If you have $5

Pocket it (trust us, you’ll need it at the end of the semester when you’re subsisting on Ramen and ketchup packets), and take the Metro to Bethesda for an open mic reading at the Writing Center on 4508 Walsh St. this Sunday. Get your creative juices going by sharing your own poetry and prose, or just listen to the writing of D.C. locals.

If you have $10

Get to N.E. and go to the Rock and Roll Hotel on 1353 H St. at 9 p.m. this Saturday to dance, dance, dance. Nick Zinner takes a break from his day job as guitarist for New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs to spin for you. This event is free if you get in before 10 p.m., but if you show up fashionably late (because you were busy trying your best to look like Karen O, maybe), you’ll have to drop a tenner.

If you have $20

Go to 9:30 Club on Friday at 7:30 and listen to Geoff Rickley emote. His New Jersey band, Thursday, specializes in At the Drive-In style bleeding heart anthems, so be ready for plenty of screamalongs. Catharsis seems to be the goal here, as car crashes and train wrecks make up the substance of the material. Last year’s “A City By the Light Divided” was the band’s fourth record.