For Valentine’s Day The Wife and I took a trip into “The City” a/k/a New York City to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met). My Beautiful Bride is a little scrunched up in this picture since it was about 38 Degrees in NYC today!
A striking couple, huh?
So why the title?
The Met is Free, Kinda
As we got to the admission desk we noticed the following prices:
Notice the bold letters? Recommended. Well, when we got the worker he asked me was $40 alright ($20 for each)? I thought for a second…and said sure. As he was charging my credit card The Wife asked do people give less? and the guy said yes. I paid $40 for the two of us and we spent 4 hours wandering through the amazing building.
So I ask, Good Humanitarian supporting the Arts of New York or Personal Finance D-Bag for not ‘frugaling’ for a free day?
Wow, well done for paying $40! Most people pay like 5 bucks. Hope you had a good time! I was at the Met last year for about 3 hours too. Awesome!
I felt weird saying a lower amount. I think if I went back today I may have been more comfortable but $40 for a valentine’s day event? Score
It would be interesting to see a comprehensive study done that compares how much money is taken in based on different price points vs. recommended donations/guilt trips/mafia shakedowns as I know that I have heard different places that recommended donations usually outperforms many different firm pricepoints.
Guilt Trip is a good way of putting it lol! It was worth it, but those who are super frugal might call me an idiot
I don’t get the “pick your price” for places like museums.
What I don’t get is when I see people on houses a range for prices!? I saw a house once whose price was listed $400,000 – $425,000….why the hell would anyone use the top #
Great point! Even worse RE agents do this.
Also the one who mentions price first looses.
Just take it as a charitable contribution on your taxes.
Wow! I never knew you were a bad ass Greek sculpture, Evan.
Impressive.
It was hard on my Mom when I was born, but she endured it
Hahahahahaha!!
You’re terrible, man.
Hilarious though. Haha.
If all you spent on Valentines was $40, that is a big score! I’m assuming you went out to dinner and stuff.
Yeah, would look bad and unbecoming to pay less than $40 in front of the lady during V Day and more importantly, during your anniversary (see I read everything).
I have never spent so much in my entire life this weekend on V-Day…………….. but, I get to partake in the massages and one roundtrip last minute ticket to a tropical island as well!
HAHAHAHAH I SPENT MORE THAN $40, but no where near you. The good thing we did was no presents this year. HUGE.
The Wife actually was the one that wanted to give less. She is 100% the saver and I am the spender
I think it’s a pay what you can afford concept. There are a great many people who perceive that The Met is out of their price range (when it’s actually free), but appreciate the artwork’s availability. Therefore it’s a recommended price of admission vs an actual ticket. Brooke Astor certainly gave well over the recommended amount.
As far as your wife not wanting to give the full recommended amount, that’s fine as long as you are capable of giving something and *do so*. She’d be the d-bag if she said not to give anything at all and you enjoyed the museum anyway, i.e. freeloading.
lol I think my loving husband made me sound worse than I am. I didn’t even consider giving nothing, I was just amazed that they give you that option. And honestly I thought that we should’ve given less…but that’s not the nature of my journey:) So at least we balance eachother out.
You know I thought about this…
Why don’t they tell up front, no charge to get in, but at the end pay what you feel what you got out of it.
After all, if I’ve never been there before I might hate it and leave quickly. I suspect people who’ve been before pay more than $20 per person.
With everything “free” these days and the law of reciprocation, I think they would do much better after people have visited the MET.
Just a different way of looking at this..
$10 an hour per person to walk through a museum time how many people are there a day? They must be raking it in!
Being the cheap bastard that I am I probably would’ve dug out my old college ID then negotiated down to $5, haha.
I also didn’t realize you were that ripped… I will now avoid any confrontational comments on your site
I would have done the same and then regret it later. Hey, at least, you were supporting a good thing!
Whoa, you are baring it all today! Does your wife know you showed your goods to the internets?
She is a cutie!!
I don’t know what I would have done in your case. Do you feel good about it?
With a body like that how could she stop me from showing it all off to the internet
You are so funny!! I agree- I wold feel like a chump too. Call and complain.
I have mixed feelings – I feel like it was the right thing, but it angered me that I felt like the only chump paying full recommended price
If you can afford to pay the recommended amount, I consider it the “right” thing to do.
I kind of agree with you which is probably why I ended up paying the full $40.
I’m a little late weighing in on this one but if you spent 4 hours that’s only $10 bucks an hour or $5 bucks an hour each, which sounds like cheap entertainment to me. About the same price per hour as going to movies.
If you have it to give, give it… if not, then don’t.
Fair, and that is basically what we ran with!
Here’s my thing – I pay a fortune to live in Manhattan. Heck, those of us who live in the 5 boroughs pay a city tax on our incomes on top of the hideous rents and jacked-up grocery prices for food that’s nearly expired. Now, I don’t know for sure how many, or even if, my tax dollars go to the MMA, but I feel the least the city owes me is cheap museum entry. I’m only good for about 1 hour anyway, museums make me sleepy.
However, for you tourists who are there maybe once in a lifetime for 4 hours at a clip – that’s $5 an hour each for world-class entertainment. So it was a good and fair thing that you and your wife did. If you had planned a shorter visit, then less would have been fine. But that’s just my opinion.
Having said all that, I rarely go because of the discomfort in “underpaying”. Seriously, if it wasn’t for that, I’d probably hit the Museum of Natural History 5-8x a year (it works the same way as the Met) – not enough to justify the price of becoming a “Friend”. I was back when it was $45/year though.
Hey hey hey, who ya calling a Tourist? Long Islander here! Lived in Bayside till I was 8, brother is FDNY, parents still own a home in Bayside and in Astoria on Steinway….how about them street creds? LOL
That aside, we talked about going back and paying less the next time since we would be in there shorter. I liked the Nat History Museum MUCH BETTER! but we already did that together, and I thought art would be more romantic since it was V-Day
Yeah, Long Island – you don’t pay that ridiculous city tax! Back when I was a salaried employee on a pathetic $39K a year, it was painful giving up that $1K/yr. For that, I want free museums for citydwellers! Waaahhhh!
they should charge according to income? someone making $50k a year pays more than the person making $20k? I dunno. Just a thought. Of course people could lie and abuse that policy easy. lol