Going to throw some numbers at you. I pay $50 a month for Internet service at my condo. That comes to $600 a year. I’ve been in my condo for 13 years now, so that means I’ve paid $7,800 for internet services at condo. That’s a nice chunk of money. When looking at those numbers, my mind asks the question, “What could I have spent that money on?” Well, I could have used that money and gone to Spain with Earl and Bonnie, or down to Mexico with Paul or a weekend in Webster, preferably in April or May, or bought more unnecessary camera gear. Actually, all the above may be the real answer plus a new underwear.
Most of you know I patronize local coffeehouses somewhere between 5-6 days a week. Yes, meetings would probably help. However, all of these coffeehouses provide free Internet. Six of these coffeehouses are within walking distance of my condo or quick bicycle ride. I’m a mobile person who carries along a camera, a Samsung tablet and a smart phone. I also have a 13″ laptop that is easy to carry. There is no reason I can’t just work off line then go for coffee or lunch and upload a post, check email, read my favorite blogs. So, I decided to eliminate my internet at home. It will require some adjustments such as working off line at home and better planning. We’ll see how it goes.
It’s also a sad day as I offer prayers for the families of the passengers on another Malaysian aircraft going down. đ I do hope everyone has a good weekend.
4 Comments
Earl
Monte, a bold decision my friend. While Bonnie and I as of late have been cutting or reducing services and costs as much as possible we haven’t discussed reducing or eliminating our Internet. Of course we don’t live a walk or bike ride from shops with free Internet so our situation is different than yours. Good luck with this effort…and I hope your keeping track where this $50/mth savings is going. Spain the way we did it was actually pretty inexpensive…less then most trips to Disney World. đ
Monte Stevens
Yes, some would struggle making that decision and I may regret it. While I lived in Denver for that year of flying for Frontier I went without it. I just had to adjust.
I read something the other day by David Duchemin saying how we dream of taking trips but do not save for them. Saving for them does require us to sacrifice something. For me that could mean fewer lattes. You are also spot on with how we travel. Some of my most enjoyable trips have been camping and staying in hostels. We can really connect with the place that way.
I’ll keep you informed.
Tom Dills
This is an interesting discussion, Monte. Kathy & I were just talking about this recently. The âintroductory rateâ just expired on our internet plan and the new payment amount is now more than both our gas bill and our electric bill (separately, not combined!). Pretty pricey for something that doesnât really cost the provider anything to provide other than running a cable, as opposed to gas or electricity where they actually have to produce something. And weâre only paying for internet, not TV!
In our case, weâre thinking about finding a way to decrease the total cost of our âtechnologyâ that sneaks in and tends to eat away at the budget. The total we pay for our phones is outrageous, but we rationalize that thatâs the cost of being âconnectedâ during the day when we donât have reliable internet access. We donât have coffee shops to go to for internet, unless you want to count McDâs (I donât!), so once we are spending more time at home I suspect that home internet will be a priority and it might make sense to downgrade to regular phone-phones and give up the fancy expensive ones. Hard to say. But when we add of the cost of internet access, cell phones, various news and music services, the amount we pay is astounding and cutting some of that back would make a pretty nice addition to the photography and travel budgets.
Iâll be interested to see how your plan goes, and wish you luck!
Cedric Canard
This is interesting Monte and I’ll be interested to hear how you go. While I was in the States I didn’t use the Internet but my kids had no trouble connecting everywhere we went (unless we were out hiking and then the Internet was the last thing on their minds). This ease of connecting in the US is something I found quite amazing and had me wondering if I would bother having the Internet at home if my city was so well connected. I don’t know. The thing is I don’t miss the Internet when I don’t have it but I enjoy it when I do though I only use it when I have a specific task in mind. I don’t remember the last time I “surfed” the Internet.
Anyway, it’s early Sunday morning over here and your photo has me hankering for a coffee đ