Sharing season ticket fee with friends

Second week money saving challenge: Sharing my season ticket fee with my friends.

I thought swimming will always be an impossible mission for me. Even a rock swam better than I did a year earlier. I love water especially in summertime. Though I’ve never been courageous enough to get out from the paddling-pool, till the previous summer, when my friends asked me to join them for a swimming course. It took me about two weeks to swim like a good beginner. It was great fun, however I cannot describe it as a budget friendly hobby. Hence this year we decided to look up for a cheaper swimming facility and try it out. We purchased a monthly season ticket and shared the fee between the four of us. 

Slowly, slowly...

Green as the fresh spring grass

Well, changing the swimming facility turned out to be a bad idea. We were swimming about a half an hour when my friends giggled at me for my hair turned greenish (by the way prior to this I had dyed-blonde hair). It didn’t bother me for I thought that the pool’s leds illuminated my hair and gave a greenish colour, so I enjoyed the great ambiance for another half an hour. Entering the dressing-room a huge mirror helped me to realise that the green colour persisted on my once-blonde hair and it wasn’t the pool leds’ fault. We were shocked, even my cheerful friends stopped giggling. In that moment the situation wasn’t funny at all. I tried to wash it out of my hair but nothing helped me to get rid of the green - who knows what- from my hair. My hair became green as the fresh spring grass and I couldn’t do anything about it. 

Aahh!!!....My hair

After a few hysterical minutes one of my friends took the strength to face the facility manager in order to ask our money back along with the value of the hair treatment that I’ve received the next day. We’ve also asked about the products they use for keeping the pool water clean. They told us that it is some kind of anti-algae treatment which getting in reaction with copper might turn blonde hair to green. But the question was: who was responsible for the copper in the pool water and if they knew it could get in reaction with that substance, why didn’t they use something else instead? Hopefully they have solved the problem by now, or at least they put a big sign on the door that says: ‘Keep Away from the Pool if you're Dyed Blonde’

The whole conversation was quite unpleasant but at the end everything turned out well. We got our money back and my hair looks much better now.

My husband’s first reaction was hilarious: “Beware of the hungry cows, they might graze your hair.” - quite a sympathiser actually …

As for a conclusion:

My second frugal week doesn’t turned out the way I planned. Bad luck. Even though I’ve received a new haircut along with a treatment and we swam an hour for free, the experience was quite shocking and distressing which I do not want to repeat again.

I had to realize that the famous proverb says the truth “I’m not rich enough to buy cheap thing”. I know that it sounds like I’m writing against the thrifty mentality but sometimes we should really look twice before choosing a cheap service or product. In my case the facility manager was a good guy for acknowledging the severity of the situation and recouped me for this awkward case. But who knows what other cases might occur that cannot be recompensed with money, like one’s health.

Pool tester

Probably a Dream job: Pool tester

Previously I’ve written about my hair getting a grass green colour after swimming in the pool's water. Being optimistic and believing that every bad situation has to have some kind of benefit as well, I tried to think about the advantage I can get from that situation. Soon the question arose in me: what if the swimming facility would have had an employee to test the pool’s water? Preferably one with dyed-blonde hair :) Probably this situation wouldn’t occur.

So I rubbed my lamp for the genie (idea) to come out.

‘One pool tester job coming up!’

Wouldn’t be nice to have job opportunities as a pool tester? I’m not sure if there are already, but as the aforementioned story shows, it would be highly efficient to establish one. It would be wise if the local health department would hire a person whose task would be to test every swimming facility for its water quality as well as the pool’s condition. An important task would be to rate them just like the hotels are rated. I don’t know if they already have this kind of job or someone’s just walking around the pool dipping a piece of paper strip in the water and waiting the chemical reaction to happen. I think this cannot be compared with jumping in the water and paddle for an hour.

Daredevil wanted

I imagine an impartial daredevil whose task would be to travel around the country and try each and every public pool, be it at a hotel, olympic pool, spa resort or at a waterpark. I mean people should know what they are paying for while they are using the services provided by a swimming facility. By hiring this kind of person we could prevent such unpleasant surprises to happen. I bet there are persons ‘fearless enough’ to enter the water and spend some pleasant time in the pool and for that to receive a salary as well. The whole essence would be to rate the pool then bring it out to the public. Just like a food critic, but this person should be called a Pool Critic. 

Critic :)

Of course, it would be efficient if the pool tester would be scientifically minded and familiar with certain chemicals.

Pools can be an important part of a family holiday or even for sport loving persons. I think many people would love to read some real survey or review about the quality, condition of the pools they are choosing.


Lately I ran into a job ad, saying that water slide and pool testers are wanted. In January 2013 The First Choice travel agency was looking for someone to test their water slides and pools. 

The contract was for six months when the chosen one had to fly around the travel agency’s resorts to test their pools, water slides and rate them. The payment was around $15.000 and at the end of this exhausting job he got a seven night all inclusive holiday for two. Of course I don’t have to mention that there were thousand of candidates for the job, but only one could be the winner. 

Sound good enough?