Blogging Away Debt

An Expensive Lesson – Pay before You Leave

I learned an expensive lesson this trip. When you park at a Premium Parking lot in New Orleans, you must pay before you walk away from your car. You can probably guess that I did not do that…

And after a couple of hours of walking around and enjoying the sights, we came back to continue on our roadtrip to Texas to a boot on our rental car AND a sticker notifying me of a $90 fee to get the boot removed! Ugh!

At first, I thought it was an error. I thought maybe someone who had this rental car before us had not paid something and we were getting held accountable for it. It was very frustrating, especially since we had over 7 more hours to drive that day.

As I read the notice, and realized that we were booted because we had not pre-paid, I began to look around for signs that indicated that prepay was required. This was all I could see from the car…No pre-pay notice.

Needless to say, I had to call the number, pay the $90 and wait for them to come release us. All in all in took over 1 and 1/2 hours from the time we arrived back at the car until we were on the road again. Precious time when you are on a roadtrip, not to mention the money, I had not budgeted for. Again, ugh!

We did finally see a pre-pay notice…on our exit from the lot at the back of the lot!!!

Needless to say, I am going to dispute the charge and file a complaint and praying I can get that $90 back. But no guarantees.

As often as I have flown by the seat of my pants when it comes to finances, this was another lesson on why it is important to have a cushion and plan as much as you can for the unexpected. I was very grateful to have some extra built into my travel budget so this fee did not cause a hardship on the rest of our trip. And in the past, it very well could have!

We all experience car wrecks and car issues, medical emergencies and household challenges that can strain our finances. Have you ever been surprised by something like this that you truly don’t believe you should have to be responsible for?

Low Cost Fun – Lime Scooters in Downtown Austin

by Hope

Have you seen posts about Lime Bikes on Facebook? For a while, my Facebook friends who live in larger cities were posting comical pictures of all the funny places these bikes would show up.

Well, while we were visiting my parents last week, we got to experience the new phenomenon that is Lime Scooters in downtown Austin. It was SO MUCH FUN!

We rode for about an hour through downtown, on the water front and made various stops at photo op locations as a family, or at least part of us.

I have to admit that I had to be talked into it. We did this the day before Thanksgiving and I was in the middle of food prep for the big day. But after a short while, I caved and joined in the fun.

The Cost of a Ride

Whoever came up with this idea is genius! And it makes complete sense when living in a downtown area. You can pick up a scooter all over the place, and the app will help you locate them if you don’t see one when you walk out the door.

It costs $1 to initiate a ride and then $0.15 per minute. Our rides cost right at $10 per scooter for the hour. If your scooter runs low on battery or has any other technical problems, you just end the ride on that one and start on another. So easy.

And you can leave it where you want to, within reason. (We did get a warning when we visited the waterfront that there would be a $25 recovery fee charged for each scooter we left in that area.) There are no docking stations or anything. You just put the kickstand up, take a picture and end your ride…all with the app.

Make Some Easy Money

My brother, who lives in downtown Austin, makes some extra cash as a scooter charger. He picks up scooters in the evenings from his block and charges them in his condo. Not only does he get $5 per scooter he charges, but he can ride them for free for a short time while he is charging them.

If you live in a big city or visit a big city, I highly recommend taking a Lime Scooter for a spin. The one drawback is that you can only rent one scooter per phone app, so each child had to download the app to their phone to participate. This is a real limitation for a families and I hope Lime will consider a change for the future.