I travel a lot for various reasons; work related trips, trips to visit various friends and family in far flung places, and obviously just for general holidays. You'd think that by now I would have learnt to travel lightly i.e. to pack less stuff, especially as a lot of the time I'm travelling on my own and so I will have to carry it all myself and lug it all around myself. But sadly no I haven't, and I don't think that I'll ever learn the act of travelling lightly.

I've had lots of lucky escapes over the years where my luggage has been exactly the allowed checked in weight, or just a kilo overweight and the check in agent has just let it pass. I've even had a very lucky escape with Aer Lingus in Dublin Airport a few years ago where my case was a whopping 7 kilos overweight! (this was actually even after I'd stuffed my hand luggage full to bursting as I knew that my case would be overweight!), and the fab check in guy took pity on me as I burst into tears and explained that I'd just travelled from Canada via the US and had already missed one connecting flight etc etc, and very kindly just let it go. Looking back now I'm not even sure how I actually managed to lug that case around!

So it was after the fateful Dublin Airport episode that my husband decided that we should get a set of luggage scales, a set that were easy to use, light to carry, and something that I could easily take with me and then weigh my case on the return journey too. I'd previous just used our digital bathroom scales to weigh my case on the outward journey and they were normally fairly spot on, however it's the return journey where I would struggle the most as most hotel rooms don't have any scales or even if they do you don't know how accurate they are. The return journey would normally be the most crucial part for me too as I invariably would have lots of extra purchases in my case for the journey home.

The luggage scales my husband chose are the Balanazza Ergo digital scales, we bought ours about 4 years ago and if I remember correctly they were about £15.00 at the time, they do seem to be in the region of about £20.00 currently. The Balanzza Ergo digital scales are really compact and sleek looking. They are literally just a handle which is the scales themselves and then a luggage strap dangling from the handle which you attach to your suitcase or bag.

These are really easy to use; you just attach the luggage strap around the handle on your suitcase or bag and click the clasp shut, press the power button to turn on the scales and wait for the display to show zero - this just takes a couple of seconds, lift your luggage using the scales and wait for the scales to beep - this just takes a few seconds and this means that the scales have locked in the weight of your luggage, you can then either just read off the display whilst you still have a hold of your luggage or lower your luggage to the floor and then read the digital display, I always set my luggage back down before reading the display as the weight does remain on the display for a good minute or so.

The scales are easy to use and lift as the design of the handle has grooves on like finger grips, these make it easy to grip and to pick up with one or two hands. I'm a little weakling and so will always use two hands, my husband however will just lift my case up for me with one hand if he is weighing it for me.

The scales will weigh up to 44kg or 100lbs, it's easy to switch between kg or lbs by just pressing the unit button next to the power button until kg or lb shows in the top corner of the display, I always just leave ours set on kg. There is also a reset button for if you want to reset the display back to zero to weigh another suitcase without having to actually wait for the scales to automatically reset themselves after about a minute or so. The digital display is quite large and is really easy to read if you do choose to read it whilst still holding your luggage. The scales take 2 AAA batteries which were included initially, and that we've only had to replace once in the time that we've had the scales.

These are really accurate and I've never had a problem with anything being overweight since using these. I always double check the readout on the scales at the check in desk at the airport and it has always been exactly the same as the weight recorded on these scales or just within a few hundred grams difference. I always make sure to take the scales with my for my return journey, they are really small and compact and take up no space whatsoever, they will even just go in my handbag if I've already locked my case and can't be bothered opening it again. They are also really lightweight and so you don't need to worry that by then putting these in your already weighed suitcase you will tip it over the edge, they weigh just 200g.

I've had absolutely loads of use out of these and I wouldn't be without them now. They are an invaluable asset for a frequent traveller, well any airline traveller really with the airlines getting stricter on luggage allowances and reducing luggage allowance in a lot of cases. They are quite expensive but to be honest you only need to get stung for excess baggage the once and these would then pay for themselves.