Frugal Friday--More Expensive Free Stuff

A few weeks ago a friend gave me this really cute sweater.

Yes, I have a complete attraction to argyle and so what if I asked for the sweater right off her back.  She didn't give it to me... until the next day.  In fact when she put it on that morning she actually thought I might like the sweater, it was a hand me down to her the night before.  Thankfully for me, the sleeves were too short for her.

When she gave it to me, she let me know that she hadn't had a chance to wash it.

I was so impatient to wear it ahead of my regular time of the week to do laundry, that I ran it through the wash all by itself.  I forgot about it and had to run it through again. There's a 24 hour rule with my washer that must not be questioned.

In the afternoon I opened the washer to find a very heavy, completely soaked, ball of cotton.  Hmmm, the washer hadn't spun the sweater at ALL.  Well I'll just run the spin only cycle.  That ended with the washer making a terrible grinding sound and L advising that I had better call Mr. Appliance.  This is no sponsored endorsement of Mr. A, but if they'd like me to blog about them, I'd be happy to accept.

I love Mr. Appliance.  They said they could come right out the next day, I got the last appointment for Friday afternoon.  Whew.  Laundry day at my house is Sat/Sunday.  The nice repair man showed up around 4, did a great deal of assessment on the washer and after running all sorts of things through the machine and testing this and that he declared that my washer was just fine.  However, there was the small matter of the service fee.  Of course.

The lessons from this?
1.  Don't be so darned impatient to wear a new sweater.
2.  My washer is still in good health overall, unless you are washing only a cotton sweater.
3.  Wash full loads.  This is a great tip for the washer or dishwasher.  You'll use the same amount of electricity and likely the same amount of water as you would if you were just running a partial load.  That can add up and your bill starts to creep up, then you can't buy as much chocolate, you have to adjust your average bill payment amount.
4.  I need to enjoy this sweater for a long time.  Free stuff is still expensive in our household.