Income less expenses equals

one huge headache.

Is there room in my budget for a super-size bottle of Advil?

Help me. I'm so confused.

I'm determined I will fit luxuries like cell phones and satelite for the tv into my budget if it kills me. You'll notice internet isn't considered a 'luxury'. That's right up there with food darlings. You can't get rid of my rambling that easily. haha

Anyway. Last night I went on a quest to lower the cost of keeping the kids busy so I can blog ummm watching Amazing Race having satelite service.

I'm so CONFUSED! What the heck is the difference between digital and HD and don't I need an HD tv for HD service and what exactly am I paying for and do I really need all 900 freaking channels when all we watch are about 12 of them?

Our service providers website is enough to make you wanna pull your hair out. I think their site runs sooooo slow on dial-up in an attempt to make me click the link to see what their internet service would cost. I think it would have been faster to call and sit on hold waiting for a customer service rep.

Two frusterating hours later - it turns out that my 'grandfathered-in' old package provides me with more service than what I would get for the exact same amount of money if I switched to their absolute lowest priced package and got 10 of the 12 channels we watch and to get those other 2 channels would cost me about $5 bucks more each month......so I guess what I'm saying here is I either suck it up and keep what I have or have absolutely nothing.

Darn!

You know what else I've learned with this little 'lets trim expenses' field trip into just what everything is costing me. The sneaky buggers are well.....sneaky. Sure they don't raise the rates of things - they just add on system access fees. For example - my home phone, which is solely for the purpose of providing my dial-up internet a way to well.....dial up. It seems that even though I have not made any long distance phone calls on my home phone in the last month I still have long distance charges. Apparently I don't read my bills closely enough - actually, I find not reading them at all helps me sleep at night but I digress, apparently even though I don't make long distance phone calls I get to pay for the priviledge of having the ability of making them by paying a long distance network charge of $2.95. Hadn't noticed that little gem earlier. Oh but they were kind enough to not charge me for putting a long distance restriction on my phone because it was past due.

I also noticed the phone company has petitioned the government to allow a .98 increase to basic service. I wonder if they would be open to the suggestion of taking that extra $11.98 they will get from me over the course of the next year and come out and put $2 worth of rodent bait in seal up the junction box so the mice don't fill the darn thing with 2lbs of soya beans this fall and disrupt my service....again.

I'm off to see where else I can possibly trim some fat.

The kids like mac n cheese and hotdogs.