Thursday, June 16, 2011

Cinderella Solutinns~Affording Fancy Meetups

Despite the large, online community, Lolitas are still few and far between in real life. How often do you bump into another Lolita on the street? Not very, I assume. Thus whenever there is a Lolita Meetup happening, most of us tend to get very excited to meet new friends, share interests, and maybe do something fancy!

While it is obviously not required to go to a tea house or something similarly "stereotypical" of the Lolita lifestyle, oftentimes it is fun to take afternoon tea with cute cakes and sandwiches or go somewhere for a photoshoot. We don't get all dolled up just to watch a movie and then go home, you know!

However, fancy places usually come with a fancy price tag too. And many of us are still students trying to pay for school, food, rent, gas or public transportation, and of course, our Lolita dresses! How is one poor Lolita supposed to afford such fancy things?

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Oh you gorgeous towering tea tray, GET IN MY BELLY!


The first few meetups I went to here cost from NT$300-600 for afternoon tea. While it was very fancy, gorgeous, and enjoyable, it simply wasn't realistic for me to do this every month!

Recently our local group has begun to have cheaper meetups in new locations found via the magic of... Groupon!

Click on the link to learn about Groupon and how it works! Basically, it offers local coupons that you can purchase and then use at the advertised location. It is a great way to discover new cafes and eateries nearby while saving money! After you select your location it will give you daily coupon offers with huge discounts (around 50-90% savings). What a wonderful way to try new places without spending too much!

There are other, similar sites such as Living Social, though Groupon is the only one I have had experience with. After we started Grouponing, the meetup cost averaged out to about NT$150, or about US$5 for a meal. Now that, I can do!

I hope this little tip helped some of you out :) Do you know of any other couponing sites like this? Please share in the comments if you do!