by crystal on January 6, 2010
We had a wonderful trip to San Diego last week, but it was not without a few mishaps–one which cost us pretty dearly.
We'd watched the sales, compared lots of prices on many different websites, and ended up getting an excellent travel deal through Travelocity for our trip package. To further sweeten things, we had shopped through ShopAtHome during their double cashback days around Thanksgiving so we also got a nice refund on our travel purchase.
And we were paying with cash we had set aside for this celebratory vacation, so we were feeling pretty happy about how inexpensively we were pulling off this trip to San Diego. We should have known better than to be patting ourselves on the back, though, for we were about ready to make a silly and costly mistake–all in an effort to save more money.
We're not seasoned travellers and we've only flown a few times in the last few years so we haven't done a great job of keeping up with the rules and regulations for air travel. The last time we'd flown, we'd brought in our two smaller hand-me-down suitcases and ended up having to pay $80 ($20 per suitcase per flight) to get our suitcases to our destination and back. That seemed like an awful lot of money to pay and we noticed pretty much everyone else around us checked only one large bag.
This time around, we decided we'd get smart. We'd do what it seemed everyone else did when travelling and we'd only bring one suitcase. This would save us $40 and would be more efficient, right?
We used a gift card to buy the largest suitcase we could find and we packed everything in it. And I do mean everything. Aside from us each having a small carry-on bag, we had packed every article of clothing, all the diapers, and pretty much every other thing we'd need for five people to be gone for six days. Suffice it to say, it was a lot of stuff, even though we tried our best to only pack essentials.
We could barely lift the stuffed-to-overflowing suitcase to get it in the van when we left, but we'd done it–we'd only used one suitcase!
By the time we got everyone out of the van and into the check-in line at the airport, it was only 40 minutes until our flight was scheduled to leave. (In our podunk Kansas airport, there's usually no need to get there early since the lines are short and move quickly.)
We were feeling happy with how everything was going until we noticed that the folks in front of us had their big suitcases open and were rearranging things. The couple next to them had clothes and miscellaneous items all strewn around the floor in front of the check-in counter and they were quickly dumping more out and angrily talking amongst themselves.
It was then that we heard the reason behind all this craziness. The lady at the check-in counter bellowed out: "If your suitcase is over 50 pounds, there's a $145 charge!"
Jesse and I instinctively looked at each other, looked at our one gigantic suitcase, and looked back at each other. We were in trouble.
We took our suitcase up to the scale and weighed it. It totaled a whopping 71 pounds. Um, yes, what were we thinking?!
A simple phone call or web search would very likely have let us know days ago that our suitcase was going to be too heavy. But we'd foolishly never taken the time to check.
With about 35 minutes to spare until our flight took off, we quickly surveyed our limited options. There was no way we could lighten up the load in the suitcase by 21 pounds–we'd basically only packed essentials but when you're travelling for six days with three little children, it requires quite a few essentials! And we'd miss our flight and very likely not be able to catch another in the next 24 hours if we waited for someone to bring us another suitcase.
Realizing we didn't really have any other options, we stepped up to the counter, gulped, and paid $145 for that massive suitcase.
Next time we think we're making a "smart" decision based upon what we think we see other people doing, we hope we'll remember our suitcase mistake and stop and do our own research. It just might save us $145–or more!
By the way, we borrowed a carry-on suitcase from FishMama for the way home and we were able to strategically work things so our big suitcase only weighed in at 49.5 pounds!
by crystal on August 14, 2008
As
you all know, I’m always in the market for new ideas to reduce our
outgo. So, I thought I came upon another one recently when I’d heard of
a number of people who only did their laundry in cold water.
Brilliant,
I thought. It’s much better than taking cold showers (yes, we did that
for quite some time when we were first married!) and, best of all, no
one will even notice.
Well, let me tell you, lots
of people will notice. You see, after a week of washing everything in
cold water only, I learned that cold water does not get pre-treated
toddler stains or six-month-old stains out of clothing.
Not in the least.
I
guess the people who do the cold water only thing must not have
children. Or at least they don’t have children as messy as mine.
At
any rate, despite lots of stain remover and hot water-washing, the
stains are still there on multiple articles of clothing, some which
were almost brand-new. Let’s just say that I think any money saved by
using only cold water would be quickly lost in all the clothing we’d
need to replace.
So much for a great idea.
Your turn: Have
you ever had a brilliant frugal idea which flopped on its face? And do
you have any great suggestions for reducing the costs of running
laundry besides using cold water?
Originally published January 2008.
by crystal on August 11, 2008
Remember that I said we were going to use our economic stimulus check to buy a 1/4 of a cow from a local farm that specializes in hormone-free grass-fed beef? I was so excited to tell you about the great deal we got on this and how we found a freezer to store it in for a steal off of Craigslist.
However, that was not to be.
Oh, we bought the meat alright–all $614 worth of it. And we bought the freezer, too. We were thrilled with the whole experience and were looking forward to lots of great hamburgers and roasts and steaks over the next number of months.
We didn’t get a chance to eat any before we went on vacation, but I couldn’t wait to get back and get cooking. I had visions of all these various dishes I could make and all the great grilling we could do. Since we’ve cut back on our meat consumption for years in an effort to keep our grocery budget low, this high-quality meat was going to be a real treat.
We arrived home from our week-long excursion to Arkansas refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to get back to real-life. As we were unpacking our bags, I went to throw something into the recycle bin in the garage.
I noticed a somewhat-strange smell when I opened the garage door and went to investigate.
You guessed what it was… our whole entire freezer full of meat was off and completely thawed! Not only that but it was room temperature and wreaked of spoiling meat!
Apparently, it rained while we were gone and the electric outlet our freezer was plugged into was shut off as a safety mechanism. (We didn’t know that our garage outlet did this or we sure as ever wouldn’t have hooked our freezer full of meat up to it!)
Gratefully, since we had just purchased the freezer, it wasn’t also full of other things, too. Had it been a few weeks later, I very likely could have had it full to the brim with food in addition to the meat. It was still quite a big disappointment, though, not to mention being disgusting.
I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it will be a very long time before I’ll be able to eat another hamburger again. So much for our bright idea of buying meat in bulk.
Note: It looks like we’re going to be able to recoup about $140 from our renter’s insurance, but since our deductible is $500, that’s all the recourse we’ve been able to drum up. Oh well, at least it was our economic stimulus check and not money we’d worked hard to set aside for this purchase.
by crystal on May 15, 2008
…well, at least not as I did yesterday.
Read about how a lack of organization and foresight cost us sleep and $17 in my Frugal Friday post.
by crystal on May 7, 2008
Shannon over at Rocks In My Dryer (a blog I adore even if it doesn’t have much to do with saving money!) usually hosts a weekly Works-For-Me-Wednesday feature with loads of helpful ideas, inspiration, and information–especially for moms!
She’s mixing things up today and asking everyone to share what doesn’t work for us. I thought it would be fun to share some bargain-shopping things which I’ve found don’t work well for me at this current season of my life:
1) Sending in for manufacturer’s rebates. Believe it or not, I usually find mail-in rebates to be more work than they are worth. In addition, since we are on a strict $40/week grocery budget, I don’t have room to pay for extra things just because I get a full rebate back.
My only exception to the no-rebates-rule is when I buy something at CVS that is already free after ECBs and there is a full manufacturer’s rebate I can send in for. Then, and usually only then, I’ll normally take the time to send in for it.
2) Buying groceries more than once per week. I rarely shop outside of my designated once-a-week shopping trip. Otherwise, I find myself wasting time and money buying things I probably didn’t need in the first place. As an added bonus, I like staying home and find I am much more productive and calmer when I make an effort to stay home more.
3) Shopping at Walgreens. Should I admit this?! I stopped shopping at Walgreens almost eight months ago and have only been back three times since then to hit some exceptional-can’t-miss deal. I shopped there regularly for a few years but after I had my second baby, I felt the need to streamline my shopping in order to keep things simple.
I’ve found that one or two transactions at CVS each week keep us plenty stocked on household items. Plus, I prefer the CVS system and cashiers to Walgreens. If we ever move somewhere that does not have a CVS, I will certainly be happy to go back to Walgreens shopping again since I know there are lots of great deals to be had there!
So there are my bargain-shopping "what-doesn’t-work-for-me" confessions. What about you? We are all in different situations and locations with different families, different diet preferences and restrictions, and different time constraints so it should be interesting to hear what doesn’t work for others.
Also, I’d love to know if I’m the only person who only shops once per week, doesn’t send in for rebates, and skips Walgreens most of the time. Do tell!
And speaking of things that don’t work, if you want to hear about one of my biggest over-achieving, first-time mothering flops, you’ll enjoy this post.
by crystal on January 17, 2008
I had this "brilliant" idea yesterday to make homemade crackers to go along with our chili for dinner. And I thought I’d found the perfect recipe.
I was all excited to tell you about this new frugal idea–so quick and easy, so much better than store-bought, and as frugal as it gets. Only my homemade crackers were nothing but a complete flop.
I followed this recipe exactly, but it turned out too dry. Like this…
I had to add quite a bit more oil and water to make it even somewhat able to be rolled out. The dough still really fought the rolling pin, though, and I finally just ended up pressing them down on a cookie sheet with my hands.
And then I baked them for the time recommended they ended up burning quite badly. So badly, in fact, that they weren’t really even edible. Unless burned sandpaper is now considered "edible."
I guess my homemade cracker experiment can be chalked up to another frugal failure. Yep, right up there with washing our laundry in cold water.
