Mechanical and Technological Disappointments

First, the used double stroller I got will be of limited use. I got it cleaned up and took Lucy for a ride and discovered that the stroller was wobbly and pulling to the right. I stopped and checked the wheels and found one of them was bent. I immediately turned back around and went home. I tried to straighten out the wheel, but I may have made it worse. I don't remember the wheel being bent when I got it, but I didn't really try it out. It's also possible that the wheel bent when Lucy got into the stroller before it was fully open and it closed on her and fell over. I quickly pulled her out, and one of the wheels popped off. I easily put the wheel back on, but it might have been bent in all of the excitement. The stroller is probably good enough for going to the pool for a while. I'm not sure I'd want to fight the pulling to the right all the way to Matt's office, especially since I'd have to fight it all the way home from his office. We'll still probably get $20 of use out of it just going to the pool, but it's not going to be a long-term stroller for us. We will need another stroller.

My other disappointment is my search for an inexpensive device that can run the Ibotta app. Ibotta gives rebates when you buy certain products and scan your receipt. Because it's a rebate, it can be stacked with sales and coupons to get really good deals. Recently, there was a $5 off diapers rebate. That would have been nice. But the app requires Android version 3.0 or higher and a rear-facing camera with auto-focus. We don't own smart phones, and our Android tablets run a proprietary version from Amazon because they are Kindle Fires. There are plenty of cheap tablets with new enough version of Android, but they don't meet the camera requirements. I've had trouble finding a tablet for less than $200 that does meet the requirements. I can't justify a $200 tablet so that I can save $5 on diapers. I looked into Apple products that can run the app, but they have to be fairly new, which mean expensive. I even looked for used ones on Ebay since I don't mind some physical imperfections. But if you'd like to actually be able to read the screen and use the device because it's not already attached to some unknown account, it will cost over $100. Still not cheap enough for a device just to run a rebate app. So if you have a smart phone, Ibotta is great. If you're thrifty and don't have fairly up-to-date devices, you can't save money with Ibotta. That's disppointing.