200 Candles

When Hawk and I moved out of our college/grad school digs years ago and moved in together we had to start furnishing our home "for real". For real, as in buying things that we'd not had to own before because we'd lived in furnished student apartments or had housemates who'd owned a lot of stuff. I remember making a trip to the Ikea store in Emeryville, CA, about an hour away. We wound up not buying any furniture at Ikea— we actually chose cheaper stuff 😜 used or in kits from a hardware store— but we did buy some candles.

The candles were in the "maze". You know, the part of the store right before the cash registers where Ikea forced you to zig-zag through a bazaar of cheap stuff they hope you'll buy as an impulse purchase. (Okay, actually all of Ikea is laid out like a maze; this is the maziest part right at the end. 🤣) We were impulsed by seeing a bag of candles— one hundred candles— for just $1.



"OMG, do we really need 100 candles?" I wondered for a moment.

Back then we used candles regularly. We liked burning a candle or two late in the evening rather than using electric lights. But candles were expensive. Even basic candles were $1 each, and fancy ones cost several dollars apiece. Instead we could buy this bag of 100 tea lights, and the savings would be immense.

So... what do you do when 100 candles are on sale for $1? You buy two! And by two I mean 200 candles. 😳😂🤯

"This will last us a few years," we agreed. Wow, how naive! Because here we are 25 years later and we still have candles left!

Part of it was we got out of the habit of lighting candles in the evening. Part of it was the bags of candles got pushed toward the back of the closet shelf and we basically forgot about them. In fact, we went several years without really touching them and discovered half of them had melted (warmer summers, etc.) into shapes that made them unusable. Even after throwing the bad ones out and slowly using the rest there are still about 35 left. From 25 years ago.

Update: And the matches I've been lighting them with are even older! 😂

Companion Pass

I have once again earned the Companion Pass on Southwest Airlines. It took some finagling this year because my travel has remained slowed by the lingering Coronavirus pandemic. It was bonus points from a credit card statement that posted today, two weeks before the end of the year, that put me over the top of the annual 125,000 qualifying points needed to re-earn it for next year.

Southwest's Companion Pass is pretty much unique among airline elite statuses. With a CP you designate one person as your companion, and then that person is able to join you on any itinerary you fly, nearly for free. You only pay the federal passenger facility charges, currently $5.60 each way. And the benefit applies whether you buy your own ticket with cash or frequent flyer points.

Most casual travelers and even a lot of elites don't grasp the value of this program. They think it's like a one-time certificate. No— it's good for an unlimited number of flights over the course of a year, or more! It's also not like typical elite-status levels. Even Southwest has a separate, more traditional elite status program. The tiers there are called A-List and A-List Preferred, and they provide more comparable elite benefits such as earlier boarding and a multiplier on points earned.

The value of a Companion Pass is, potentially, huge. It really is unlimited... except by how much you can travel! And there's the rub. We're both working stiffs so we don't get to travel as much as we'd like. Plus this year we missed a few opportunities to travel— mostly because of Coronavirus, but also once because of extreme heat and fires. Even so, by 12/31 Hawk and I will have used it for 6 round trips (actually 5 returns plus 2 one-ways), netting about $2,500 value from it.

Is $2,500 a lot or a little? It depends on compared to what. Compared to my own history with earning the CP most of the last 10 years it's pretty good. Being a pair of working stiffs does limit our travel. Not only do we go on fewer all-leisure trips than we'd like but it rarely works out to have Hawk join me when I go on business trips to extend them through the weekend for sightseeing. Often it feels like a struggle to get even $1,500 value from it. Last year was awful with Covid-19 shutting down travel after February. In 2020 we only used it on two short one-ways, making it worth about $300.

What do I aspire to making CP worth? Well, with MOAR TRAVEL it could be worth maybe even double. I know a few people through a frequent flyer board who do manage to use the CP on a dozen trips a year or more and say it saves them several thousand. But still, our $2,500 is nothing to sneeze at. Not for people in our income bracket, anyway. For 2022... well, we'll see if we can beat $2,500!