The other day when I was in Burger King, I decided to try their “Satisfries”.  And while they cost a bit  more that regular fries, they promised lower calories and lower fat.  Plus, they were supposed to be very tasty.

Well, they may have lower fat and lower calories, they do not taste like french fries.  In fact, they have a very unique taste that I don’t really care for.

Satisfries didn’t satisfy me.

I must admit, I am pretty impress with Aldi’s.  Now, while they don’t carry the selection of a place like Meijer, what they do carry is cheap and of good quality.

The store is a bit difficult to understand.  When you first walk in, you are greeted with an assortment of snacks followed by condiments and baking supplies.  But, once you move into the cooling/freezing section, things seem to be very normal.

Well, needless to say, once that Meijer forced me to shop at other store in order to recover that $35 late fee, I have turned to Aldi’s.  The Orange Juice at Aldi’s if about $.40 a bottle cheaper than Meijer.  And since the bottles look the same and hold the same amount of OJ, I have to wonder if they all come from the same place.

Well, regardless, the OJ tastes the same as Meijer but it is $.40 a bottle cheaper.  And since I drink a bottle a week, that is another $20 a year savings over Meijer.

I guess, all of a sudden, that $35 late fee is starting to save me money!!!  Sorry Fred!!  Or should I say “Mark”!!!

Since my Meijer complacency has been disturbed by a $35 Meijer credit card late fee, I decided that maybe I needed to be a “shopper” in stead of a “buyer”.  In short, I needed to expand my shopping horizons beyond Meijer.

My first stop was Aldi’s.  Now, I had never purchased anything from Aldi’s so I was receptive to what they had to offer.  And, what they had to offer was milk that was $.95 a gallon cheaper than Meijer.  And since I drink about a gallon of milk a week, that equates to about $50 a year.

Wow, with buying gas from Sam’s Club at $.40 a gallon cheaper and milk from Aldi’s at $.95 a gallon, I am rapidly recovering that $35 late fee.  And at this point in time, I will probably never buy Meijers gas or milk again.

I hope that Meijer understands what that late fee is really costing them but I suspect that they don’t.

And there is orange juice too!!!

Once I realized that using a Meijer credit card was actually costing me money, I decided to find some place cheaper  to purchase gas.  So, I decided to check out Sam’s Club.

Now, I have been a member of Sam’s Club for many years.  I just hadn’t paid that much attention to their gas prices.  But now that I realized that buying gas from Meijer was not a good deal, I decided to check out Sams.

On my first stop at Sam’s Club, I bought gas for $.40 a gallon cheaper than the other stations including Meijer.

Since I purchased 15 gallons, that amounted to a $6 savings.  WOW!!!  At this rate, I will recover my Meijer Credit Card late fee in only a few months.

I pay all of my bills at the same time, on the first or second weekend of the month, depending on due dates.  Since my Meijer credit card payment is due on the 15th of the month, I felt that paying it off on the 10th would be sufficient. But, it wasn’t.  When I checked my next months statement, I noticed that my payment was received on the 16th and that I was charged a $35 late fee.

$35.00 late fee!!  That is outrageous!!  With a $.05 a gallon savings, I would need to buy 700 gallons of gasoline just to break even.  And that would take me almost a year at my purchase rate.

I checked my Discover card bill and learned that while I paid it at the same time as my Meijer card,  it was posted on the 13th!  Why does it take Meijer three days longer to post the same type of transaction???  I called to complain but received the a TS response.

Well OK!!  With $35.00 in late fees, I decided that my Meijer card is not  good deal.  Time to find cheaper gas!

I have a Meijer credit card.  I have it because they offer me a $.05 per gallon discount on gasoline.  That $.05 discount makes a difference for me as to where I  buy my gas.  After all, if all of the other gas stations in the area are selling gas for the same price,  I know that I can buy gas for $.05 less at Meijer than the other stations.  So I will buy my gas at Meijer.  And since I am already at Meijer, I will quite often go into the store and buy milk or orange juice.

And, since I pay all of my bills at the same time, I pay off the Meijer card along with the Discover card.

But, I recently discovered that even though my Miejer bill is due on the 15th, paying my Meijer bill on the 10th is not good enough.  It take Meijers a full seven days to process the payment.

Popcorn is very popular in the office where I work.  So I see a lot of people eating it.  I was, how ever, taken a back by one of my co-workers who was eating it with chopsticks.  What ever!

Again, I remind myself that I should be glad that they are at least potty trained more or less.

Since my laptop was only a few weeks old, I decided to return it to Best Buy and let them deal with it.  After all, they sold it to me so they should assume some of the responsibility for repairing.  And, they did.  YES!!

After my Geek Squad person tried to turn it on, he concluded that it was toast.  So, he filled out the paper work and sent it on its way.  He said that it would either be fixed or I would be given store credit.  Either is fine with me.  I just didn’t want to do the RMA stuff.

Once I was sure that the PC had completed its shut down, I pushed the power button to restart it.  When I did so, a couple of keyboard lights flickered for about 30 seconds and that is all.  No reboot, no error messages.  Just dead.

I tried to reboot hitting F2.  Nothing.  I tried to reboot hitting F10.  Nothing.  I tried putting the backup disk in the machine.  Nothing.

For all intents and purposes, my PC was dead.