Mr. Canuck Buck and I are big fans of an author called Christopher Moore, and he just came to Toronto to do a book signing. There’s no actual charge for the book signing itself, but that certainly didn’t mean it was a free day. We actually spent a fair chunk of change.
1. Train fare. About 30 dollars to get in and out for the 2 of us. Driving and parking might have been cheaper, but with 2 other events going on that day, there was no guarantee of it, and taking the train is more relaxing then driving.
2. Buying the book itself. I don’t tend to buy a lot of books, and I almost never buy them in hard cover. So – another 30 dollars on buying the new book, “Sacre Bleu”.
3. One very large Starbucks hot chocolate to keep me going while I stood in line for several hours. 5 bucks. That being said – I rarely buy Starbucks, but I love their hot chocolate. It’s amazing and I call it “Heaven in a cup”. 
I did bring a bottle of water and couple of snacks.
So – the “free” book signing cost almost 70 dollars. I’m not sorry I put out the money though. Mr. Moore was a great speaker, and I even got a chance to ask him a question, which was nice. I did some thinking and realized that being frugal doesn’t mean you don’t ever do anything or spend money – it just means accounting for costs, making sure you can afford them, and that they are worth it.
I had a great day out, and I’m looking forward to reading the book. It was worth every penny!
On a side note – if I lived in town, and didn’t want to get my book signed , I could have heard him speak for free. Something to keep in mind if you’re broke, but want to attend a book signing anyway.
What “free” event have you attended that ended up costing you money? Was it worth it?
I’m a casual Moore fan (ok, so I only read fool). If you want to same some cash on books and help out your favourite PF blogger at the same time, click through to amazon from one of our book reviews and we get a small cut (plus you’ll get the cheapest price, this is where I buy all my stuff). One thing about living rural is that I am much less tempted by “cheap” or “free” stuff that actually ends up with a fairly large opportunity cost. Some people might see this as a negative, but I like the simple life.
Hey My University Money – thanks for the heads up on book savings. In this case, you had to buy it at the store in order to get it signed, but for casual reading (say, book club!) I’ll keep this in mind. Fool was not one of my favourites – if I can recommend one, Lamb is the best of the lot.