Robert A. Sloan

A couple of days ago, a good friend of mine from online texted me and we talked about why I have not been online for months - pretty much all of 2013 and for some time before that my participation dropped in all the areas where I'm active. The problem is financial. I had to cut back my Internet service from the $80 a month I spent to have enough bandwidth for my real usage to the shorter time on the $50 a month two year contract I had with Verizon. I told my friend I'd be back in August when that contract's over, since I intended to get a cheaper service with unlimited usage even if it was slower.

She totally blew me away. She bought me AT&T U-verse and Thursday is the start date for my new service. Wednesday is when UPS delivers my hardware to self-install. This is going to be fantastic. I can end my isolation and go back to living online.

I'm mostly shut-in. I go out to the hospital every two weeks to get my shot from a nurse and I go out every Monday afternoon to see my therapist, that's about it. Three days a week, home care workers come in to clean my room, help me bathe and cook some food for me. Without hanging out online I was way too isolated and when SSI started taking more out of my check for money I'd earned before, I went below a level where I could cover necessities like the Internet. I tightened my belt and I stopped entire online activities like Facebook or forums or blogging cold turkey. It was the only way I could cut back that actually worked. It would cost more if I went over my usage than if I'd paid that $30 more than my contract to get 10 gig rather than 5 gig. I limited it to personal chats with a very short list of close intimates and even stopped doing email for months because it was too depressing (and used up too much bandwidth with all the things I read in email.)

Next step - when the new service is installed I'll contact Verizon and see if there's a fee for early termination. Hopefully it's cheaper than just paying the bill for the last couple of months would be. I could be eating better in June. Yes, it's gotten that tight to where I had days of not eating - but my cat still has food and good food. My priorities are solid and his hairball formula comes in big bags for economy. I'm so glad he prefers dry food.