Work for them and make lots of dollars?

http://www.sina.com.cn/ (chinese Ebay-clone)

There are many things you can do to make the trip cheaper. It also completely depends how you are organising it. Are you going alone or with friends? How many of you? Do you have complete control over the hotels and restaurants or are you doing a package tour? How long are you planning to stay? Assuming you’re doing everything yourself, here are a few pointers:

Depending on what company you are flying with and what route you are taking, the price of the flights could change dramatically so make sure you check with quite a few companies.

Accommodation prices can vary a lot depending on the location and the time of year. Avoid the very central areas. Check web sites like hotels.com. If you don’t mind roughing it a bit, check out hostels on sites like hostelworld.com.

Food can be cheap in Paris if you don’t go to the busy tourist restaurants. In particular, you can have very nice food in brasseries: it will be simple but reasonably priced. If you are staying in a place that allows self-catering, you can even sort out the food yourself: get what you need from local shops. This would definitely be the cheapest option but is more effort.

I agree with Bruno. I was in Paris for a week and I did a lot of cheap things. Visiting most of the sites is free. Cafe’s are cheap for coffee and people watching. I was also excited to find a region of town (that I don’t know of anymore) that had these gyro-things with pommes just shoved in on top.

I stayed at the Jules Ferry which is in an ok area of town. It’s a very short walk to Bastille from there and it’s really cheap.

My typical day was walking down to the river in the early evening, on the way stopping at a groccery store to pick up a baguette, ham and cheese. I sat on the river side, listened to the music from across the other side and watch the sun set. Cheap!

Well, if time isn’t an issue, then you could always catch the train there? I’m not sure whether that route is called the trans-manchurian or trans-siberian, but I do know that there is a way to catch a train from Beijing to Paris. I believe that it’s cheaper than any flight.
It would take maybe 5-7 days all-up, but you may want to stop over somewhere, just because the trains don’t have showers.
It’s a really nice, relaxing trip, and it could be something to look into if you’re wanting to save on travel prices, although not if you have only a limited time for your holiday.

If you can go during the winter, you’ll find accomodation and even some tourist attractions are much cheaper at that time. I’ve only ever been to paris in winter, but it’s much better in my opinion, because not only are things cheaper, but it’s much less crowded, especially at places like Versailles (we went in the middle of the day and had almost the whole castle to ourselves!).

And as the others have mentioned, food isn’t that expensive if you can get out of the mean tourist/central districts. If you can find ares that are mostly inhabited by locals, you’ll find that the restaurants there are less than half the price of others (and they usually have much better food!).

Hello there…i am not too sure how much i can help you as i am living in japan at the moment but i think i still might be able to help you. like most cities Paris can be expensive, but if you look around then there are plenty of restaurants and cafes etc that sell good but cheap food.

However I can help you with somewhere cheap to stay…maybe I should say, somewhere free to stay:) There is a great website that i am a member of:

www.couchsurfing.com

This site is totally free to join and it is a site for travellers…if you check it out you will find thousands of members and it works by if you are going to paris you can look up members who live there and contact them…they will offer you a place on their couch to stay or if not that then maybe meet up for a coffee…it is an amazing idea and i have already had a lot of people from the site stay with me:)

When my family was in Paris we stayed at a very nice, affordable hotel called hotel ares. It is very close to the eiffel tower and is really cute. Also I would suggest that you learn how to travel on the metro because it is a lot cheaper than taking taxis. Find restaraunts off the beaten path where the locals go because they will be a lot more affordable. And my last piece of advice is to climb the eiffel tower-don’t pay to ride up.

check out this site:
http://www.statravel.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0A536D8D-F2BB356D/us_division_web_live/hs.xsl/home.htm/?WT.srch=1

there is a link to change the location,
it is set up for students but- if you are not opposed to volunteer work / studying abroad it might just work for you..
also, check air france’s site, sometimes they have REALLY good last minute flights.

and, when you do get there.. and you will..
DON’T TAKE TAXIS. EVER.

AND, DON’T GO ANYWHERE NEAR THE eiffel tower after DARK.

good luck!