With all of the snow we’ve had recently, I’ve never been happier about a money-saving decision I made back in December.  Just before Christmas is when I cancelled my subscription to the local newspaper.  I’m a classic kind of girl and I love reading the physical newspaper.  I love the feel of it.  I love the smell of it.  I love the way it transports me back to a simpler time, when this was the way people learned what was happening in the world.  So why did I give it up?  It was not as much about money as frustration.  My house is apparently at the very end of the route of a newspaper carrier who has timeliness issues.  The paper’s policy is that home-delivered papers should arrive no later than 6:30 am on weekdays and 8:30 on weekends.  But I was lucky if my weekend papers arrived before 9:30.  And the weekday delivery is what ultimately drove me to cancel.  I generally leave for work at about 7:45 am, and after full week of the paper not arriving before I had to leave for work, I’d had enough.  I just don’t want to read the morning newspaper at 7 pm, which is what was happening.  I’d had enough and I canceled.

But I still read the morning news (and still from the Centre Daily Times—I’m a small town girl at heart).  I just read it online.  My online subscription costs me about $10 a month less than the physical media.  I get the news when I want to read it.  I don’t see ads.  I now get a much better selection of comics from the Washington Post online (you can get a free online subscription with your .edu email address!).  And the best part….I don’t have to walk out into my snowy driveway to retrieve it!

I’m much happier because the frustration of delivery timing has been eliminated from my life.  And I’m much happier because I’m saving $120 per year.  Were it not for the tardy carrier, I likely wouldn’t have made this decision.  I should probably send him a thank you card.