Ruth Fremson/The New York Times At Beauty Bar, a manicurist gives a $10 manicure that comes with a cocktail.

As the needle went into my skin, somewhere between the two biggest toes on my left foot, I felt an almost electrical jolt—my metatarsal bones pulsed with energy, like a muscle cramp but completely painless. It was as if my entire foot were a neon sign that had never been switched on before.

“Wow,” I think I said, and the four people in white lab coats observing me hurried to ask if I was okay. Was it a burning pain? No. Was it subsiding? Um, maybe a little. Okay, then everything was fine.

Then they stuck more needles in me.

For aficionados of acupuncture, this is old hat. According to the tenets of Chinese medicine, tapping skinny needles into your pressure points is an age-old way of rebalancing the body and restoring, or ensuring, general health.

For the Frugal Traveler, however, this was entirely new. And not because I don’t trust non-Western medicine, or because my body never needed rebalancing. It was mostly because such treatments — which I lump together with massages and spas — have always seemed needlessly expensive. Sure, I’ve had worthy spa treatments in Asia (shiatsu in Saigon, Thai massage in Bangkok), but back home in New York City I never even considered making an appointment, or even ducking into one of the cheap but undifferentiated Tui Na massage parlors in Chinatown.

This winter, however, I’ve been beset by lower-back pain, a consequence of the weather (hard to go running in blizzards) and my daughter, Sasha. At 25 pounds, she’s becoming a serious load and is more demanding about being picked up and put down. Add to that a job that requires sitting at a desk for long periods of time, and you’ve got all the ingredients for lower-lumbar discomfort.

So, I figured, why not get it taken care of right here in New York, and affordably, so that visiting tourists can indulge in the same luxurious spa treatments that so often seem out of reach?

Read more…

Matthew Weinstein for The New York Times The Standard Hotel is a good bet for free Wi-Fi.

New Year’s resolutions are made for many reasons — not least of which is so that they can immediately be broken. Last week I resolved first and foremost to put aside my iPhone (and laptop and other electronic devices) and experience destinations more directly. So what do I do this week? Offer tips on how to find free Wi-Fi in New York City, so you’ll never be without a digital tether.

First, a word of justification for those Luddites who scoff at us signal-seekers: plugging-in is now an indispensable part of traveling. Whether we’re booking flights and looking up train schedules or tweeting for food-cart recommendations and having Skype video chats with far-flung friends, it’s a basic tool of traveling, and has been for some of us (i.e., me) for almost two decades now. Read more…

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency On Saturdays from 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., admission to the Guggenheim Museum is “pay what you wish.”

Judging from the number of readers’ comments, my post last week on researching frugal trips to New York City only scratched the surface. Many of the tips were new to me, including Web sites I’d never heard of (like ClubFreeTime.com) to restaurants I’ve yet to try out (like a nonprofit restaurant near the Cloisters). Here’s a roundup of my favorites. Read more…

For those of us who live here, the expense of New York City is something we’ve long since adjusted to. Designer tank tops for $140, truffled hamburgers for $150, studio apartments renting for upward of $3,000 — even in the midst of recession, these things seem somehow normal, the price of admission to the greatest city in the world.

For visitors, however, these can be seriously intimidating numbers. Even if you’re not aiming for high-end Manhattan indulgence, the basic costs of lodging, transportation, food, shopping and entertainment are the most expensive in the nation.

But there’s an easy way to bring the price of a New York vacation down to earth. It’s called research. Read more…

Matt Gross for The New York Times Anthony Ina, right, rents his spare bedroom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, through AirBnB.com.

Last Saturday evening, the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was drenched in rain, and yet the poor weather did little to deter the crowds marching up and down Bedford Avenue, the neighborhood’s main drag. Slickers hiding their tattoo-covered arms, umbrellas obscuring their asymmetrical haircuts, young New Yorkers came out en masse — as they have for well over a decade now — in search of cheap drinks, thrift-store fashions and the latest underground bands and D.J.’s. Read more…

Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times Shoes for sale at the vintage shop Beacon’s Closet in Williamsburg.

New York Fashion Week begins Thursday, which means certain quarters of this city will soon be swarming with the usual semiannual clichés: underfed models, preening editors, “Project Runway” wannabes and the design kingpins whose overpriced frocks are headed straight for Saks, Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys — where, if trends continue, they’ll go mostly unsold.

Expensive fashion, which plundered the bank accounts (and, more often, credit lines) of New Yorkers just a few years back, is on the wane. Saks, for example, just reported a 15 percent drop in second-quarter sales, and has been slashing prices to move merchandise — a strategy that a Dow Jones Newswires article warned “could hurt in the long run as shoppers may be resistant to paying full price after seeing such big markdowns.”

For some of us, however, a resistance to paying full price is the normal state of affairs. For as long as nice clothes have been expensive (which is to say forever), New Yorkers have found ways to get high-end looks for less. Read more…

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times A summer stickball league in Brooklyn.

Cricket, to many Americans, is a baffling sport, slow-paced and governed by incomprehensible rules. But in New York City, where the game is played in a half-dozen amateur leagues, mostly by people of Caribbean and South Asian descent, it is organized around a principle that will make sense both to aficionados and to those who can’t tell a wicket from a tickle: Fandom has its rewards.

“Very often, if you go to a cricket match and attach yourself to one of the teams, you will be given food at the end of the day,” said Joseph O’Neill, whose novel “Netherland” centers on an immigrant New Yorker’s scheme to build an international-level cricket stadium. Fans, he pointed out, are “not very numerous,” so the players happily share their spicy chicken or goat curries “as a matter of courtesy.”

Bring along a bottle of rum to share, Mr. O’Neill added, and “very quickly, you will have a party on your hands.”

For frugal sports fans, there may be no better introduction to the diversity of New York. Read more…

It’s nice to know that readers of this blog are such thrifty bar hoppers! Using your suggestions, I’ve updated the map to free bar snacks in New York City with your tips, from the tapas at Spain Restaurant (thanks Theresa) to the fresh tater tots at Trash (with nods to Chris).

I have a feeling there are a lot more out there. Keep them flowing in to the comments section (or to freebarsnacksnyc@gmail.com), and I’ll update the map from time to time.

Matt Gross for The New York Times This pizza at the Crocodile Lounge in the East Village not only went well with a beer, it came free with the drink.

In a city of pizza snobs, the pies served at the Crocodile Lounge (325 East 14th Street; 212-477-7747), a dark and typically crowded East Village bar, barely rate.

The crust may be light and thin, but it’s not charred to blistering by a 900-degree wood-fired oven. The sauce, though tomato-sweet, is not made from prized San Marzano fruits. The cheese binds the pizza together well enough, but you’d never mistake it for mozzarella di bufala.

Still, these entirely edible 10-inch pizzas — which are also available at the Crocodile’s Brooklyn sibling, the Alligator Lounge in Williamsburg (600 Metropolitan Avenue; 718-599-4440) — have one advantage over the über-authentic versions sold nearby: buy a drink, whether a $6 Goose Island ale or the $5 house lager, and the pizza is free. Read more…