There’s a week left to go on my cell phone billing cycle and I’m within 60 minutes of blowing my allocated minutes. It really shouldn’t be a big deal, I mean it is a frickin hour, and the worst that happens is I get a huge bill. Still, the sense of dread is strong, as if I’m expecting T-mobile to dispatch a black limousine to “explain some new and exciting download tunes.”
On a couple of occasions I sat down with my historical phone bill(s) and calculated what the optimal plan should be for me. This is very tricky, but not surprising. If you think about it, you’re competing with some of the best acturarial minds. They purposely obfuscate this with peak minutes, nighttime, long-distance, roaming, mobile-to-mobile, holiday, left-handed blogger appreciation specials, etc. The conclusion I came to was I should aim for the plan that I’d exceed two months a year. Nighttime/off-peak minutes are useless, much like those “1,025 free hours on AOL.”
After this, I was feeling a little cocky and tried to calculate the optimal coverage level for health insurance for my family. Those actuaries’ Kung Fu is even better and my ass was promptly whupped.
Man I wish I was left handed so I could get that left handed blogger discount. What a rip.
I sneaked by with twelve minutes remaining. Thank the actuaries for free weekend minutes!