While US President Donald Trump spent New Years Eve at an opulent Mar-a-Lago bash - with guests paying hundreds of dollars to attend, former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had a low-key-low-cost end to 2017.

The longest serving Independent from Vermont and his wife, Jane, were spotted at 4.30 p.m. with an early-bird, no-frills meal of chicken wings, tea and coffee at hip downtown beer hall, Clinton Hall, while one bodyguard looked over their communal table, PageSix reported.

Their table "became truly communal because supporters kept going up to him," said an eye witness. "Millennials were snapping away, taking picturess while he ate."

The bill for the frugal feast came to just $16, PageSix found out.

The couple was later photographed watching the ball drop in frigid Times Square.

Brooklyn native Sanders - in town to swear in Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday - tweeted out his hopes for 2018, including, "We will not only intensify the struggle against Trumpism, we will increase our efforts to spread the progressive vision in every corner of the land."

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