I don’t know about you, but I think what’s happening to the economy is great. Let me demonstrate with one simple statement: Gas is less expensive now. These days it costs me just $18 to fill up my car — a “plum” 1993 Saturn to be specific, which means I can actually buy more stuff.

Deals are popping up all over the place, and it would just be silly to pass up any of them. It’s the “Year of the Savings” — maybe the phrase will catch on, maybe it won’t. But it’s true.

I’ve compiled a list of bargains found in the South Puget Sound.

The arts

Tacoma Art Place (1116 S. 11th St., Tacoma, RSVP at 253.238.1006) hosts a free Hero Masks class for ages 8-12, Feb. 7, noon to 2 pm.

Harlequin Productions (202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia) offers half priced tickets a half-hour before curtain for Sins of the Mother, a comedy about the fishing industry. It plays through Feb. 14.

Lifestyle

Salon Professional Academy (3702 S. Fife St., Tacoma) offers discounts on services (hair, nails, etc,) performed by students under supervision of trainer/teachers. Awesome deal.

Foxfire Salon & Spa celebrates 25-years in business with complimentary skin and makeup consultations Feb. 14. In addition, customers get 15 percent off retail prices on all Aveda products Feb. 14-21.

Bargain World (4502 N. Pearl St., Tacoma) has Buck Mondays where selected tags are only a dollar. Plus they rotate the color tags, so if you find something nifty one week at regular price, just stash it somewhere till the tag comes up and get it for a buck.

The Embellish Annex salon inside urbanXchange (1934 Pacific Ave., Tacoma) offers $20 cuts, $20 shampoo/styles, $20 iron works, and $5 attitude adjustments.

The Dollar Tree (dollartree.com) is stocked with a wide array of gift bags, party supplies, housewares, seasonal decor, candy and food, toys, health and beauty care, gifts, stationery, books, and a variety of consumer items with everything priced at $1.

Ask Your Friends. Sometimes the best bargains are a phone call away … to your friends! Like, whenever I need to rebuild a war torn country I just ask one of my friends to do it. Nothing saves money better than working outside of a competitive bidding process!

You can find bargains such as antiques, Eskimo items, crafts, fishing collectibles, sportwear, cookware, electronics and more at the Swap & Shop Flea Market (Starlight Drive In Theater, 84th Street and South Tacoma Way, Lakewood) 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

The Flea Market of Thurston County (3054 Carpenter Rd., Lacey) hosts more than 30 vendors offering new and used household goods, furniture, antiques, collectibles, jewelry, assorted oddities and treasures every third weekend from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Aeropostale teen clothing store (4502 S Steele St., inside Tacoma Mall) will sell you a new pair of jeans for 25 percent off if you donate a pair of your old jeans. The offer is good through Feb. 22.

Most thrift stores, besides offering second-hand clothing at reduced prices, will run tag sales (a discount on a particular color of tag each day, or have a specials on certain days). Here are a few of our favorite Tacoma stores: Sanford and Son, urbanXchange, Orange on Broadway, Pure (inside Sanford and Son and on I street across from 7-11), Funkoma Vintage, Vanity (Sanford and Son and Sixth Avenue), Re-fine Clothier, and Second Closet.

The East Asia Supermarket (602 S. 38th St., Tacoma) has the cheapest groceries, if you know what you want. You can get your staples there for half to two-thirds of what you’d pay anywhere else.

Top Food & Drugs (3130 S. 23rd St., Tacoma) has an amazing assortment of little things for the home — nice bedding, pillows, bathroom stuff, kitchenwares (you can get All Clad pans for half). A lot of it is hideous, but if people are browsers, you can grab top-end stuff for cheap.

Eat/drink

Masa (2811 Sixth Ave., Tacoma) late night eats Friday and Saturday after 10 p.m. — Tacos $3, quesadillas $3, Masa fires $3, pizza by the slice $3 and taquitos $3.

Tightwad Tuesdays features $2 tacos, $2 beers, and $2 wells at Hell’s Kitchen (3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma).

The Top of Tacoma Bar & Café’s (3529 McKinley Ave. E., Tacoma) Sunday Funday offers Pabst $1, micros and wells $2.75. Well drink Wednesdays offer $1.50 wells. 2.5.3 Taco Thursday serves 75 cent tacos.

Rainier beer is only a dollar every Wednesday at The Red Hot (2914 Sixth Ave., Tacoma). They also have $3 wine pours the first Wednesday of every month.

Winger’s Grill & Bar (5221 Tacoma Mall Blvd., Tacoma) has a nifty happy hour 3-6 and 9-close with $4 select appetizers and $2 domestics and $3 wells/micros.

Kids eat free with purchase of an adult entrée at Varsity Grill (1114 Broadway Tacoma). Valid for kids 12 and younger.

Half-price Wine Mondays at Duke’s Chowder House (3327 Ruston Way, Tacoma) Cedarwood Dome (7404 Pacific Hwy. E., Milton) offers $8.50 rib eye steaks and fries and $2 pounders every Wednesday.

Sample two beers for $1 every Wednesday from 4-9 p.m. at 99 Bottles (35002 Pacific Hwy. S., Federal Way).

Primo Grill (601 S. Pine, Tacoma) hosts Half-price Wine Night every Wednesday.

Uncle Sam’s American Grill (16003 Pacific Ave., Spanaway) offers $1 Busch pounders during happy hour every day. They also serve $7 steak dinners.

Go to Metropolitan Market (2420 N. Proctor St., Tacoma) and buy the largest container of the daily Chapino soup. The key is to get as many chunks of fish out as you can.

Rosewood Café (3323 N. 26th St., Tacoma,) offers $5 glasses of wine every Monday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Kids eat for $1 in February from the 12-and-younger $4.99 Kids Menu with the purchase of each full-priced adult entrée at RAM Restaurant and Brewery locations in the South Sound.

The Sea Grill (1498 Pacific Ave., Tacoma) has introduced a Fab Five Bar Menu featuring fish tacos, rock shrimp cocktail, Sea Grill truffle fries, lobster bisque and a bar Caesar salad each priced at $5 all day, every day.

Music

The Viaduct all-ages club (5412 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma) offers six-month memberships that discounts shows by $2 to $3. If you are a regular Viaduct patron the $20 membership might be a good bargain. Grab a membership on brownpapertickets.com.

Tickets for Juan de Marcos and The Afro-Cuban All Stars are only $15 if you bring two cans of non-perishable food to the Feb. 17 concert at the Pantages Theater (901 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591.5894).

Buzzard’s CDs & Video (1916 Jefferson Ave, Tacoma) carries 99 cent CDs and $4 DVDs.

Turn credit cards into guitar picks. Credit cards are what got you into this mess in the first place, South Sound! Cut them up with the scissors you bought to cut your hair and start singing the blues that you won’t be singing for long now that you’ve turned your credit cards into guitar picks. Save even more money by only singing songs in the public domain and playing a guitar made out of six pack rings and old blue jeans.