The Hustle of Sistah Ant

I called myself saving money by calling my cell phone company and getting rid of my text messaging package and the insurance on my phone.  The way I figured it was that I’d been paying for insurance for over a year now.  Add that to the deductible I’d have to pay to replace my phone with the same model, probably refurbished (because you know they only seem to make handsets for maybe three months before they’re obsolete already), and there you have it -  I would be paying too much for an obsolete phone, where for the same amount, I could’ve just gotten a new phone, with Blu_tooth, which I wanted but didn’t have.  I figured that I would cancel the insurance and buy a little cheap phone on the ‘net to serve as a backup phone in case something ever happened to my primary handset - I could take the memory chip out and just put it in the already-paid-for backup phone to give me some time to save or budget enough money to buy another nice phone.  I figured that a $20 or $30 backup phone plus a new phone is cheaper than paying insurance every month for years just to have to pay a deductible for an old phone or buy a new phone anyway.  I cancelled the text messaging plan while I was at it, because I hardly even send that many text messages - I just didn’t like feeling constricted by not having a plan.  Not bright.  My mantra is every little bit helps.  So I called the company and got rid of both.

Fast forward not even two weeks later.  I was sitting on the couch and my boyfriend came in.  I jumped up to give him a big bear hug, and as I got up from the couch, the phone slipped off the couch… into a glass of water that I had on the floor right in front of the couch, right in the path of the phone’s descent.  Plop!  (It actually made that sound.)  Damn. 

I tried to save it by drying it out in some rice overnight (something my boyfriend read somewhere about drying out electronics), but although the power works, the keypad and buttons died as a casualty of what I’ll call the not-quite death-defying leap into a glass of water.

I need my cell phone.  I’m on leave from work this week, but they could call me at any time with questions.  I didn’t get my backup handset yet like I’d planned.  And if I go anywhere driving, I want my phone with me for safety.  By the way - I don’t have a landline - don’t need one, and I don’t want to pay for one.  So there I was, in the store, looking for a new handset.  It stung and smarted, too, because I really, really liked my old cell phone.  Matter of fact, it’s sitting in rice right now in my hopes that the keypad and stuff will somehow recuperate so it can be a backup.  I wound up getting a new version of the same phone I had.  There is no insurance on my new phone.  The way I see it, the insurance is a waste.  Even if I still had it, I couldn’t have received the same phone I have - they don’t sell it anymore.  I still would’ve been out for the $50 deductible and approximately $100 I’ve already spent on insurance.   I would’ve had to haggle with the insurer (which isn’t fun - I know ‘cause I’ve done it too many time before I stopped getting flip-top phones) to get some phone I wouldn’t have wanted anyway.  Either that, or do what I wound up doing - get a new phone at full price.

Total damage: $246.08 for the phone and a car charger.  That’s $246.08 that I can’t save or use to pay off old credit card debt.  That’s $246.08 that I owe AMEX.  Plus the $100 in cancelled insurance policy payments over the past year and change, for nothing. For the record I’m paying it by the end of this month, and it’ll make those particular two weeks $246.08 tighter.  This comes out of my paycheck, not my emergency fund.  Which means I won’t be putting extra down on my debt balance like I’d planned.  Drat.

I’m going to be really really careful between now and when my backup gets here.  This time, I’m getting a backup.