My new best friend...
Now until I am able to find myself a yob or until I start making money with this blog, wifey and I are having to cut back on some things in our lives. We recently had another garage sale which sadly, was not as successful as the first. Let’s face it, we had fewer big ticket items like the patio set, the couch and…oh…yeah…the car. But we did manage to sell off a few more items from wifey’s failed eBay business, so we were able to get some breathing space.
That and we were also turned onto another option that we had never considered before…food banks. I know that they sound like something that is only used by the desperate and the downtrodden, but in this economy, trust me – it’s not. The food banks are there to help people who are in trouble right now, and a lot of people are in trouble. Some of the food banks do have rules however so before you go all out you might want to ask someone who works there what those rules are. Like how many times a week can you visit and what are their hours? Some of them require a small monetary donation – one in my area asks for $5.00. Check these places out as an alternative to the corner store. You might get some items that are plesant surprises (sausage patties and yellow cake mix) and some items that might not be so pleasent (5lbs. of chopped onions and white bean and bacon soup). Most of all it can save you money that can go towards keeping the lights or the heat on.
Another thing we have done is we have now, after five years, bid our cable TV and Internet connection adieu. For one thing it was costing us over $120.00 a month, and since wifey’s business went down we really haven’t had a need for a high-speed connection like that. However, we don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t go out and party, but our only vice would be all of the channels that we got on cable. Since we can’t really afford to go out we’ve become homebodies for the most part.
So why would we want to give up something that was keeping us sane? Because we got a better deal through our phone company (QWest) for DirecTV.
And we save $50.00 a month in the process!!!
The deal is if you switch over from cable to DirecTV through QWest, you are locked in at a discount rate for two years. Oh, and they also have DSL service too.
The DSL is something of a hassle right now though as it sometimes cuts out right in the middle of a huge download – and sometimes when I’m not even doing anything!!! QWest thinks that maybe we have a short in a wire so they are sending a technician out tomorrow to have a look. Hopefully all he will have to do is to install what is known as a “Home Run Filter” onto our DSL line to solve that problem. Because we really can’t afford to have them go into the walls to find whatever it is, so I am going to attract a simple solution – that doesn’t cost much, if anything.
But what really gets me are the extra channels we’re getting with DirecTV. BBC America, NFL Network, G4-TV and many others. Right now DirecTV is having a free preview of MLB Extra Innings through Easter Sunday. That means I’m able to watch any game in the country that I want for free right now. The part that sucks is that it’s only until the 12th which means that I miss President Obama throwing out the first pitch in The District, and I miss my beloved Dodgers open up against the Giants at home. However I do get to catch the Yankees opening up New Yankee Stadium because I do have the MLB Network.
Ok, silver lining.
I was able to check out NASCAR Hot Pass this past weekend when they were at Texas Motor Speedway. I found it kind of cool that I had it but in the end I thought that the radio chatter was really distracting, so I put it back on FOX so I could listen to DW.
Getting used to the new channel lineup is going to take some time. It used to be that MSNBC was 30, Spike was 57, A&E was 47 and ESPN was 24. Now we need a road map to see where we’re going.
But at least we still have a DVR included with our deal. So we can still tend to business and have Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow to make us laugh, Law & Order: SVU to give us shivers, and plenty of romance, history and sports to help us stay sane in these troubling times.
Gotta go, the Dodgers are taking on the Padres…
