Do you know how much your blue jeans weigh?

One pound. How do I know? Well, on the last leg of our journey, I struggled at the luggage scale with a bag that was 51.5 pounds — 1.5 pounds over the limit. It wasn’t the first time I’d gone over, sadly. I didn’t want to pay overages for such a trivial weight difference so I unzipped my bag and just stared. Everything was in luggage dividers and I was at a bit of loss at how to trim down my bag.

Fortunately, the airline checker stepped in with her wisdom: blue jeans are usually one pound. I weighed my jeans & she was right. I think she gave me the extra half pound to keep the line moving. Those scales aren’t toys!

As we travel, weight is something that we struggle with almost as much as space. We can only check 100 pounds between us. We have backpacks, but those are usually stuffed with the electronics and gadgets that we’re not comfortable checking. They also have no give, so it’s harder to stuff extras in our carry-ons.

I now have a solution to the question of how to balance our weight load: a portable luggage scale. And it was free! How do such miracles occur, you ask? Well, I happened upon a fashion blog entry that talked about luggage overages and shared my newfound blue jean knowledge on the Bridgette Raes site. Presto, my lone comment meant I won peace of mind as we pack.

This Voyager scale works pretty well so far. It’s digital, light weight, and also converts to kilograms, which makes me happy for some reason. If you’re going to do long-term travel, it may be worth it to pick one up just to avoid the overages. Or, if you’re on the bubble, maybe only pack one pair of blue jeans.

(I wasn’t asked to give a review in exchange for winning, BTW. We’re not making any money from product reviews. I’m just straight-up excited to tell the world that blue jeans weigh one pound.)