Serendipity
I've been needing to get a different cell phone plan. My prepaid phone used to be a good fit since I rarely used it and $20 worth of minutes would last me more a month. Lately I've been spending $50 or more a month on minutes even though I've tried really hard to keep my minute usage down. Friends and family just don't understand why I can't spend time talking on the phone. I guess everyone else has unlimited talk time these days so they don't think about that sort of thing. Then there are the work related calls that I've tried to divert to email, but unfortunately my coworkers are not very good at email. It's not using email that is the problem, but it's their inability to compose coherent and meaningful sentences. My coworkers are not stupid and we communicate just fine over the phone, but writing skills are not a requirement for this job and I doubt that using email is ever going to work well. Now add in the fact that I'll be calling to check on my mom every single day since the rest of the family isn't going to bother to let me know when she's sick or in the hospital and I'm looking at a ridiculous amount of money each month.

Last week I had checked on a good deal I heard about for an unlimited plan with no contract, just month-to-month, but I had to buy a new phone to get it. The cost of even the cheapest phone pretty much killed that idea, but that was last week. Given the current circumstances, I decided this morning that I would just have to spend the money on a phone because it was going to be much cheaper in the long run. That's when I discovered I could now get a refurbished phone for $10 and the first month of service free (this was not an option last week.) Total upfront cost was less than I'd spend on another minute pack for my existing phone and the new phone will arrive just about the time I'd need to buy another minute pack for the old one. Perfect timing. I love it when stuff like this happens.