How to save on entertainment and live events.

<div class="block">The entertainment sector continues to see rising costs, making it more expensive for consumers to go to concerts, live events and even theme parks. Ted Jenkin, CEO and co-founder of oXYGen Financial, joined &#39;Stretching Your Dollar&#39; to talk fun-flation and why costs remain high for customers. Jenkin also provided some tips on how to save when looking to have fun.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: Saving on Entertainment and Live Events

Well, you probably noticed that costs feel like they are rising still, especially when it comes to things like concerts or sporting events, experts are rightfully calling it fun FFL. So joining me now to help us enjoy life without breaking the bank is the CEO and co founder of Oxygen Financial Ted Jenkin. I said this is a great segment for today. Why is it that things like concerts and theme parks are really more expensive than ever. Well, good to see you Kristen and quite frankly, it's like Taylor Swift says it's me, I'm the problem part of it is Americans, we just keep spending on buying these tickets and it's about supply and demand. So as long as we fill the seats, prices are gonna go up, but the real underbelly is that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have a quasi monopoly right now, they hold back 90% of the tickets and they sell them to resellers and then the resellers add all these service fees and that's why it continues to cost Americans a lot of money to go to see these concerts. Yeah, it is a lot of money that's for sure. Are there certain websites or apps that we can use to get cheaper tickets, you know, from time to time, although it's difficult to get discounted tickets. Uh, seat geek dot com is a good one. Tick pick dot com is a good one. But if you're willing to wait until the very last minute I really like and I've used this before myself. Gametime dot co, you can get those seats when they're unfilled. Uh, at a very last minute. What about the much love? But yet pricey theme parks, are there any ways to save on a mission to places like Disney? Well, when you look at places like Disney, they've gone to dynamic pricing right now. So when they have big crowds, the prices go up, so you look to do a multi day ticket, that's gonna be your best bet. And if you're willing to go on the weekdays, maybe a Tuesday or a Wednesday, you're gonna get a cheaper ticket. Certainly you can get, uh AAA discounts. And I like a website called undercover tourist dot com. That's another way to get discounted admission on tickets at Disney, other amusement parks. Any tips there to save, you know, just in, yeah, just in general. All of these clubs, you look at your credit cards, you can look at AAA if you're a ARP. Uh, I would look online, you can generally find times you can get them between 10 and 20% for a discount if you're gonna go to a local theme. Pretty good ted any recommendations for getting it cheaper tickets for sporting events? Right. We know college basketball, regular basketball, obviously, football still going on. Is there a way to take advantage of better prices? Well, I, I hate to say this but sometimes you have to go see a losing team and that means even if your team is a winning team, you may not be able to see your favorite superstar. But if you find somebody that has a losing record, you have a better chance of seeing the event first of all, and getting a cheaper ticket. But the best thing you can do is be on all the list, be on the venue list, be on the team list. And then I would look at, at the Facebook marketplace and other marketplaces for a discount, always try to wait till the last minute. That's your best bet if you can swing it. Ok? So if you want to do something, but you don't have that much money to shell out or you don't want to spend that much money, what do you recommend to families when they want to head to the movies? Hey, look with all this hybrid working right now and these flexible work schedules, try to see a matinee. If you see a matinee, you're gonna generally be at a 30% discount. Then if you see it on the evening or the weekends, check out your local clubs, like your Sam's Club, your Costco Club and companies like a MC have their own ticket club. These are all great options. And by the way, my neat tip when you go to the movies is don't buy large popcorn. Actually bring Ziploc bags. These court size bags is the best thing to do. You can get a free free refill on the large popcorn and actually fill up all the bags. Sometimes you could do it twice. It will save you 20 to $30 in the theater. All right. Uh very economical there. Any websites where you can find a good things to do at a discount. There's so many out there. But I really like this one now called live like local dot com where the locals can tell you where to get all the discounts in your city via tour is run by Tripadvisor, which is a great one on one called Amusement for all the museums that you have in your cities. But I think people forget your credit card points every year right now are going backwards to inflation. So this may be the time to cash in some of those points to see your favorite attraction or a sporting event. Otherwise they're going backwards 3 to 5% a year against inflation. All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for the tips and a good reminder. Of course, heading into the holidays.