Too cheap, part II: Saving a quarter to spend $42 at the parking meter

My new year's resolution this year was "Resolved: No parking tickets!"

My resolve lasted until February, when I got not one but two parking tickets in the same day.

I park on "cheap street" near the Dome where parking is only a quarter an hour. So I drop four quarters in the meter at 8 a.m. and return to my car at noon for lunch. That's in a perfect world, but in the real world I don't always remember exactly when I fed the meter. Do I have until 11:45, noon or 12;15 before I run out of time?

Inevitably, (Murphy's Law) I get a ticket minutes before I return to the meter because I'm trying not to leave any paid minutes on it. How stupid is that? I could put an extra quarter in for "insurance" and save myself about $200. (I get about five tickets a year at $42 each).

Here's a tip in Minneapolis: If you put money in a meter and then it says "fail" on it, make note of the meter number and call to report it as defective. (The number to call will be on the parking ticket you get if you don't move your car to another meter.). I did that recently, but when I left the info on the voicemail, there was no way to confirm my ticket had been voided. So I made a trip to the Hennepin County Government Service Center to inquire. Sure enough, my ticket had been dismissed.