Two weeks ago, I was scheduled for a 6:30 a.m. flight to Pennsylvania to speak at the CHAP conference. I set two alarms — one for 4 a.m. and one for 4:15 a.m. — and then went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I immediately realized something wasn’t right because it was light outside.

Then, I looked at the clock and saw that it was 6:30 a.m. Neither of my alarms had gone off and I was supposed to be on a flight right then!

I jumped out of bed and started to dash to get my things together when it hit me that it was pointless to try to get to the airport as soon as possible as the flight certainly wasn’t going to wait on me.

Jesse graciously got up and made some phone calls to get me on another flight while I showered, got dressed, and finished packing. I just prayed that I’d be able to get on another flight, because I was scheduled to speak the following morning at 8:30 a.m.

I was so relieved when he came in and told me he’d been able to get my tickets transferred to a later flight… to the tune of $500!!! That was our only and cheapest option. So we had to take it.

Yes, my irresponsibility in not turning on the alarms (I’d set the time on the alarms, but hadn’t flipped the switch to actually turn them on!) cost us $500. What was done was done. I couldn’t go back and fix the mistake, so I just had to cough up the money and pay dearly.

It was worth it — as I was so blessed by my time in Pennsylvania. But from here on out, I’m setting three alarms when I have an early morning flight. And I’ll probably triple check them, too!

Nothing like having to learn a lesson the very hard way. In fact, I think this is one of our most expensive frugal failures so far — much more expensive than even our $145 suitcase mistake.

Have you had any frugal failures recently? Hopefully it wasn’t as costly as mine was!