Going Off the Grid?

In difficult times, common sense should be our guide. Look at what you do each day and ask two things. What's the goal, what's the benefit. Simplify each task, simplify each with only the most essential and productive tasks.

Family budgets are the same. Spending sensibly should be the goal no matter what the environment but during times between jobs its more critical. The common sense part of reviewing spending is made tougher when your target is the household telephone. That great icon of the baby boom generation may now be a Smithsonian style relic.

Why you say? As time has gone on, everyone in our household has acquired a cell phone. As teenagers my children were told they could have a bare bones phone so we could get in tough with them if need be without having to bother other parents. friends of the children, etc. As they moved out of the house, they took the cell phones with them, combining the cell phones in to their new household.

My wife and I also got cell phones for emergency calls relating to aging parents. The result? A family of five with five different phones, none of them nailed to a wall or sitting on a side table.

The mobility - time issue is not the only benefit of these new phones. Miniaturization has taken the technology to a level of convenience unheard of in recent history. The sub compact car was such an inconvenience its use was limited to only a percentage of the total trips one takes in an average day. Gas mileage was a plus, insurance rates were not. Micro technology has made cell phones almost stealthy.

The time honored, time worn home phone of the fifties family has changed places with the cell phone. With a cellphone, its almost as if you can carry your communication household with you wherever you go. Its not multi-tasking anymore, it's everytasking. Everywhere, every time, anytime, all the time. Any phone limited by working at only one location is a relic. A souvenir of the past.

Getting rid of the home phone implies leaving our childhood behind, leaving familiarity in the dust. It took over a month to come to terms with cutting off our home phone number. What cost am I leaving out of the analysis? Who have I forgotten to notify. If I forget someone or come company, doctor, creditor, how will they call and "Hey, you forgot me+. My cell number isn't in the book. Did I remember to put the cell down as an alternative? Finally, you just say "DO IT".

Now its done. The monthly budget is one terminated bill better off. All is right with the world. It made so much sense. We will be fine. Now where is that converter box the TV guys kept yelling about.