A fancy Vegas hotel room. (Not where our reader stayed). Credit: prayitno/Flickr
The Unethical Man wrote in with another money morality dilemma (he seems to run into them often):
Sorry, I got one more question for you. As you may already know, I go to Vegas quite a bit. I try to take advantage of as many free room night offers as I can. Why? Because when traveling out of town, one of the incidental expenses is the room. My question is whether you think it is unethical to accept an offer of free rooms from a property but not gamble there or eat there? You hardly spend any time at the property except for showering and sleeping. At checkout time, the bill reads $0.00 on the TV screen.
Ethical or unethical?
I think you are in the clear as long as part of the agreement for the free hotel room does not include a promise to spend time at the hotel eating or gambling. I’m sure that’s what the hotel wants, but it can’t force you to gamble any more than it can force you to starve.
More money morality posts:
Freebie tacos a deal or a steal?
Is BB a good Samaritan or greedy stranger?
Dilemma: Neighbors gave us cash we don’t want
How many coupons can you use before being unethical? Credit: Xurble/Flickr
The Unethical Man, a reader who shared controversial tips to save money in Vegas (like taking hotel toilet paper), has a financial dilemma to share. Your thoughts?
I have one for you, and I would really like your honest opinion. I signed up for Del Taco’s Raving e-club a long time ago. From time-to-time, they send out emails containing a link to print out coupons to try something new. The coupon typically gives the bearer the new item for free with any purchase. I can and do print multiple coupons. The coupon does specify that only one coupon may be redeemed per customer per visit.
I’m sure that most people would place their typical order and throw in the free coupon as an added bonus. I’m sure that’s what the company is hoping for too. But when I go to redeem my free item,
MaryLane / Flickr
I share five must read blog posts about saving money every Friday.
Tired of receiving tons of emails from daily coupon sites? It would be nice if there were a daily coupon aggregating site. There is. (Daily Dibs)
Save money on food by cooking ahead these 10 things on your day off from work. (Wisebread)
Do you fib about your finances? Find out how financial infidelity is taking a toll on marriages and how you can spot telltale signs of the financially unfaithful. (CNN Money)
If you like Groupon and Living Social, check out The Dealmap. (The Dealmap)
Unemployment has Americans spending more time sleeping, watching TV, and brewing beer. What are you spending your time on? (Time Moneyland)
Bonus: Rudy Park, the comic strip, occasionally features Rudy’s tightwad boss. Reader Diane said this strip from June 17 reminded her of a male Bargain Babe!
viZZual.com/Flickr
I was shopping with a girlfriend who at the end of our jaunt checked the time and said “I hope I didn’t get a parking ticket!”
“How much money did you put in the meter,” I asked.
“36 minutes.”
I tried to hide my scowl. I hoped for her sake that she didn’t get a ticket, but I was exasperated that she had not forked over one or two extra quarters for peace of mind.
We reached her car. Phew, no ticket. I hugged my friend goodbye and walked onto my car, where the patient meter read 45 minutes. At a dollar an hour, I had put in $.75 extra.
My friend had gotten away with paying less for parking and I couldn’t help but wonder if my $.75 a waste – or a wise investment? Is it always financially savvy to overfeed the meter? Or is it wiser to save my coins and risk getting a ticket?
I did one calculation to figure it out.
1. Say you park at a meter once a week and put in an extra 45 minutes – $.75 on many Los Angeles meters – each time. That means you are putting in an extra $39 a year ($.75 x 52 weeks). If a parking tickets costs $40, that means you can overfeed the meter for an entire year and still come up ahead (by $1).
But how often do you get caught for under feeding? I guesstimate that the meter maid catches me about one in 10 times I underfeed. If I underfed a meter once a week for a year, I would save that $39 in extra quarters but end up with five parking tickets, one every 10 weeks. (If you think you get caught more often or less often by the meter maid, then change how many tickets per year you would receive.) At $40 each my tickets would total $200, a net loss of $161.
Clearly, it makes a lot of sense to generously overpay the meter.
Run this calculation for your hometown meter and ticket prices using this formula:
the cost of putting an extra 45 minutes in the meter x 52 weeks = yearly cost of over feeding the meter
the cost of five parking tickets in your hometown – yearly cost of over feeding = how much you can save by over feeding
UPDATE: Reader Mira says:
In Long Beach, tickets are $44!! It takes A LOT of extra coins pumped in to get to that amount! (Like 660!! 440 nickels + 220 dimes!) Don’t chance it. I find I don’t need to add 45 extra minutes, even 12 or 15 extra minutes gives a nice cushion — depends on what you’re doing that day.
