Ten Amazing Years: Money Management

True confession...I am one tough customer. Sweet, but tough. Probably because I spent four years in two different cultures where you negotiate the price of your vegetables. I'm pretty sure that the day Lee decided to marry me was the day we went to Schlotsky's (which have since closed and I MISS!) with a two for one coupon. We went in, totally unaware that it was for a different location about five miles away. When the cashier brought this to our attention, I said, "Oh, you don't want us to have to drive all the way over there, do you? You'll honor it, won't you?" And he did.

When we got engaged, a lady in our church said to Lee, "There goes your money guy!" Lee was laughing as he told me about it. She had no idea how much money I would save this man.

So today I took my computer to the genius bar at the Apple Store to have the battery looked at. Thankfully I had done my homework. I went on their support page and found that this was a problem people have been having, and that, if my computer was purchased during a certain time frame and had one of a list of symptoms, I was a candidate for replacement even if the warranty had expired (which it did a month ago). While I was at the store trying to bring the bookmarked page up, the genius was telling me sometimes batteries just wear out, and your warranty is expired, and what? you don't have AppleCare?, and you'll probably have to replace it. And do you have Leopard or Tiger, or do you know? What?? Do I know??!!! What kind of a question is that for an intelligent person? (Tiger.) So I pulled up my Apple Support page, and voila!

Free new battery. Value: $129
Knowing your stuff well enough to beat the genius at his game: Priceless.

I celebrated by buying sandals for Bethany and me. Twenty bucks. Cha ching!

P.S. Due to popular demand, the Apple page for dying batteries is here. Go get 'em!!