LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

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LWolfT
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LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by LWolfT »

This may be more musings than actual journaling, but thought I'd give this a shot.

Last weekend, DH wanted to do a road trip and see one of the minor-league baseball teams in the area. OK ... we checked online,and ticket prices weren't bad. So he begins the order ... that's when the fun started.

First, there was a $1.50 per ticket convenience charge. Annoying, but not unusual.
Then there was a $3 order charge.
The topper was a $2 charge to obtain the tickets. Mailed, picked up, didn't matter. So this means that if we'd printed them at home, they would charge us $2 to use our ink, our paper and our electricity to run the printer.

At that point, he said forget it and called the ticket office to complain. They professed not to know about online fees, but said that if he ordered through them, they didn't charge any fees. And they'd even send us the link so we could print the tickets at home.

So that's what we did ... but seriously, an extra $8 to order online?
Dgflorida
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Re: LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by Dgflorida »

Wow. Smart decision.
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LWolfT
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Re: LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by LWolfT »

Finally got around to canceling my Amazon subscriptions today.
They used to have the best deals on things like cat food and TP, and it was nice to have that stuff delivered.
But prices seemed to be going up on a regular basis, and I'm finding I can get the same or comparable items at better prices elsewhere. And I can still get some of it delivered.
What really annoys me is that some of the cat food I used to buy is now for Prime members only. If it were at a rock-bottom price, it might be worth it, but again, I can get it at the same or lower prices elsewhere, so no point in paying for Prime to get it.
Dgflorida
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Re: LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by Dgflorida »

I have never looked on Amazon for cat food. What did you buy? What are you buying now?
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LWolfT
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Re: LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by LWolfT »

I feed them GoodLife dry (which is hard to find) ... subscription was for the indoor formula. They also get a bit of wet food, so I'd occasionally buy the 24 or 32 packs of Friskies. Unfortunately, those are the ones going to Prime members only.
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LWolfT
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Re: LWolfT's frugal journal/musings

Post by LWolfT »

DH, who keeps track of such things, noted that we are now using about half as much water as we did 10 years ago.
I was trying to figure out how we did this ...
1) We've replaced both the washer and the dishwasher during this time. Neither are super-efficient appliances, but I suspect both use less water than the older ones.
2) We've become a lot better at recycling water. We catch rain water for the garden, only watering by hose when we're out. I keep a large plastic coffee container by the sink for the ice cube dregs, pet-bowl water, etc. I also save the water from blanching fresh vegetables for freezing. This all goes on the indoor plants and occasionally on the outdoor flowers, too.
3) As our work lives have changed, we don't have to do as much laundry on a weekly basis. Though we get into periods where we have a mountain of the stuff. (Like now for winter coats, bedding and curtains that I didn't get to earlier.)

Wish I could say this has saved us tons of $$. Unfortunately, water rates have gone up and our bills are about 4 times more than they were 10 years ago. Most of this is sewer rates ... we're paying for much-needed sewer projects that should have been done a generation ago. On the other hand, I can imagine what our bill would be with the previous water use ...
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