Non-baby post ahead . . .
Yes, we are still in a recession. Many people are struggling to find jobs in a tough job market and the stock market is still a roller coaster, though going downhill over the last few days. Jobs are available, but it seems that there are an extreme number of applicants for every one. Unemployment is still high, budgets are being cut in all sectors of life and people are definitely still "tightening their belts," for lack of a better phrase.
I guess it's just a product of the times and all, but I'm sick of everything else going up in price. Our car insurance jumped $80 over the last 6 months. We only pay it every 6 months, so that's an increase of $13.33 per month. Maybe that's not a lot, but it's enough that it makes me mad. When I called to complain and find out why, the only explanation anyone could offer was that it was due to a "routine rate increase in our area." We looked into switching providers, but in talking to other people to find out what they pay, we felt like we were just as well to stay put.
Our health insurance is going up. Not only are we adding Molly to it (no, I'm not complaining about that), but our district is still negotiating how much it will increase (up to $130 per month last I heard - that's before we add Molly) the insurance premiums to cover budget shortfalls for next school year. I guess I should be happy that I am still confidently employed, right?
Even our water/sewer bill went up last month by a couple of bucks.
Grrrrrrr . . . Granger-Hunter Improvement District.
So, what was the final straw for this ranting post . . . Cable Television. Since moving into our home 3 years ago, we've been subscribers to
Comcast for both "limited basic" cable and
internet. It's been fine. Our bill has increased a couple of times by a couple of bucks, but our service hasn't changed. So what's wrong? Due to
Comcast's "digital migration" we now have local channels, the history channel, and the discovery channel . . . that's it. We don't watch a ton of
tv at our house, but I do occasionally like to watch TLC, the food channel, and the home and garden channel. No more. What makes me mad is that we are now paying good money for channels that technically all we should have to do is purchase a
tv for. What cable are we actually getting? Two or three channels? I don't like that idea. To get our old channels back we have to pay $12 more per month and get a "free" box and hook it up to our tv's. The bummer is that if we bought a regular digital box and got rid of the cable, the picture would probably not be as good AND we still have to pay for
internet, so we're stuck. If we got rid of
Comcast and found another
internet provider, we'd likely continue to pay what we are paying now anyway.
Grrrrr. It just makes me mad.
Oh well. I'm done now. At least the television isn't spewing up millions of gallons of oil into our living room and causing an environmental disaster. There are worse things, I guess.
