How to weigh your luggage

I know I've mentioned previously that it's a good idea to take your luggage to a FedEx or other location that has large scales in order to weigh your bags before getting to the airport. I learned the hard way by trying to put 70 lb, HUGE, bulky bags on a small scale designed for people that it doesn't work very well. Um, yeah, it's pointless. Well, not completely a waste since I was successful in weighing our two smaller bags. The rest of them we took to our local grocery store (Publix); E made two trips and we got a general idea of how much each bag weighed. 


The only problem with making trips back and forth to weigh your bags is that once you get home you do a lot of rearranging. You remember that one bag was two pounds over and another was three over, but you have no idea how to exactly make them even without dragging them to the store to weigh them again. That is, until I discovered this....thanks to our friends/neighbors who had just bought a brand new Digital Luggage Scale. Our friend was over and she mentioned that her in-laws had purchased a handheld scale and that it can hold up to 88 lbs; she offered to lend it to us so we didn't have to go to the airport without a good understanding of how much our bags really weigh. Simple, small, and easy to use.

The scale that we used doesn't look exactly like this but it does the job, and you can change the unit from pounds to kilos to grams to ounces. All you have to do is place the bag upright on the floor near a staircase and stand on the (approximately) the third step up. Hook the luggage onto the scale and lift (and I mean lift because remember some of these bags weigh in at 75 lbs) and wait for the scale to give you the correct weight of the bag. I don't suggest doing this unless you're strong or want a hernia, so be careful. Luckily I live with a professional athlete. We were easily, and quickly, able to shift weight and volume among the 3-4 bags that we have that were a bit overweight, once we knew their correct weight. Turns out we actually have about an extra 5 lbs to spare overall. That's amazing news because I was worried about that.  


I feel a hug sense of relief, because we all know how stressful this move has been for me (well, for anyone). So we have almost 560 lbs of luggage - and that doesn't count our carry-ons. I'm not worrying about the weight on those because my carry-on luggage has never been weighed before and I'm going to avoid that at all costs. I know that the cat can only be 10 kg (about 20 lbs) including his carrier but we're safe there. What's left to do then? Finish cleaning the apartment, take a trip to the local GoodWill, pack our carry-ons, and meet friends for dinner.