So, AT&T Broadband is evil. I really hate this company. We used to have stupid Cablevision and I hated them too. Then AT&T bought them out. Anyway, since then we moved to Charlestown and our only option for internet access was AT&T Broadband, so we got it. It was going to be $39.99/month. Well, too bad we recently got a letter from them saying they are raising their rate to $60.00! That's quite a jump, you evil bastards, especially when you have a monopoly on Charlestown. Isn't this illegal or something? Anyway, so they are offering a "special deal" that if we get their stupid cable TV service, the combo of the two will "only" cost $53. Great. I don't want your crummy cable TV you bastards, I have satellite because I hate you! So I call them and say pretty much this: "I'm calling because I got a letter saying my bill was going to go up to $60 a month - which is really crappy - unless I get cable so I'm calling to order cable. But I don't want you to actually come to my house and set up a cable box because I'm not going to use it, I just want you to turn it on." So their answer is that they don't need someone to come into my house, but they have to send someone by because they're going to put in a filter or whatever. Well, too bad that our satellite dish is using a coax cable from the cable company's feed outside, so if they do that it will screw up our satellite signal and we won't be able to get it in the house. But they won't sign us up for stupid crappy cable without an appointment to send a guy out. It makes me insane! Why does everyone have to be so goddamn evil? Just leave me alone! I'm broke! Stop raping me! ARGH!  10:05:05 PM    

Anyway, the last week or so has consisted of much agonizing over money. Since Rob is still out of work, we have been trying to figure out what to do. Our original plan was just to live as cheaply as we could, petering out small amounts of money from our savings a couple of times a month and living off that and my salary and the money Rob gets from his very part-time job. But then Rob had a brilliant idea - that we should use this chance when we actually have money saved up (a rare occurance) to pay some stuff off... then this will reduce our monthly payments/expenses too and hopefully mean we don't need as much (or any) savings to draw from.

So I've been running the numbers over and over. We have both called our respective parents and begged for money. Nobody really has any saved up, but mine are able to give us a set amount per month while we need it. That's great because it will be enough to cover one of our large monthly payments. Then we are still debating whether we should pay off the car then sell it, or pay off a smaller debt and still be left with the expense of the car but also with some savings.

Of course, the pluses to selling the car are:

1. It would eliminate not only our car payment, but also our insurance payment and expenses like gas and oil changes and any maintenance needed
2. Although it's a large layout of cash initially, at least when we sell it we will get money back and then can use that to pay something else off... ie: at least it is something of value that we're selling, not just a loan that won't "pay us back" at all.
3. We live in a city and shouldn't have a car anyway

But also, there are some negatives:

1. We really would miss it for the things we use it for - like driving to places in the suburbs that are sometimes more convenient than things in the city - ie: large grocery stores. Without the car we'd be stuck getting all our groceries at the local place, which is a Johnnie's Foodmaster... and while I have a special place in my heart for Johnnie's that goes back to my days on Dimick Street in Somerville, it certainly doesn't have the selection of a Super Stop and Shop or a Shaw's.
2. We would have to use all our savings and then some to pay it off... so we'd be really broke until we could sell it.
3. Rob's a little worried that, even though he really wants to find a job in the city, he'd find one outside the city and wouldn't have a car for the commute so we'd need to buy another car... the only upside to this is we'd buy a much cheaper one and anyway I guess we wouldn't care if he were going to be employed.

But as of right now I think we're still leaning towards selling it. It's the only thing that would reduce our expenses enough to mean we could really get by on our other income without taking more drastic measures (like turning off services like our home phone or both our cell phones or internet access or something). We'll see. Anyway, that's what we've been up to.

Right now I'm very tired and going to bed but I think I probably have some funny Billy stories that I'm supposed to be posting. Oh, and here is a link to some photos from our trip. It's not nearly all of them yet and we might move them to a different server so if the link stops working, that's why. Also, here is a video of Heather. We were each going to make a little video and try to post it while we were down there but we were always so tired at night that we couldn't manage to do it. Hers are better than mine because I never have much to say and always end up yelling at Rob to turn off the camera. But if we get any of those up I'll link to them anyway.

Goodnight.  1:27:00 AM