Los Angeles is a notoriously expensive place to live. A house built in the Great Depression that’s about to be condemned can still command well into the millions, while rents are at historic highs. Car insurance rates are through the roof, parking costs more than just Ubering to your destination, and that’s before you even get into the costs of gas, maintenance, and auto loans.
Of course, Los Angeles isn’t all that you see on TikTok and in the movies: most Angelenos shop at Ralph’s, Smart & Final, or the wonderful fever dream that is Grocery Outlet rather than Erewhon. We’re rummaging at swap meets and flea markets instead of swiping a bottomless pit of an Amex on Rodeo Drive. But in spite of our best efforts with ever-climbing living costs amid a besieged entertainment industry and multiple indicators of a recession, it seems like Angelenos just can’t get a break.
But guess what: you can!
LA is actually full of cheap–and even totally free–things to do, buy, trade, or find. So if eye-popping grocery prices and sky-high rents got you down, here’s how to have fun in Los Angeles on a very low budget.
Free and Cheap Shopping in LA
Close your fast fashion tabs, there’s even cheaper ways to find inexpensive clothing that can also be more sustainable to boot.
LA is one of the best cities for thrifting. Thrifting culture is massive here, but you have to look beyond the big thrift store chains like Goodwill and Salvation Army, which can be hit-or-miss. Swap meets are often your friend here, as you can frequently find brand new items for similar or even lower prices than comparable name brands at thrift chains.
Where’s the best thrifting in Los Angeles?
It’s actually not in storied neighborhoods like Hollywood or notoriously hipstery Silverlake. It’s in Magnolia Park in Burbank, and the San Fernando Valley.
Magnolia Boulevard is lined with one treasure trove after another with chain thrift stores like Goodwill and American Cancer Society Thrift Shops, independent thrift shops, highly-curated vintage shops, and places you’ll only find in LA like It’s a Wrap, a secondhand store specializing in movie and TV set wardrobe items and props from actual studios at bargain bin prices.
Do your feet hurt at the prospect of walking through thrift stores all day? There’s other options! You can find incredibly cheap clothing by literally walking off the beaten path, especially along 8th St or Olympic Boulevard in Koreatown. Look for neighborhoods like it, which would be any place with scads of laundromats and dry cleaners. They’ll put out unclaimed items for sale for as little as $1 apiece.
Now, if you are looking for something very specific or part of a demographic where it can be difficult to find your size, this is where you’ll need to look harder on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms that are more location-centric to find clothing swaps that are usually not inside a place you’ll find on map apps. One of LA’s downfalls is that clubs, Meetups, and swaps can be a walled-off garden that can be hard to find: luckily, both general and niche clothing swaps are rising in popularity as the reuse economy surges and becoming easier to find. Try your neighborhood and “clothing swap”, or something specific like “maternity clothing swap northeast Los Angeles”.
In addition to general clothing swaps that might be hosted by a local reuse or Buy Nothing group, there’s also highly-specific swaps for queer people, kids’ clothes, plus size clothes, and so on that you can usually find on Instagram and get more details by messaging the organizers. Formal and informal Buy Nothing groups are a fantastic way to both search for useful things without having to pay for them, and they offer a fun and easy way to offload your unwanted items while building community and keeping things out of landfills.
If you’re a crafty sort, there’s quite a handful of craft supply swaps throughout the city, including a lovely monthly swap that meets in Venice at Circular Library.
Remainders in Pasadena hosts clothing swaps, inexpensive classes, and has a wide variety of arts and crafts supplies on their retail floor for a fraction of their retail price. If you’re looking for something specific, or always wanted to give a craft a try but didn’t want to spend a lot of money upfront on the tools and supplies, Remainders has you covered for rock-bottom prices. They even have Free Days a few days a year where you can take certain overstock items for free! Teacher and student discounts are also available on certain days, which you can stay up to date with via Instagram or newsletter.
Want to get more life out of the stuff you already have? Picnic and Art Supplies near East Hollywood is “open by chance” at random, but they do have occasional mending nights where you can bring in items to mend in addition to free or low-cost classes and meetups.
Cheerio Collective in Highland Park also offers free repair fairs to the community, where you can bring in anything from clothes and jewelry to electronics where a volunteer will try to fix them before you think about tossing them or buying a replacement.
Where to Find Cheap Eats in Los Angeles
Real Angelenos, whether you came here by birth or by plane, know that those places with the vine walls and mid garlic fries that cost $20 aren’t it. And if you’re worried about not having enough union set hours to keep your health insurance this year, chances are you’re not going anywhere that requires a reservation. And have you noticed that even fast food joints are charging airport prices on the mainland now?! But you’re tired and slaving over a hot stove is the last thing you want to do after hustling in a punitive job market all day. Don’t worry, there’s still cheap eats you didn’t have to cook lurking throughout Angel City.
Most of these are chains, but there are also some independent restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and the like that may have their own Recession Specials or evergreen economy pricing you should check out. Look at that hole in the wall taqueria you always walked past, they might have a quesadilla plate for under $10 like my local spot does! If you browse long enough, you can find those kinds of deals at Corporation Food Hall, which is like the Mordor to Grand Central Market but in the best way possible: it’s just one small corridor with vendors on each side, there’s virtually no tourists, and you can find a variety of reasonably-priced eats.
Forget the donut chains: go to any number of independent Cambodian or Vietnamese donut shops in the most off-the-cuff random strip mall you can find. Bonus points if the signage hasn’t been updated since Bush was in office. I guarantee at least three out of five you’ll hit will have pricing straight out of 1996.
Speaking of 1990s pricing, very few places can beat local favorite Porto’s when it comes to bang for your buck. Their baked goods are worth the lines that snake around the block at their Burbank store, and Glendale has comparable pricing. You’ll pay far less for an artisanal loaf of sourdough or challah that’s fresh-baked than you would at Von’s or even Ralph’s, and it’s of significantly higher quality. You don’t have to sacrifice those little treats many of us give up during hard times, as Porto’s menu lets you stretch your dollars a little farther than many other LA bakeries.
But humans cannot lived on baked goods alone, though I’ve definitely tried. Many Prime Pizza locations offer a “happy hour” from 4-6PM Monday through Thursday where cheap slices abound, in addition to weekday lunch specials. I found this to be the case in Little Tokyo, but other locations may vary.
Little Tokyo itself isn’t just izakayas and sushi bars, either. There’s a surprising wealth of inexpensive food. Yamazaki Bakery has some of the most delicious bread in the entire city, and prices that are not nearly as high as comparable chain and independent Asian bakeries throughout DTLA and Koreatown. You’ll also want to check out the Little Tokyo Farmers’ Market that takes place south of Japanese Village Plaza every Saturday morning: you won’t see $20 vegetables like the other side of the 101. Food Access Little Tokyo does quite the opposite! You can get farm-to-table vegetables for similar or lower prices than most area grocery stores.
Then we have another LA institution eaten in cars of all kinds, including rail cars, Del Taco.
Del Taco is one of the few remaining fast food chains that actually still has fast food prices come 2025 with many menu items well under $5, frequent deals, Taco Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus a smattering of vegetarian-friendly items at rock-bottom prices. Del Taco sweetens their already low prices with in-app deals and like most other fast food chains, you can save a lot of money with their native app over third-party or counter service.
Fun Stuff to Do For Free or Cheap in LA
If you’re looking to do more than walk around your neighborhood, the first place to look is the Parks Departments of both the City of Los Angeles and neighboring cities like Culver City and Pasadena. LA County certainly has noteworthy parks and museums, but you’d be surprised at what you can do in LA County for free or very cheap.
As a New Yorker, I often hear people say that there’s no comparable park to Central Park. While true, it’s because the dynamics of the two cities and their climates and topography are so wildly different. LA simply doesn’t need a Central Park when you can be in the concrete jungle of DTLA then barely 15 minutes up the 101, be immersed in abject wilderness. Rather than one giant park spanning over 50 blocks, there are massive patches of mountains, forests, lakes, and canyons with a smattering of neighborhood parks and leafy blocks.
LA trails are breathtakingly beautiful, like the Ferndell Trail and Westridge Trailhead, plus the Griffith Park Trails adjacent to the Griffith Observatory. You don’t need to pay to go hiking or mountaineering to see these incredible vistas. Griffith Observatory is also free to visit and you can catch some stargazing clubs at night, as the Observatory offers an unparalleled view of the constellations.
Expo Park itself could have an entire article devoted to it, but it’s a pleasant park to visit even if you don’t have plans to go to any of the museums. There’s a rose garden to look at and plenty of places to sit with some food or drink you brought from home. Although if you want to visit the museums for free, LA County residents can get admission to the Natural History Museum waived on weekdays 3-5PM. Many other museums throughout the city also have their own designated free days, their websites and socials can help you keep track of them such as LACMA’s free admission every second Tuesday of the month from 11AM-6PM.
Skip the consumerism of The Grove and enjoy the free admission from 3PM-5PM at nearby La Brea Tar Pits on weekdays. However, you can always watch the bubbling tar and paleontologists digging up dinosaur bones mere blocks from Erewhon and $6,000 a month apartments at no cost.
Rec centers are an incredibly under-utilized goldmine of free or cheap activities if outdoorsy stuff isn’t your thing. If you’re skipping trivia night at your favorite bar because you just can’t afford it right now, some rec centers in and around LA have game nights. Plan on ditching the gym membership that requires a notary public and proof you moved to Palm Springs to finally get out of it? Many LA parks have free outdoor gyms and when extreme weather harshes that mellow, the indoor gyms at places like Robinson Park Recreation Center offer residents excellent rates that cost similarly or far less than commercial gyms and without the predatory contracts and constant upselling.
Do you love hitting the pool, but don’t want to pay an exorbitant day rate at a fancy hotel or commit to an expensive membership at a sports club? The Culver City Municipal Plunge has morning aqua fitness classes for only $2!
More specialized classes are available for $10-25 per class and there are no ongoing memberships required. The Plunge also recently began offering drop-in lap swim for just a few dollars per session even if you are not a Culver City resident, no advance registration required. Just bring your swimsuit, towel, and plenty of sunblock. Some municipal pools only offer classes or lap swim during spring and summer months while others, like the John J. Kennedy Pool attached to the Robinson Park Recreation Center in Pasadena, offer sessions year-round. Many are also offered during the evening so you have time to get there from a day job.
And never forget our beloved local library system. LAPL has branches large and small where you are never required to buy anything to come in and read books, check out DVDs, and attend everything from free art classes to activities for kids and young families. The city’s library system is also home to one of the coolest things you could possibly do with your time for free: try out a CNC mill or 3D printer at the Octavia Butler Lab in the DTLA branch. You just need to register for the lab separately with library staff to prove your LA residency and make a reservation in person or over the phone, but it’s a fantastic place to live your craftsman dreams if you don’t have the funds or ability to commit to a private maker space membership.
Whether the economy tanks or you’re going through a rough patch, you don’t have to resign to staying home with these Los Angeles on a budget ideas. Life in LA definitely gets expensive. But it’s so much more than celebrity, influencers, and Hollywood culture. It’s a wonderful and weird place teeming with life, odd history, and creative people who do multiple things for a living and know where to find fun while paying little or nothing for it.
