Free is NOT always FREE

I was inspired by money today.

First was the refund check from the State of NY sitting in our postbox. Yeah! Addressed to us in Wadenswil, Germany? Well, at least it didn't travel to Thailand first. I think the US Post Office has issues since the zip codes here are only 4 digits long. I've even sent something to Ireland that had no zip - just a township name. Love it.

Re: the NOT FREE items. I was ordering my Christmas cards yesterday and noticed that we could get free address labels with orders in excess of 75 cards. I had already placed the cards in my 'shopping basket' and went back to do the labels.

Fortunately for our pocketbooks, I had looked at the shipping charges which were $49.99 (there was a code for free shipping but only within the US so I'd have to pay anyway - it's actually a good price believe it or not).

I finished the labels, added them to the 'basket' and went to check out. Gee, I was getting 90 free labels and only paying 5.98 for the additional ones - Why did my total look so big? Oh, WELL, it might be the $88.98 in shipping charges that I see.

I quickly removed the labels from my basket and rechecked the total - shipping back down to $49.99. So - the FREE labels were going to cost me an additional $39 to ship! For labels!

So - I will not have free labels with my Christmas Cards. I might have to use the 'mistake' ones that were sent from another company - they have Bart's name on them - and pretty pink roses with ballet slippers. He loves those labels. Really. Not.

I'll think of something. Something that won't cost $39 for a name and address!