How to waste money – put your Ipod shuffle through the wash..

15. October 2012 · 16 comments · Categories: Wasting money

So, here’s the story folks. I’ve had my Ipod shuffle for at least 4 years now. It’s essential for working out, or sometimes just for cleaning, or drowning out noise in general.

When I bought my shuffle, they didn’t have the clip on version of the shuffle. Like most things, they came out just *after* I bought my shuffle. :)   So, of course I wanted a smaller, clip on version – but I couldn’t justify buying a clip on one, when I had a perfectly good one!

So, it’s lasted quite well over the years – never had any problems with it.  Until I decided to put it through the wash – and the dryer.  I had pulled out my gym stuff and put it in the laundry basket – and put my shuffle in with it. I then ended up going to the gym before doing laundry so I just pulled my gym clothes back out – and promptly forgot that my shuffle was still in the laundry basket.

So, when my nice hubby went to put the laundry through, he just scooped everything out of the laundry basket and through it in the wash. The shuffle is small and light, so he didn’t even notice it.  I didn’t find it til after I was taking things out of the dryer!

The earphones actually survived and still work. The shuffle – well, it seems to be charging, but if I turn it on, no noise comes out, and it makes a strange rattling nice if you shake it. I’m pretty sure it didn’t survive.

So, now I’ve finally gone ahead and bought a clip on shuffle. I’m okay with buying it – it won’t break the bank, and I use it regularly enough to justify it – I just wish I hadn’t decided to wash my other one first!

Have you ever put anything important through the wash?

Does buying your kid secondhand clothes make you a “bad” parent?

26. September 2012 · 22 comments · Categories: Clothing, Kids, Wasting money

No. It doesn’t. It makes you a smart parent – who is wisely saving their money for stuff like education or awesome Lord of the Rings Lego kits (oh wait..that’s what my husband is buying himself :) ).

We don’t actually have kids, but I visited with a friend on the weekend who recently had her first child. I was telling her how most of the toys I have for my niece at my house are actually hand me downs from another niece, or were bought at a garage sale. Yes, I’m a cheap aunt. I help chip in for shoes on occasion and put money towards her education. Much better use than wasting it on new toys. :)

Anyways, she seemed greatly relieved to hear this and fessed up that she’d bought her daughter clothes at Value Village. And then asked if this made her a bad parent!  She’s finding out the hard way that motherhood comes with a lot of judgement, and another friend of hers told her she’d never let her kids wear second hand stuff.

WOW! I just think that’s absolutely crazy. I know I grew up wearing hand me downs. Heck, if any of my friends were the same size as me, I’d take hand me downs now. But I’m taller than all of them, so that’s never been an option.

I guess this is one of the reasons that people are so much in debt now. My friend felt badly that they could afford to buy her new clothes – but bought them at Value Village. I pointed out that she was being smart – her daughter would outgrow them quickly, and it was silly to buy them new. I pointed out my niece wears hand me downs (really nice ones, mind you – my brother has some well off friends!) and my parents buy her things at Once Upon a Child.

I don’t know. I guess I just grew up with hand me downs and thought they were normal. Guess I’m just out of the loop.

How do you guys feel about this? Do you buy second hand clothes for yourself or your kids?

I can has Blackberry Playbook

28. May 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Entertainment, Extra costs, Wasting money · Tags: ,

If this title makes no sense to you, then please check out this site: I can has cheezburger. It’s awesome.

While I have high hopes of winning an Ipad 3 via Praire Eco-Thrifter, I broke down and bought a Blackberry Playbook today.  While I do think that the Ipads look awesome, it was less half the price for a Playbook, so I went that route.

I’ve been thinking about getting a tablet for a while, but couldn’t really justify it as I own a netbook and a smartphone, and a Kobo. Well -the Kobo I owned until recently, but I lost it. :( One of my worst habits is being forgetful, and I can’t even remember where I last saw it.

I know it seems like poor form to reward myself for losing my Kobo, but I give myself some comfort that I got a decent amount of use out of it, and well – not buying the Playbook isn’t going to bring my Kobo back.  I’m just going to have to be more vigilant about what I do with my stuff.

I’m looking forward to my new Playbook. I take the train to work every day, and it’ll be great to be able to read or watch T.V. show or movies, and play games, all one the same device. I’m also hoping to sneak in some blog posting, or at least commenting on my lunch hour.

Do you own a tablet? If so, which one? If not – why not?

A tale of caution: What can happen if you don’t pay attention to your bills

22. May 2012 · 5 comments · Categories: Bills, Wasting money · Tags: , ,

This tale comes to you courtesy of one of my co-workers. I’ll use his real name it cause it’s John, which is pretty darned generic. :)

John was married, but has been divorced for a long time now. Apparently, he bought his ex-wife a very expensive engagement ring, and they’d taken out a rider (basically, extra insurance) on the ring through their home insurance. When the marriage ended, and John moved out, he cancelled his home insurance and the extra rider on it. He then set up new car and home insurance with the same company, just on a new place.

He was billed separately for the home and car insurance, and wasn’t keeping very good track of how often the bills came in for them. So, for over 9 years, he didn’t realize that he was actually getting three bills – one for his house, one for his car, and one for the rider on the engagement ring.  For some reason, it hadn’t been cancelled along with his old home insurance.  No, I don’t know how you’d miss this for 9 years, but if you aren’t paying attention, it can happen.

So, eventually John wised up, and went back to his insurance company. They had a record of his original cancellation, including the cancellation of the rider. They cut him a cheque for 5000 dollars (I know, I asked – apparently this *still* wasn’t as much as the ring cost).  Well, they actually cut it to him and his ex-wife, but he eventually got that straightened out.

I guess the moral of the story here is that you should always read your bills, and double-check when you’ve cancelled something that is has actually been cancelled.  When Mr. Canuck Buck and I got married, my parents covered the honeymoon suite as a gift.  When we checked out, we almost did not look at the bill as we thought it would be rude, but we decided to after all. I am glad we did, as another suite had ordered a bottle of champagne, and they had put it on our bill! We sorted it out, but my parents either would have paid it, or had no way later on to prove we had not ordered it.

Have you ever run into a situation where you were billed for something you had cancelled?

I don’t mind you wasting your money, but please don’t waste mine!

21. May 2012 · 7 comments · Categories: Entertainment, Wasting money · Tags: , , , , ,

I’m afraid today’s post is going to be a bit of a rant.  Thanks for listening. :)

The second last movie I went to see was “The Hunger Games”. I loved the book, and was interested in seeing how it would be on the big screen. I met a friend at the movies a week or two after it opened, and she decided she wanted to see it. And while I think they did a great job with the film, I’d forgotten how bad it can be on a Saturday afternoon at the movies. People are constantly turning on their phones (and the bright screens are really distracting), chatting with their buddies, and coming in 15 minutes after the movies starts – and then sitting on the stairs!  I guess this makes me sound old and cranky, but I just don’t get why you’d pay the ridiculous price a movie is nowadays, and then not arrive on time or pay attention.  I take some comfort in the fact I buy discount passes through CAA, but I’m still paying and want to enjoy the movie.

So after that, I swore off movies for a while. And I was just going to bypass “The Avengers” until everyone start raving about it. My boss. My co-workers. Mr. Canuck Buck (yes, he had my permission to go without me :) ). They were all in awe of how amazing it was and I just had to go so they didn’t ruin any more of it for me. So I finally caved and went on Friday afternoon after getting out of work early.

Big mistake. After having my seat kicked repeatedly during the “pre-show”, I moved to the very back corner. I was in heaven – til 15 minutes into the show. Then someone, who’d obviously dragged along their not very interested girlfriend, came in and sat right beside. She proceed to get out her phone on and off for the next hour. She’d even leave it out and on, and not use it. It drove me nuts, and came close to bringing out my inner Hulk. I finally said something (after sighing loudly and swearing under my breath), and she cut it down after that, but it really wrecked the movie for me. Do people not know how distracting their phones are? Or do they not care? Why would you pay good money if you have no interest in a movie?

So, I truly think that’ll be it for me at the movies for a while. I even ended up spending more money afterwards on some chocolate to help chill me out.

Have you ever had this happen to you? Any idea why people do this?

How not being on top of things may cost me 80 bucks

16. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Wasting money · Tags: ,

A while ago, I signed up for a Web site called Lumosity. I knew someone who was quite fond of it, and raved about it. So I checked it out and signed up for a year long membership.

The basic premise of the the site is that you play “Brain Games”. It helps improve your memory, your focus, your reaction time etc.  I did enjoy it. Like a lot of things, however, after the novelty wore off, I stopped using it.  I decided to start reading on my lunch hour instead of playing it, and slowly, but surely, I just ended up not using it any more.

And then my March credit card statement arrives, and voila! There’s a charge for 81.37 on it, for renewing my membership for another year.  Of course, it’s not like Lumosity sends you a reminder you’ll be renewed (at least I don’t think so – they send so many emails, I just started deleting them all), and by the time the credit card bill arrives, the deed is already done.

I checked out the site, and did some damage control. I’ve cancelled auto renewal so this won’t happen again, and unsubscribed from all their emails, so I won’t get any more of them. Their policy does say to contact them within 30 days of the billing if you have any issues there, so I’ve just squeaked in, and I’m hoping they’ll  cooperate.

Unfortunately, I do have a bad memory (which apparently playing Lumosity didn’t help :) ), which is why thinks like this can creep up on me, and I don’t realize what’s happened until it’s too late. Auto-renewal is a very evil thing – particularly with things like a “free trial” that you automatically start getting billed after it ends.  I try to avoid starting things with “free trials” because I know I’ll forget to cancel them!

Have you ever been burned by auto-renewal? If so,  did you have any luck disputing the charges?

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