Frugal to a Fault

I like to pride myself on being creatively frugal, however, I often find myself in a pickle because of it. For example, last month I decided to teach myself to use Google flights to its full functionality, and thus flush out some great value flights for our trip. After days of research and flight checking and comparison shopping I purchased our tickets to Cape Town, South Africa, and I was feeling really good about what I had paid. I knew my tickets were ones that allowed carry-on luggage only, and I was not worried about it. As I mentioned in my last blog we always travel light. So yesterday, before we did our packing "trial run," I figured I better check our carry-on baggage restrictions for each of the airlines - just in case it was different from Westjet. Well, it turns out I did not just buy the cheap ticket that only allows carry-on, I bought the cheap, cheap ticket that allows a total of only 7 kilos (15.4 pounds) between BOTH the standard carry-on bag and personal item (usually a supersized purse stuffed to the brim). Now let me put 15 pounds into perspective...Stephane's sandals weigh 2.5 pounds, the binoculars and ipad total almost 7 pounds. Our afternoon went something like this:

Steph groaning sits on his bag, zips it up and weighs it. 25 pounds. This is ridiculous, I already eliminated a pair of shoes and my electric razor.
Me: Do you really need three dress shirts? We are going on a safari!
Steph: I need long sleeves to keep the mosquitoes off me!
Me: Which weighs more, a bottle of DEET or three dress shirts?

I then see a flurry of clothing fly across of the room, more grunts and a few hurumphs, and then

Steph: Fine. I got rid of a pair of shorts, two t-shirts, and my bandanna. He weighs the bag. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD it still weights 22 pounds! This is impossible. Why can't we just pay for a bag?
Me: Because 1) I don't want to stand around waiting for my bag after 22 hours of flying, 2) I don't want to chance my bag getting lost, 3) I really don't want to be around you if YOUR bag gets lost, and 4) Seriously Steph, are three pairs of dress pants really necessary?
Steph: MOSQUITOES!!!
Me: Maybe if you pack ankle socks instead of tube socks?

More packing, more clothes flying, more weighing, Still 18 pound. ARRRGGGGGGGGGGGG! More repacking, then weighing, then repacking and weighing.
Steph: I'm done. I look in the bag and see one pair of very large sandals, one bathing suit and some KY jelly.

Me: KY instead of DEET??

I am kidding, of course, Steph would never give up his hair products for KY! Besides, it was entirely impossible to get the weight down, so I reluctantly got online and went to pay for an extra bag. That is when I choked. 89 EUROS for 1 checked bag...PER LEG OF THE FLIGHT! That's 160 Euros ($234 Canadian dollars) FOR ONE BAG OF LUGGAGE! I just couldn't do it.

More packing, weighing, clothes flying, repacking...Steph begins to wimper...

WAIT!! I've got it. I dumped everything out of my bag and weighed it. 7.5 pounds! That's the answer I exclaimed exuberantly. Ditch the hard shell bag with wheels and use the lightweight fabric bag I bought to use as my personal item. Sure enough, Steph's stuff fit in it, tube socks and all, and now I don't have to choose between sex and malaria.

So we now have matching pink bags, and I have learned a lesson about cheap tickets. A cheap ticket is not cheap if you have to pay $234 for a checked bag, not to mention the additional $272 dollars it cost me to choose our seats. And to make matters worse, I went online after all this was done, and the cheap cheap ticket I bought is now $200 cheaper AND it comes with - you guessed it - 1 free checked bag.