Rou

Every time I look at my phone bill, I know it’s true.

Simple pricing is what I want. One price, and the cost of any long distance calls I make. It’s simple. When you advertise something like $29.99/month and $.05 nights and weekends, the bill should be simple math to figure out. But it’s not. The fine print is those ads don’t include taxes and fees. They add up quickly.

Line charges, connectivity charges, and a handful of little taxes quickly tack another $10 to it.

Honestly, it drives me up a wall every time I actually take the time to read the bill. I usually just look at the amount owed and write the check. I know that’s dangerous, but I figure as long as the amount is consistent with previous bill, it’s better for my anger management to avoid the details too much. Or at the very least skim past it to just look at the call charges.

It’s not just the phone bill. My cable bill has a couple of them on there too. Power. Gas. All the same. Little tiny addendum to the bill. Fine print they never mention when they’re selling the service to you. All the sudden you turn around and notice that a bunch of the monthly bill money has vanished into the fine print.

It’s easy to phase it out or ignore it as a couple cents here and there, but if you ever step back and examine the mass of these fees, it’s enough to really drive you batty.

So, lesson for the day, don’t spend too much time examining your records in Money or Quicken. Sometimes it’s better to be blissfully ignorant. Especially when I start looking at how much of my income vanishes down a black hole called social security.