Monthly Fees

I'm no Suzie Orman (thank goodness or our kids would have two moms and zero dads) but here's some advice from a guy most of you don't know from Jeremiah Johnson: if at all possible avoid services that charge an ongoing monthly fee.
As an example, I just read an add in this morning's paper for a GPS service that STARTS at ONLY $14.99 a month. Let's just call that $15 a month and multiply it by 12. That's a service you may or may not be able to live without that STARTS at $180 per year. If your annual income is $30,000, you've just committed .6% of it for a service who claims they can locate you in the unlikely event you fall down a well or get lost inside Mega-Low Mart shopping for widgets. Maybe you need their service and maybe you don't, but one thing's for sure: they want you to THINK you need it and their goal is lock your hind-end into a potential life long monthly income stream (for them) if they can.

This is just an example and although I'm only using it as one, the point is, consider trying to avoid as many of the myriad services that you possibly can who want to lock you into a monthly fee that STARTS at ONLY blah blah blah blah blah. I'm thinking if we cancelled only half the monthly service fees we currently pay, I bet we could afford at least one more dog. That is, until the first time we took it to All-Vets and gave them a chance to perform all the services on our brand new dog that they "recommend" we run. Dang it, now that I think about it, they're going to get our money one way or the other!
On this and other money matters, I'll keep you posted....

PS. Currently, there is no monthly service fee for participating in "Old and Ridiculous". In the interest of full disclosure, however, a rumor has recently surfaced that Tim Cook and the fine folks at APPLE are interested in purchasing the rights for an undisclosed 3 figure amount. I'll keep you posted as things develop...