day will be filled with face painting, activities and games for children. Enjoy train stories and songs presented by Rowan Public Library.  Enjoy pizza, drinks, ice cream & NTD cake beginning at 11am.  Enter to win roundtrip tickets on Amtrak!

Photo by Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images )

Sunday, Mother’s Day:

Participating TCBY locationsare once again continuing their long tradition of offering free frozen yogurt to Moms on Mother’s Day!  Moms can get up to 6 ounces for free. There are some 20 TCBY locations from Charlotte to Rock Hill,  and you can find the closest one to you with the store finder.

Happy Mother’s Day to Mom’s StepMoms, ‘Furry Baby’ Moms everywhere!

15 free things to do with kids during Spring Break in Charlotte » Charlotte On The Cheap.

Come check out the library’s copy of June’s Charlotte Magazine which features area lakes where you can go to beat the summer heat. Or seek out your nearest movie theatre to chill out with a blockbuster or two. Upcoming flicks include: Snow White and the Hunstmen (June 1), Prometheus (June 8), Rock of Ages (June 15) , Brave (June 22), and G.I.Joe (June 29).

Before the kids can claim boredom, Charlotte on the Cheap has an entire post devoted to entertaining the little ones all summer long.

The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center has something for everyone this month:  La Cage Aux Folles, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast , Charlotte Squawks 8 Misbehavin’, The Odd Couple(female version), 2012 Tony Awards party, Miss Coco Peru, The Screwtape Letters, Aziz Ansari

Ticketmaster is your source for hot concerts like Lady Antebellum, LMFAO, Iron Maiden, One Direction, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, and Jake Owen. Or be a cool cat at the  Uptown Jazz Fest.

Other fun activities:

Rock the Park

Sara Schaefer

Grey Matters 5K, King Tiger 5K, Summer Breeze 5K,

Signing with the Stars

Taste of Charlotte

ConCarolinas

~Jamie Sunnycalb~

6:00pm:  Ballantyne Mix at Six concert:  Leslie and

 Friends  – It’s Brenda Matthews, I’ll see you out there – I’m hosting – make sure you say hi!

Thursday:   

7:00pm:  Whitewater River Jam: Big Daddy Love (Appalachian Rock)

Friday:  Get a free doughnut at Krispy Kreme, or a free doughnut with beverage purchase at Dunkin’ Donuts

6:30pm:  Sunset Concert Series in Indian Trail: Trip Rogers Band

7:00pm:  Stonecrest Summer Concert Series: Leslie and Friends

7:00pm:  Blakeney Summer Concert Series: Jay Mathey

8:30pm:   Movies in the park in Harrisburg – Cars 2

Saturday:

11:00am:  Indian Trail Family Fun Day

12:00pm:  Free wine tasting at Total Wine & More locations

8:30pm:     Matthews Summer Movies Series: Cars 2 (pre-movie activities at 7pm)

8:30pm:      Outdoor movies at Carolina Place: The Muppets (pre-movie activities at 7:30pm)

Sunday:

4:00pm:   Birkdale Mingling on the Green Concert Series Alec and Cici

6:00pm:   Concerts on the Green in Davidson: The Dickens

This list is a mere tip of the iceberg – click here to link up with CharlotteOnTheCheap.com!

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Furniture & Clothing

My favorite place to shop for furniture is the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  Inventory comes in so quickly here that prices on existing items are constantly lowered to make room for more stuff.  A friend nabbed a beautiful, oil painting, originally priced at $500, for $35.  What shopping strategy won her a Monet for the price of a Thomas Kinkade?  An unsophisticated one –she merely dropped in every week.  Of course, I’ve done the same and watched the awesome, red couch I had had my eye on for weeks be carried out the door.  I think my heartbreaking story, versus her fortuitous one, is more common, so check in regularly because your patience and diligence may be rewarded.

(photograph by susi.bsu)

The Salvation Army Thrift Store on Central Avenue offers some great finds in furniture and clothing.  I’ve walked out of there with a bundle of new Calvin Klein slacks in my size for a grand total of $15.  Clothing is reduced 50% on Wednesdays, so were I smarter, I could’ve spent only $7.50 on those same Calvin Kleins.  More-often-than-not, however, hitting the store at just the right time, like after a large estate donation, is determinative of the quality of the clothing.

(photograph by Wachovia_138)

Tuesday Morning sells new home goods and small appliances at a steep discount.  The store reminds me of my artsy, kind-of-wacky aunt who sat for an entire Thanksgiving dinner in her raincoat.   The place is flighty, eclectic and disorganized, but what a fun way to spend an hour in the afternoon.

Books & Music

Next door to the Habitat for Humanity Restore is Julia’s Café & Books .  The wraps and sandwiches are delicious and the coffee is rich and socially conscious.  With the money saved at Restore, buy a coffee and pastry and, on the way out, pick up a very good, used copy of that book you’ll never read until you finish law school.

Book Buyers in Midtown doesn’t have coffee like Julia’s Café & Books, but it does boast a more diverse selection of used books.  Here, I discovered a signed first edition that I couldn’t find at shops in Los Angeles, New York and Connecticut.  Of course, I could have just purchased the book online since it is now the residence of all things produced and manufactured.  But, for me, there is no joy of discovery in online shopping, as there is in used book store hunting when your eyes finally fall upon that treasured title after having spent many, fruitless years searching through stacks and stacks of books.

(photograph by Amy R.)

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is the place for free books and music.  Pretty much, everything is available because each branch can interlibrary loan from another branch.  Why spend even 99¢ for a song in iTunes when the library lends the entire album absolutely free?  Even lawyers, stereotyped for being bad at math, can see how using their library saves money.

 (photo by jblyberg)

Food

Aldi on Freedom Drive and Old Pineville Road has the best prices on produce: cauliflower for under $2, avocado for 88¢, bananas for 44¢/lb., an entire pineapple for 99¢ and mango for $1.  I apologize for swooning – and in the process sounding like a TV pitchman – but these prices truly are amazing.  The star attraction here, though, is the $2.69 bottle of Winking Owl red wine.  It tastes better and is cheaper than the infamous Two Buck Chuck (actually, $2.99 and soon be Three Buck Chuck) at Trader Joe’s.

(photograph by Portal Abras)

Hillbilly Produce Market boasts a huge selection of locally grown, organic fruits and vegetables at fair prices, as well as free-range chicken and grass-fed beef.  There are also locally made chocolates and candy…and don’t forget to ask for the hot, boiled peanuts.

Trader Joe’s on Metropolitan Avenue and Rea Road can be surprisingly affordable for a nationally recognized brand and chain.  For instance, its cauliflower and broccoli are competitively priced as to Aldi; Trade Joe’s soy milk, wheat cereals and granola are only a few cents more than the same at Walmart; and the prices on Trade Joe’s organic apples, blueberries and spinach are among the lowest.

  (photograph by bradywahl)

Brunch

Bistro la Bon on Central Avenue stages a large, tasty and affordable brunch on Sundays between 10 a.m-2:30 p.m.   For $18, it’s all you can eat for over four hours — this is important to a guy who struggles to find portion sizes large enough to fill his appetite.  Bistro serves up the typical brunch fare such as scrambled eggs, French toast, and fruit. But, the standouts are the lox, the chocolate waffles, the Swedish meatballs and the beet salad.  Coffee lovers take note, however: I had the two worst cups of coffee in my life here – those who dislike Starbucks coffee because it tastes burnt would most likely find the coffee at Bistro absolutely scorched.

Leave a comment and tell us about other places where the goods are cheap but still fun or tasty and a steal nonetheless.

~Cory Lenz~

Whether you are a native of the Queen City or new to the area, we’ve compiled a list of how you can enjoy all that North Carolina’s most populous city has to offer.

Sporting Events: Panthers Football, Knights Baseball, Bobcats Basketball, Checkers Hockey, NASCAR, Charlotte Roller Derby, Charlotte Hounds, Charlotte Eagles , Charlotte Lady Eagles, Carolina Speed, Charlotte Rugby Football Club

Concerts : Time Warner Cable Arena, Ovens Auditorium (site of our Graduation 2009) Bojangles Coliseum, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, NC Music Factory , Visulite Theatre, Neighborhood Theatre , Double Door Inn

Performances, Plays and Musicals: Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, Opera Carolina , Charlotte Symphony , Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, Theatre Charlotte,Knight Theatre (site of our 2011 Graduation), Comedy Zone

Art, History and Culture: Mint Museum, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Levine Museum of the New South, Harvey B. Gantt Center, McColl Center for Visual Art , Billy Graham Library , The Light Factory , Carolinas Aviation Museum,  gallery crawls , NASCAR Hall of Fame , Charlotte History Museum

Get into Nature at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden , the Charlotte Nature Museum or the Carolinas Raptor Center . Go for a hike at  Crowders Mountain.

For kids of all ages: Discovery Place, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte,  Imaginon:the Joe and Joan Martin Center, Carowinds , Lazy 5 Ranch

Shopping in and around Charlotte: South Park Mall, Northlake Mall , Carolina Place Mall, Concord Mills Mall, Birkdale Village , Westfield Eastridge Shopping Mall

Parks&Recreation: Freedom Park, Frazier Park, Park Road Park , area Greenways. YMCA, Whitewater Center

Dining:

Morehead Street: Pinky’s Westside Grill, Burger Company, Picante Mexican Grill, Savor, Open Kitchen, Dilworth Neighborhood Grill, Art’s BBQ

Wilkinson Blvd: Dairy Queen, Bar-B-Q King, Subway (located inside the Super Wal-Mart), Little Caesars, Burger King

Freedom Drive: COOK-OUT, Showmars, McDonald’s, KFC, Captain D’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s

Charlottetowne Avenue/Kings Drive: Wendy’s, Zoe’s Kitchen, Chipotle, La Paz, Hickory Tavern, Arby’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, Original Pancake House, Mama Ricotta’s, Wok Express, Dunkin’Donuts, Maharani, Great Harvest Bread Co., Pizza Fusion, Which Wich, Trader Joe’s, Zoe’s Kitchen, Cherry Berry, Dressler’s, Pisces Sushi Bar/Lounge, Vivace, Bojangles

South Blvd: Chipotle, Luna’s Living Kitchen, Five Guys, Noodle&Company, Chick fil-A, Owen’s Bagels, Einstein Bagels,  Nova’s Bakery, Beijing Chinese, Fuel Pizza, Sub Station II, Ice House, Big Ben’s, The Liberty, Pewter Rose, Mac’s Speed Shop, McDonald’s, Burger King

South End: Phat Burrito, Price’s Chicken Coop, Pike’s Old-Fashioned Soda Shop, Common Market

7th Street: Hawthorne’s Pizza, Crisp,  Sunflour Bakery, Lupie’s Cafe , Showmars, Starbucks, Cajun Queen, Jackalope Jack’s, Philosopher’s Stone, Kennedy’s, Ho Ho Cherry House, Sub Station II, Jersey Mike’s

Elizabeth Ave: Nothing but Noodles, 1900 Mexican Grill, Cuisine Malaya, Carpe Diem, Customshop, 88 China Bistro, Elizabeth Creamery

Plaza Midwood: Whiskey Warehouse, The Penguin, The Diamond, Dish, Zada Jane’s, Soul Gastrolounge, Bistro La Bon, Midwood Smokehouse, Loco Lime, Kickstand Burgers, Intermezzo Pizzeria, Krazy Fish, Lulu, Akahana Asian Bistro,  Something Classic Cafe, Central Coffee Company , Fern, Thomas Street Tavern, Nova’s Bakery, The Peculiar Rabbit

Park Rd/Woodlawn Ave: RuSan’s, Fran’s Filling Station, Toast Cafe , Starbucks , The Flying Biscuit Cafe, Jason’s Deli, Chick fil-A, Which Wich, Sushi 101, Qdoba, Carolina Soda Shop, Subway, Bruegger’s Bagels, Fuel Pizza, Wendy’s, McDonald’s

Selwyn Avenue: Mellow Mushroom, Yoforia, Reid’s Fine Foods,

South Park: BRIO, Del Frisco’s, Ruth’s Chris, Georges Brasserie, The Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano’s, Cowfish Sushi and Burgers, PF Chang’s, Terrace Cafe, Dean and Deluca, Firebirds, California Pizza Kitchen, McCormick and Schmick’s, Whole Foods, Earth Fare, Bojangles, Donato’s Pizza

Costwold: Jack in the Box, Chick fil-A, Bojangles, Table 274, Bruegger’s, Wolfman Pizza, The Pizza Peel and Taproom, Krispy Kreme, IHOP, Starbucks, Mama Fu’s Asian House, Salsarita’s, Dairy Queen, Eddie’s Place,

East Blvd:  Moe’s Southwest Grill, Bruegger’s Bagels, Big Daddy’s Burger Bar, Something Classic Café, Starbucks, Brixx, Cantina 1511, Caribou Coffee, Outback Steakhouse, Showmars, Lebowski’s, Dilworth Coffee , Smoothie King, Carolina Smoothie, JJ’s Red Hots, Crisp, Jersey Mike’s, Menchie’s, Berrybrook Farms, Copper, Thai Taste

NoDa: Amelie’s 24 hour French bakery, Cabo Fish Taco, Crepe Cellar, Growler’s Pourhouse , Salvador Deli,Revolution Pizza, The Dog Bar, Solstice Tavern, Boudreaux’s, Jack Beagles, Smelly Cat Coffeehouse

The EpiCentre: Vida Mexican Kitchen y cantina, Moe’s, Wild Wing Cafe, Enso, Jason’s Deli, Bruegger’s Bagels, Five Guys, Firehouse Subs, Libretto’s Pizzeria

Other sites to check out:

http://www.charlottesgotalot.com

www.charlottemagazine.com

www.charlotteobserver.com

www.charlotte.creativeloafing.com

www.charlotteonthecheap.com

~Jamie Sunnycalb~