Welcome to Top Comments diary sharing! I have a work schedule which does not allow for me to be on the internet during the day, so mining for comments and even formatting the submissions you wonderful people send in, isn't possible. But I can still write the diary if someone else can do that heavy lifting. So for the rest of this month, Brillig and I are trying out the diary sharing hybrid - on Mondays, you'll see a diary that I wrote ahead of time, and she'll manage submissions et al. If this works, it makes it easy for me to take more diaries than I otherwise would, so fingers crossed!
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A couple of months ago, we received a very unwelcome missive here at casa Asimba. Really, it was not unexpected. And frankly, the timing actually could have been worse. Still. It sucked. The letter let us know that our mortgage was adjusting. From interest only to P&I, with an increase in the interest rate.
In the end, what this means is that we have to cut other expenses.
We came up with some cuts relatively quickly and easily that got us halfway there. Changing some grocery shopping habits (I'm clipping coupons again) has also helped. I have put in for a transfer at work to the location that would allow me to take public transit, which would cut my commuting cost in half. This is not a small expense - I will cheerfully add an hour a day to my commute time if it means I'm saving almost $200/month. So I want everyone out there to cross their fingers for me.
The latest budgetary jiujitsu came in the form of frustration with our cable company raising rates on us. So we switched service providers. In switching, we talked about the fact that we no longer need to carry a land line. It was required with our current provider in order to get the service, but not with our new cable/internet provider.
I suspect that we're not alone in the number of households that finds the use and necessity of a landline to be diminishing. The calls that come in lately are from political fundraising efforts. Anyone else has our cell numbers. Plenty of our friends have only cellular service. Now, in our area, we don't have great cell coverage. Which means we've got to have some other option. So we started looking at VoIP. And at Magic Jack.
I was shocked at how little these services cost. Unlimited calls with a dedicated phone number from Skype costs about $5/month. With Magic Jack, it's even less. And Consumer Reports says that Magic Jack actually works as advertised. (And how sad is it when just that level of evaluation is cause for happiness?) We're leaning toward Magic Jack because, unlike Skype, you can make 911 calls with the service. We'll have to come up with another option if we want to fax a document, but scanning and emailing works fine for the most part.
But in the end, we decided to cut that cord. We're going landlineless. I feel like we're entering some untested wilderness. Isn't that silly?
But we are getting there with regard to our household finances. Now, what about you, fellow Top Commenteers? What do you do when you have to get creative with your household income? I'd love to come away with even more tips!
And now, without further ado, I'm turning the diary over to Brillig for the real reason y'all come to these here parts:
From commonmass:
Bad puns in Cheers and Jeers today lead to this by Ana Thema, and worse. Definitely read the thread!
From Indycam:
An Angel just earned her wings.
Diarist's note: MrJayTee is the beneficiary, and the vegetarian kind of wings, lest you fear reading further!!
From sardonyx:
In Why Life in High School Is More Absurd Than Ever, whoknu writes a fascinating comment about being an artistically inclined alternate learner, and Renee has an interesting reply.
From BeninSC:
Understanding Your Class, a special comment by ActivistGuy in a most thought-provoking diary by Phoebe Loosinhouse!
From Your Comment Miner du jour, brillig:
In today's Midday Open Thread, Crashing Vor shared this scary little bit of pablum.
In rblinne's Military Noticing Congressional Snub of SEALs, PeterHug's comment and ohiolibrarian's response are noteworthy.