One of my passions in life is watching my beloved Notts County. Dad first took me when I was 5 years old and he kept taking me until it became ingrained in me to support them. Some seasons they are an absolute joy to watch and I wouldn't be anywhere else, others it's a little 'painful' but they're MY team through thick and thin.
Unfortunately, football in this country has become ludicrously expensive. Add up the price of a ticket, plus programme, drinks, food and travel and you'll be hitting an almost eye-watering amount of money to be spent. Then there's the seemingly never ending replica shirts to be purchased, scarves, hats and all manner of other items of clothing, stationary; even garden gnomes for crying out loud! Like everything else though, this tightwad has ways and means of keeping costs down....
Travel to home games has become a breeze with Premiere buses new services and excellent range of cheap tickets. A 'duo' ticket (£6) allows two adults and up to two children unlimited travel on their buses all day. As the trip to Meadow Lane for us involves 4 buses (two each way) it's a bargain,even more so when their competition Trent Barton want double that for the same style ticket. Ouch!
At £3 a pop we gave up buying the souvenier programmes a while ago. There's nothing wrong with them and the lads in the office who write the content do a fantastic job, but it's an expense we can do without right now. They only get stuffed in a drawer or cupboard in any case!
Food and drink is another one that is simple to reduce costs on. We take our own! Bottles of fizzy pop can be found in Poundland (2 for a quid dontcha know), they also do various packs of 4 chocolate bars. Chuck in some fruit from the bowl at home and a flask of tea/coffee/hot chocolate in cold weather and we're sorted.
Of course, the biggest expense involved in following football is the price of tickets. At Notts the cheap seats command a price of £21 per adult, the others £23. Season tickets are £325 and £400 respectively. Ouch! Ido have a season ticket, so do the two kiddos who come along too. 14 year old has his as his birthday present each year so doesn't cost me anything extra and 6 year old's was free (with the purchase of an adult one). To pay for mine I have a sealed tin (from Poundland...the sort you need a tin opener to get in to...) where I put every single £2 coin I receive in change. Last year, a week before 'seasonticket deadline day' I opened the tin and found I'd saved £190. Took a huge weight off the finances I can tell you so I was able to pay for mine outright instead of going for the 'easy yet more expensive' finance option.
So there you go. Watching football can be as expensive or as cheap as you make it. For the record I was inspired to write this while sitting watching Notts yesterday. For the record we drew 1-1 with MK Dons, played some cracking football in the second half and the entire day out cost less than a tenner. Result!
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