Cutting The Fat

Been a hard few months.

Money is harder to come by, harder to keep ahold of and tighter than ever here in Catlandia, home of the unwanteds.

I have been trying to keep internet connection.  I have few guilty pleasures left to me.  Internet is one of them.  I would survive without it, but I'm a lonely soul and at least it gives me something to do.

My older brother had paid its cost last month but can't do so anymore. I already lost TV, outside of the couple of channels I get when the stars are in align,  via the ancient roof antenna.

I put Christmas lights on the old rusted out antenna today.  It's kind of creaky, very rusty and might should be recycled soon.  But for now, it grants me a couple stations of TV, and a roof top light stand for Christmas lights.  By the time I slid down off that roof, my butt was numb, from whatever is wrong with my butt tendons, muscles and ligaments, after overdoing the trapping, out at that Lebanon colony.  But the lights are up and the gutters clean!

I called comcast, asked if they had anything I might afford.  The lady was nice and offered up a cheaper deal.  I cut a new 12 month deal, getting less than a quarter the internet speed I had, but I might afford the cost if I cut out other things.  Like the land line.

I use my land line for most calls, to save my prepaid cell minutes.  The prepaid cell is nice.  I never owned a cell phone until my car broke down out beyond Jefferson and I had to hitchhike home with a couple of just fixed cats.  Then I figured I better get one for emergencies.  I started out with a tracfone and still have a tracfone, only I use the net10 minutes cards with it.

 When I can't afford minutes, I don't buy them.  It will still call 911 even if I have no minutes.  It's a cheap phone, cost me $12 brand spanking new.  It's a dumb phone, not a shiny smart phone by any means.  After getting the tracfone, I still primarily used my land line, to save cell minutes and from habit and because most people had that number.

That was when I was working, with Poppa Inc., as a cat wrangler.  Now I lost the job too, since Poppa closed, which hasn't been so easily adjusted to.  Nobody calls me anymore.

My old land line phone is a wreck itself.  It rattles and when it rings, which it rarely does, I give it a shake to answer.  Now it can be laid to rest.  I also must cut my online local news subscription.  It's not much, and allows access online to the local paper, but it's too much for me, if I'm going to have internet at all.

I executed the land line stop service order today.  The phone line will be dead by December 2nd.  Monday I will stop the online paper subscription too.

Those two budget cuts will pay part of the internet connection I want to keep and it won't take long to adjust to losing either.  What will I do after the 12 month deal ends?  That's too far out to worry about.  I could be dead by then.