Don't Suck At Prioritizing Bills

I recently read an article on Yahoo! about the the growing number of people who were giving up their high priced cell phones, or cell phone in it's entirety, in an effort to reduce their costs and stay under budget.  While the article itself was interesting and the unholy of idea of living without a cellphone in today's world seems almost blasphemous, I like people who are willing to sacrifice what so few of us could never live without.

 But the troubling part of the article and actual idea behind this particular blog post are the 3rd and 4th paragraphs from the end.

"But after his cable bill rose this year, Mr. Miranda had to prioritize, so he stopped paying the phone bill.

One recent morning he was sitting on a bench in Brooklyn waiting for a cellphone store to open, hoping to sign up for a government program that subsidizes cellphones for low-income people."

Am I the only one who has a problem with that first sentence?  If you have cable but can't afford a cell phone, it's time to let go of cable.  Cable TV is such a scam.  Paying $40 a month for channels when most of the big networks are on free antenna TV is ridiculous.  A phone should be higher priority for an older individual.  It's a life line to the world around you.  You might want to call your family,  your friends, emergency help, your doctor or even order a pizza and you can't do that with cable TV.

I don't know who Mr. Miranda is but he certainly isn't very good at prioritizing.  I fear that he is not unlike millions of other Americans who are brainwashed to think we can't live without TV.  And because he can't give up his precious TV, he asks for a handout from the government. 

In the second sentence I quoted above, Mr. Miranda hopes to take advantage of a government program subsidizing cell phone for low-income people.  I really take issue with this because programs like these shouldn't go to people who choose TV over phones, or other actual necessities.  This is why American is in the dumps. People aren't willing to work for something, or to sacrifice.  Millions of Americans have gone soft and are content to live a life of nothing because they can.

The I-want-it-now and the I-deserve-better attitude are what's killing a lot of budgets.  People need to realize it's your responsibility to take care of you and your own, not the government's and certainly not mine.

Priorities; these people probably don't have them.