Suddenly Frugal Blog

With all of the news lately about how everything is getting so expensive, I wanted to take this chance, as we go into the long holiday weekend, to post some ideas, thoughts and tips on getting the most bang for our buck. Hope you find this helpful.

* Charging for Checked Baggage
By now you’ve heard that American Airlines will start charging $15 for the first checked bag on its flights, which of course comes on the heels of airlines starting to charge for a second piece of checked luggage. Because airlines are like lemmings–one raises fares, they all raise fares; one stops food service, they all stop food service–I predict that by the end of the summer, all or at least many of the airlines will be charging for all checked bags. What this will mean is that if you thought jockeying for overhead space was difficult before, now it’s going to be a veritable smackdown in the aisle for room in an overhead bin.

Of course, I think that packing to carry on is the smartest way to avoid these fees, but if you must travel with a ton of stuff, why not ship your luggage in advance? I know plenty of business travelers who use courier services to get their luggage from Point A to Point B so that they never have to deal with an airline losing their bag. Regular folks I’ve talked to have said that they’re considering using the Parcel Post service from the USPS to get their luggage to their destination instead of lugging it to the airport and paying extra for it. I once shipped a decent-sized box of clothes to my mother for the church-based thrift store she manages, and that box cost about $40 to send via Parcel Post.

* Fill up on gas in the morning
Conventional wisdom used to be that the best time to fill up on gas was midweek, before prices jumped to take advantage of weekend travelers. Now that the oil companies have us over a $133 barrel of oil, there’s no more price logic that you can use for filling up and saving money. Case in point: where I live gas has gone up 16 cents in the past four days. It was $3.93 on Monday, $3.95 on Tuesday, $3.99 on Wednesday and then $4.09 on Thursday. However, I understand that there is still a way to save a little bit on gas: you should fill up first-thing in the morning.

This idea has nothing to do with prices and everything to do with temperatures. As the day gets warmer, gas “expands” (as do most things when they heat up), which means that a gas pump could think it’s giving you 10 gallons of gas but you might only be getting 9 7/8. (I’ve based these numbers on speculation, not any hard data that says you get ripped off 1/8 of a gallon for every 10 gallons.) That means that if you fill up when the day is still cool, you will be getting a more accurate tank filling than if you went later in the day. Of course, Snopes.com (the arbiter of all urban legends) doesn’t believe this to be true, so it’s up to you whether or not you think this might be a worthwhile tip.

* Watch out for IRS Stimulus Check scams
Earlier this month Americans started receiving their Economic Stimulus checks. Some had them direct-deposited, as they did their tax refund; others got hard checks. The IRS is mailing these checks out based on the last two digits of your Social Security number (or the primary tax payer in a family that files jointly) and the fact that you’d gone ahead and filed a 2007 tax return. We recently received a letter in the mail letting us know that our check was on the way and the amount we were going to receive. I’ve heard of others receiving similar letters in advance of their check. What I’ve also heard is a lot of people receiving so-called “notification” emails from the IRS. These are not legit; these are phishing scams to steal your personal information. Do not respond to them or click on any links to “log into” your IRS account. Report these as spam to your Internet service provider or email company, then hit delete.