Soon I will be moving to a larger apartment with a higher rent. The bathtub, ceiling fan and bedroom with a door all make the additional money worthwhile but I have had to think of how to adjust my spending to make this workable.
The first solution was easy. I use Netflix and hate myself for doing it--especially since I can get everything I want to see from the library and Scarecrow Video, the Elliott Bay Book Company of the rent-a-movie world. So there's an easy 13 dollars shaved off my rent right away--but there's another 88 to go...
And this is almost exactly what I pay every month for phone and wifi. This was a much more difficult decision to make, but I'm going to let it go. The landline I use was simply because of my mother; she couldn't hear me when I talked to her on a cellphone. I make few phone calls; a burner with a 15 dollar phone card works just fine for me.
Wifi is the killer. I'm addicted to it. But like many writers, I've found that addiction cuts into my writing time. All over this city libraries are equipped with wifi that I can use for free. I won't have Facebook with my morning coffee, but I can get my morning writing back; I lost it during my mourning period and then inertia set in. It's time to restore that habit and no wifi at home is the way to do it.
I can write, then go to the library and put what I want on the Internet, check my email, spend time on Facebook, and then move on. As a Seattle taxpayer, through sales tax and liquor taxes, I pay for this and never use it. It's time to start.
When I lived in Penang, I didn't have wifi in my highrise apartment, but if I went to the pool area on the 5th floor, there was Penang free wifi. I survived--and what's more, I got a lot of work done, as I will here. And I have a wide selection of workspaces, all over the city--I look forward to using them all.
Goodbye, CenturyLink. Goodbye, Netflix. Hello, a cleaner, more productive way of living. Or maybe not--my apartment has free cable TV and I have the capability of becoming a newsjunkie with no problem at all. If BBC is one of the options, all bets are off on that productivity thing...
2 comments:
Good move. Maybe I should try something like this when we move. I also waste far too much time. Also, I'm constantly worried about what my children watch on the Internet (not to mention their productivity - it's so easy to pretend to be doing HW and to actually have several screens open, and to switch from singing videos to HW when Mum comes to check). I cannot be on their back constantly. But with today's needs for homework research, I'm not sure how that would work. But you are inspiring me to look into the matter seriously.
I'll write to you soon, Katia. This is a conversation--
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