A Mother’s Musing : How far will you travel for a bargain?
Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008
It's a well-known fact that my husband will travel any distance to save money. Sometimes you just have to accept things about your spouse when it becomes obvious that you can't change him.
My family is still surprised at some of our travel plans. When my husband buys airline tickets, it's never an easy trip. The last time we left to go on a cruise, we had to fly out of Kansas City. It was a cheap flight, made only a little more expensive by the gas to get to Kansas City and the long-term parking.
I think we did save some money by driving to Kansas City to fly and it didn't seem like a bad idea until we had to drive back. By then we were tired from a week's vacation and, of course, our flight was delayed. By the time we got into our car to start the long drive south to northwest Arkansas, we were ready for a good night's sleep. Looking back, I think it was mostly luck that got us home safely.
When my family comes to visit, my sister begs me not to let him make any arrangements. She remembers our night in the murder capital of the nation many years ago. She and I were taking the kids up to the sand dunes around the Great Lakes. It's a neat area and I wanted her to see it. So the two of us loaded an assortment of kids into the minivan and I asked my husband to make us a reservation at an inexpensive hotel. That was my big mistake.
He found a hotel with incredible rates in Geary, Ind. I'm not sure, but I think it was especially cheap because a big news story had just named Geary as the city with the most murders per capita in the United States. I remember hearing my sister reassuring her husband, in a shaky, slightly unbelieving voice, that we'd be OK in spite of the negative publicity.
We locked ourselves into the hotel with the kids and it was fine. Except when we woke up, we realized we still had several hours of driving to get to our destination. Like I said, he'll go any distance to save money, even if it's a distance I have to drive without him.
Last week my husband and I drove to Iowa to pick up a car. We saved some money on the car, even if you add the gas expense and two stays in hotels along the way. I don't know why no one believes us.
We also got to drive through an actual state of emergency. We even heard evacuation warnings when a levee burst as we drove through Des Moines. Of course, because we were driving through a strange city, we had no idea if the evacuation warnings applied to us. But the traffic kept moving forward so we went with it and hoped for the best.
I felt guilty driving through a disaster on an mundane errand like picking up a car, but it did put some of my life into perspective. At least we don't have to worry about levee bursting and dirty river water rushing into our home. Another thing to be thankful for, and our luck must still be holding, because we got home safely with the car.
This wasn't the first car we have purchased on eBay. I think eBay was invented just for my husband. There's no telling how many hours he spends on that Web site, scrolling up and down - planning and plotting - until he jumps in and makes his bid. If he won all the auctions he bid on, we would never be able to fit all his purchases into the house and we'd spend all our time driving around to pick them up.
Reporter Lynn Atkins can be contacted by e-mail at lynna @ nwanews. com.
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