Winter First Moon of the New Year
Business meeting this morning. Some drastic pruning budget wise to squeeze our spending into line with our post-retirement income. Example: dropped cable tv. I know. It feels almost unamerican. My mom and dad raised me to watch at least three to four hours of television a night and I feel like I’m letting them down. Not to mention CBS, NBC and ABC.
The impetus for this came after the trip to South America. We watched no TV over the cruise and when we got back I settled in with a good book in the evening. We still have a blu-ray player, Netflix and I just signed us up for Hulu Plus, so we’re not leaving the big box behind in toto, just the absurdly expensive piped in Comcast version.
The internet connection? Well, we kept that. There’s TV and then, there’s the internet. No comparison. We’re not totally TV broadcastless as it turns out. To keep our lower rate for the internet I agreed to a $12 a month “antenna” service from Comcast. With the broadband the total was lower than internet alone. You get a discount on the broadband if you have any other services. Weird, huh?
None of this feels draconian, just adjusting things to keep pace with changing reality.
We’ve also decided that with Kate retired we can go with one car. We’ve done that for a couple of months anyhow since the Celica blew a tire. Again. I’ve decided to let it set until warmer weather. I’m gonna give it away. It’s been a great car and we didn’t make it to 300,000 miles together, but it still feels like time to let go. I’ve driven it since September of 1994.