Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Kicking the habit

Like many of us, myself definitely included, Robin Savage (aka OCGirl) was addicted to her cell phone -- calling, texting, being able to get in touch with anyone at a moment's notice. "They say cigarettes are addictive, but I'm telling you, I think cell phones could be just as bad," she said. So it was a big deal when, fed up with the hidden fees that kept showing up on her bill, she decided to kick the habit and get rid of her cell phone. She's been without it for a few days now, and she says it's "complete torture." It's even keeping her up at night! But, on the other hand, Robin says she's saving hundreds of dollars a month. And she's actually enjoying being unreachable some of the time. "I love taking walks knowing I don't have to answer or check my messages right away," she told me by email. Maybe it's because I don't have a land line, but there's a lot I'd do without before I'd give up my cell phone. What about you? What are you cutting out of your budget? We want to hear about your personal finance priorities. And Robin, let us know how you're surviving without your phone!

20 Comments
March 5, 2009
Click to view AlexDuthie's profile

Why the Republicans want Obama to fail.

 

For the eight years of the Democratic Clinton years the US had its best, most productive years.

For the eight years of the Republican Bush W years the US had its most disastrous years.

How would it look for the Republicans if Obama was able to recover from the disasters of the Bush W years?  Isn’t it obvious why Limbaugh and the rest of the Republicans cannot afford to support Obama if they are to maintain any semblance of government responsibility?

During the Clinton years the Republicans were not interested in the welfare of the country, their main focus was to unseat Bill Clinton. In spite of all the GOP obstructionisms he led the country to its most prosperous years. I now realize that the GOP has been transformed from the Grand Old Party to the Goons Obstructing Progress.

March 5, 2009
Click to view amom1's profile

I would not give up the cell phones, but did give up the land line, and let me tell you why!!!!!!!

 

  I opened a real estate office and put everything I had into it, worked day and night, didn't even watch tv.

 

  Well, I was really doing good, when all of a sudden, couldn't get any phone calls.  I would have large ads in major papers and could not get phone calls, oh, once in a while one or two.

 

People would come up and step in the door and say, "Why don't you answer the phone?"  I had a couple of agents at that time also.   One said, "I may as well stay home, I get calls all the time at home." 

 

Well, I found out through someone else who said, "You girls will never get any phone calls; that ????? up there has your phone lines scrambled."   So to make a long story short.

 

I called the Attorney General of Missouri, who is now our governor, Jay Nixon.  I filled out all the paper work and he then called Missouri public communication

commmission,

 

There was a lot more to it.  But they did an investigation and  they caught him.  NOW, all they did was put him on early retirement.  I didn't receive all the money that I lost. 

 

But, excuse  me, But NO!! Thanks!!  to a public telephone that some good-old-boy can scramble and ruin my life.  

 

I wondered if it has anything to do with my being a woman.

March 5, 2009
Click to view KCRep's profile

Hi OCGirl and congrats on getting this blog!!

 

I'm not cutting out anything from my budget.  Since my budget consists of:

 

1) Food

2) Medicine for family member whose not insured.

3) Gas

4) Electricity

5) Water

6) Rent

7) Phone

8) Internet

9) Arrowhead

10 Time Warner

11 Verizon

12 Car Insurance

 

See, I don't have anything that I can cut out of my budget, except maybe for Verizon, but then that's more for my son than me anyway.

March 6, 2009
Click to view Rohan123's profile

My financial position is absolutely horrid...

Things that I sold to keep up.

1. Golf Clubs

2. Golf shoes.

3. etc...

These were so hard to get rid off....

I also needed to gather money for my wesbite http://getsportspartner.com and i probably will have to sell my golf partners equipment noe

March 6, 2009
Click to view hermosafish's profile

Fortunately, we have Keith Olbermann to point out that Rush Limbaugh did not accurately quote the preamble to the Constitution in his CPAC speech last weekend. I'm not sure what scam Olbermann imagined Rush was trying to put over on the American people by saying conservatives believed in the "preamble to the Constitution" and then quoting words from the Declaration of Independence -- but Olbermann put an end to that cruel deception!

 

These small-time opportunities to show off by correcting someone else's teeny-tiny mistakes are the lifeblood of Olbermann's MSNBC show, "Countdown." Olbermann is no more capable of not correcting Rep. Charlie Rangel when he said "inferred," but meant "implied," than an obsessive compulsive could pass a sink without washing his hands.

 

There is utterly no purpose to these lame "gotchas," except that Olbermann is so desperately insecure that he is willing to waste valuable airtime in order to convince other status-conscious idiots that he is, like, scary-smart.

 

Olbermann relentlessly attacked low-level Bush administration employee Monica Goodling for not going to a name-dropping college, saying -- approximately 1 million times -- that she got her law degree "by sending 100 box tops to Religious Lunatic University."

 

I would venture to say that the students at Goodling's law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school -- the land-grant, non-Ivy League school Keith attended.

 

I wouldn't mention it, except that Olbermann savages anyone who didn't go to an impressive college. As it happens, he didn't go to an impressive college, either.

 

If you've ever watched any three nights of his show, you know that Olbermann went to Cornell. But he always forgets to mention that he went to the school that offers classes in milking and bovine management.

 

Indeed, Keith is constantly lying about his nonexistent "Ivy League" education, boasting to Playboy magazine, for example: "My Ivy League education taught me how to cut corners, skim books and take an idea and write 15 pages on it, and also how to work all day at the Cornell radio station and never actually go to class."

 

Except Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.

 

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

 

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1 applicants).

 

Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."

 

Among the graduates of the Ivy League Cornell are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Wolfowitz, E.B. White, Sanford I. Weill, Floyd Abrams, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Ginsburg, Janet Reno, Henry Heimlich and Harold Bloom.

 

Graduates of the ag school include David LeNeveu of the Anaheim Ducks, Mitch Carefoot of the Phoenix RoadRunners, Darren Eliot, former professional hockey player, and Joe Nieuwendyk, multiple Stanley Cup winner.

 

One begins to understand why Harvard students threw a chicken on the ice during Cornell's famous rout of Harvard at a 1973 hockey game.

 

If you actually want to pursue a career related to agriculture, there is no better school than the Cornell ag school. I have nothing but admiration for the farmers and aspiring veterinarians at the ag school. They didn't go there just to have "Cornell" on their resumes.

 

In addition to the farmers, there are some smart kids who go to the ag school -- as there are at all state universities. But most people who majored in "communications" at an ag school don't act like Marshall Scholars or go around mocking graduates of Regent University Law School.

 

The sort of insecurity that would force you to always say "trebled" instead of "tripled" could only come from a communications major with massive status anxiety, like Keith. Without even looking it up, I am confident that Harvard, Yale and Princeton do not offer degrees in "communications." I know there is no "communications" major at the Ivy League Cornell.

 

"Communications" is a major, along with "recreation science," most commonly associated with linemen at USC. But at least the linemen can throw a football, which Keith cannot because his mother decided he was not physically robust enough to play outdoors as a child.

 

It may seem cruel to reveal the true college of someone who already wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worried that he's a fraud. But I believe that by pointing out that Olbermann actually is a fraud, I am liberating him.

 

You may not realize it now, Keith, but you will look back on this day and say, "That was the best thing that ever happened to me!"

 

Finally, you can stop pretending that you went to the hard-to-get-into Cornell.

 

Now you won't have to quickly change the subject whenever people idly remark that they didn't know it was possible to major in "communications" at an Ivy League school.

 

No longer will you have to aggressively bring up Cornell when it has nothing to do with the conversation.

 

Relax, Keith. Now you can let people like you for you.

March 6, 2009

Damn, I had to cut my bingo games.

March 6, 2009
Click to view michaelx's profile

I'm the same way, I don't have a land line. If I were only allowed to have one, I may actually give up my MacBook over my Blackberry.

March 6, 2009
Click to view rosehips's profile

I don't have a cell so I am definitely not addicted to that. I like leaving my landline behind when I go out the door. I did get a tracphone when I went on vacation, but my account expired before I used the 70 minutes up.

I cut out my beer habit at new years. I probably save $25/wk. And my head is so much clearer! My worst addiction is ireports. I don't know how to kick it. I can't avoid the internet and ireport notifications are always calling at me. Gnawing at me. Grrrrrrr. lol. I guess I just have to cave in, accept my flaws, and soldier on. I love ireports!

Congrats to OCgirl, one of my favorite ireporter friends!

March 6, 2009

rosehips, I didn't know tracphones expire before you use up minutes. wow.

March 6, 2009

I ended up getting my cell phone back after making a big mistake yesterday. I was supposed to meet some friends but there was a miscommunication and I ended up at the wrong restaurant. lol Because I didn't have a cell phone, I couldn't call them and ask where they were. Talk about embarrassing. lol I was going to do another video but I decided to just leave this message instead. I just turned off my phone, cut way back on my minutes and only use my phone for emergency. peace. :) Being without my cell phone was like being in another world. It was definitely quiet!

March 6, 2009
Click to view workAthome68's profile

I will not blame you, take that money and pay for food or other important bills

Thandi Zulu

March 9, 2009

Question, do you have two accounts?? OCGirl AND RobinS??? Did not know we could do that, if so.

March 11, 2009
Click to view rockymeet's profile
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