Blogging Away Debt

Low Cost Fun – Lime Scooters in Downtown Austin

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.

Is it Worth It to Fix It?

by Hope

We had a wonderful trip. Having the rental Chevy Tahoe really alleviated the cramped space and concern of potential car trouble while on such a long road trip. Not to mention, Sirius/XM radio offered a full 10 days of free service so we enjoyed commercial free music for the almost 40 hours we spent in the car. It was great!

New Orleans Fun

We stopped in New Orleans on the way there and on the way back. We walked all over, enjoyed the unexpected festivities associated with the football games and of course, enjoyed our beignets at the original!

Hit and Run on Our Return

Our trip was so good, that we are already planning a return trip in April when all the kids have Spring Break. And I was already planning on renting another car for that trip.

We arrived to return our rental car in good spirits with plans to head to the grocery store to restock our pantry. As we parked next to my car, we saw this….

Someone hit my car while it was parked in the rental car company’s lot. And of course, no one knew anything. And I was “parked at my own risk” according to the rental car representative (there were no signs posted as I have seen in hotel parking lots.)

My question is, after getting it checked out to make sure there is no functional damage, is this worth fixing? Is this worth filing a insurance claim for? (My deductible is $1000.) And I have no intention of selling this car, it will be driven until it dies a large, slow, hard death.