My high-speed internet/cable pricing wars are nearing conclusion for the next twelve and six(?) months, respectively, as of November 3rd.
The Verizon switch has cut the internet bill from $44.95 to $14.95 per month [with a one time shipping/handling fee that I couldn’t avoid of $23]. Savings: [$7 the first month, $30 thereafter.] Oh, actually, we should also have a 1st month’s credit due to the problems we had getting the internet to work at all. I will definitely have to double check the bill to make sure that was properly applied.
The cable part of the bill is a little more complicated. Time Warner doesn’t consider the old Adelphia customers their “new” customers, so we’re not eligible for their six-month introductory promotion pricing of $29.99. I figured I’d just call them up, let them know that I’m planning to cancel unless they’re prepared to do something for me and hope for the best. Not the best strategy I’ve ever hatched, no. BUT, I spoke with a sales rep who, literally, spoke my language and offered me something I hadn’t even considered asking for: knowing that I had already set up a new internet service, he suggested that I switch my two services to their bundled package offering at $67.32 and then just call to cancel the internet service at a later date, while retaining the lower rate for cable. When PaDucky called to cancel the internet service, the new balance was reduced to $32.96 “from now on” as the CSR stated. Now, because they bill a month in advance, I just need to make sure that I’m getting an updated bill and that the pricing package I opted for doesn’t expire since it -technically – wasn’t called a promotion. And I just realized that we missed our scheduled installation because of a death in the family. So I guess I’m going to have to spend some more time on the phone — as if I wasn’t looking for a reason NOT to do my work. Lazy!
So our internet and cable bill should be going from: 96.64 per month to (32.96+$15) = 47.96!
Hi, it’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon…welcome to my rock hovel! Yes, I live in&under a rock because I have never heard of the myFaves package that T-mobile is offering. Apparently they’re out to bust Verizon’s IN network calling monopoly with an even more radical offering: you can pick the top five people you log the most phone time with, and regardless of their network, you get unlimited calling with those numbers. I don’t believe there’s any restriction on whether it’s a home, office or cell phone number.
T-mobile only offers one individual and one family plan.
The individual package you get is: myFaves 600 Whenever Minutes: 600 Weekend Minutes: Unlimited Weeknight Minutes: Unlimited myFaves Minutes: Unlimited for $49.99.
I’d briefly considered switching from my plan of 1000 Whenever, Unlimited Nights&weekends but this costs $10 more. I shouldn’t be talking on the cell phone for more than 1000 minutes on the weekdays anyway, even if I DO have a lonely 1 hour+ commute home everyday. BUT, if you’re consistently calling the same group of people and going over that many minutes during the month, this might not be such a bad idea.
It’s Saturday. Finally finally finally Saturday!! A bit spendier than I had expected it to be, but since I didn’t complete all my errands, it’s goin to be spendier still, by tomorrow evening.
I was really looking forward to this weekend because it was to be a get-a-lot-of-work-done weekend. I was going to get the oil changed in my car [way overdue], a haircut [also way overdue], and get a LOT of work done [yep, also overdue]. Sunday was going to be laundry and lounge day. This is what really happened:
Being the hibernatory bear that I am, I slept right through my 7am alarm and did NOT get out the door in time to be the first person in line at my car dealership. I hate having to wait two hours for an oil change on a weekend so my battle plan was to hit the dealership before anyone else and then scoot two counties over for my haircut. But I didn’t get up until 9, so I thought I’d just have to try again early Sunday morning.
[$12] Sadly, it was my 8th cut, and you know what that means: Buy 7 cuts, get your bangs screwed up for free!! The overweening confidence of Jacob, my erstwhile, one-month’s experience on the floor stylist-to-be led him to judge that my Asian hair could be chopped with one snip o’ the scissors to get the bangs I’d asked for. Nope, nope, nope. My bangs promptly protruded in two thick tufts from my forehead, blending with my already ungroomed eyebrows to form a hideous Groucho Marx imitation. His quick solution was? A flatiron!! That actually made it worse. *sigh* And I had to keep HIM calm. How fair is that? Oh well, I [quietly, because I couldn’t hurt Jacob’s already fragile ego] pled with the instructor for quick release from 10-year-old-asian-girl-bangs-hell and she managed to cover up most of it and they waxed the rest.
[$0] I gave in on the way home from haircut hell and stopped at the car dealership: I didn’t want to wait two hours but I wanted to wake up at 8am and drive all the way back out again Sunday morning even less. So, I spent two hours sitting at the car dealership doing some work while I waited for my oil change. I’m not sure if he intended to sell me a car or hit on me, but in the last 20 minutes a salesman brought me a bottle of water and showed me to the Snack Shack where they give away free hot dogs, water, soda and chips. My car was ready just in time for me not to find out what he really wanted. 🙂 Then the service guy told me that I need new brakes, new rotors, a new fan belt cause I only had one [uh, I thought I only needed one? I don’t know, time for me learn car maintenance again….], and that the rotors alone would probably cost about $420. *bigger sigh*
[$11] Groucho time was fun and all, but it pretty much convinced me not to try to wait another two weeks to have my eyebrows taken care of.
[$11] The grocery store yielded chicken and apples today: Banquet has a TMF on their Honey BBQ chicken which I will happily try for free and Tyson sent me a Free Chick’n’Easy product coupon some time ago, so I picked up some chicken strips. I’m going to have chicken for lunch all week! And apples. And bananas. Yum!
And I managed to round up a couple of the girls for dinner plans tonight at Bombay Bistro [I’m never sure what $-$$ really equates, but it should be affordable, split between three gals].
And now that it’s five pm and my choices are to cram 2 hours of work in and give myself a bigger headache or just … rest. My automatic reaction is to push myself until I collapse and just can’t do anything else, but this may be a good time to evaluate the kinds of decisions I make that may promote financial health while neglecting my actual health. I still have all of tomorrow and I can’t look at it as not being able to afford to work less overtime so much as I can’t afford NOT to recharge my batteries and REST.
Oh, and? $23 was totally worth it not to look like THIS anymore:
Augh, I can’t get that song out of my head!! It’s partly because I’m toasting my English muffin and debating: butter? peanut butter? *peanut butter jelly time!* but more because my coworker found this video to go with our cheesy office music selection:
But only, different. This time last year I was so through with the hostile atmosphere I was working in that I said fohgit this! I signed up for scholarship searches with Fastweb, the search engine I used back in high school when I was trolling for college money. I knew it’d be more difficult this time around because I actually make what appears to be a decent wage [cause they don’t know how many HOURS it takes!!] and because it would be for graduate school.
Whatever the government’s assumption is (you’re a big kid now so we’re not giving you free money, etc.), all I know is that FAFSA will not serve me as well as it did when I was an undergrad. I mean, it wasn’t any free ride like my smart friends had, but it definitely made it possible for me to afford college while I was just starting my new job and new school and all that.
Hence, my renewed friendship with Fastweb. Only, I’ve noticed that you can’t ever justsign in anymore. You always have some big splashy financial offer [most frequently it’s an online university] and then it takes you to a credit card offer with all your stats conveniently filled in. All you have to do is click the BIG RED BUTTON THAT SAYS YES! TAKE ME FOR A FOOL! Or you can click baby brother’s “no thanks”opt out link buried underneath the flashy red button.
I know they have to support themselves some way, but that’s just a little shady.
