Update XXI: "Scientific Facts Are Not Hard And Fast Rules."

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Everything you just said is correct, and I know how hard it could be. Just remember what someone said pages back. It takes quite awhile to break an addiction (20 days?). I gave up Coke for Lent two years ago when I drank it all the time. Now I can effectively manage it to about two a week.

I know you can do it too if you can withhold cheat days on that (Sunday exceptions were not used by me). Breaking a habit is hard, but it requires focus. It's probably much harder for you with the lack of an obvious alternative, but have you tried anything else? Even stuff like iced tea is marginally better. What about Coke Zero? Switch that in for water now and then. (I presume that's not too bad. Haven't heard much about it.)

The first step in breaking an addiction is admitting there is an addiction.

So are you ready to try my soda challenge? No soda period on Mondays. Only water.

Yes. No more soda on Mondays. He may have the occasional Sunkist or Root Beer, but no more Coke products!

And Memorial Day is a cheat. Labor Day too. You can't expect him to not cheat on Columbus Day either, can you? He refuses, that is, flat out refuses to limit his enjoyment of the Columbus Day holiday.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I've had a life insurance policy since 2005.  It's a pretty big one, too.

Yes, we already know how fond you are of making incredibly bad decisions.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I had a busy afternoon today.  I left at 1220 and took a drive and found the new store that I'll be working at.  I had not been by there before.  Then, I used one of my cheat meals and ate at the Chili's in Owasso.  Then, I went to an existing store in Bixby and looked around.  It is a relatively small store, but it has a lot in it.  I took a look at the meat section and looked behind the counter to get an idea of what I'll be looking at.  Then, I went and upgraded my cell phone as it was due.  I was gone a total of 5 hours.

What kind of phone did you get? Are you on a family plan with your parents?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I had a busy afternoon today.  I left at 1220 and took a drive and found the new store that I'll be working at.  I had not been by there before.  Then, I used one of my cheat meals and ate at the Chili's in Owasso.  Then, I went to an existing store in Bixby and looked around.  It is a relatively small store, but it has a lot in it.  I took a look at the meat section and looked behind the counter to get an idea of what I'll be looking at.  Then, I went and upgraded my cell phone as it was due.  I was gone a total of 5 hours.

What kind of phone did you get? Are you on a family plan with your parents?

I upgraded from an iPhone 5S to a iPhone 6+.  No, I'm on my own separate plan with a different carrier.

Wait, what? You are unemployed and yet you purchased the most expensive and trendiest cell phone currently on the market? It's $299 on a two-year contract, plus tax. And your previous phone, the iPhone 5S, isn't even two years old. Apple still sells it. People still buy it. There's no way it was "due" for replacement.

You have no job and yet you think you should be replacing your phone more frequently than the two-year standard? You should not be splurging on ridiculous luxuries that you obviously do not need.

I can't even. I can't even so hard.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Your bill won't go up because you already have one of the scamtastic installation deals already built in. If you didn't upgrade, your bill would go down substantially. It's like you enjoy being scammed.

Nonsense.  You're full of hot air.

That's literally how it works: When you picked out your iPhone 5S, you agreed to make 24 payments of $27.03 on top of your standard phone service charge — the full cost of the phone. After using the phone for a year and paying $300+ for it, you surrendered it back to Sprint. They gave you $0 to surrender it, meaning you lost the $300+ you (your dad) paid in exchange for not having to keep making payments on it.

Now, you've chosen the iPhone 6 Plus, which is a $100 more expensive phone than the 5S. You also had to buy accessories for it, further increasing the cost. You will now pay 24 payments of $31.25. It's a more expensive phone, your payment HAS to increase.

Instead of opting to hold on to a perfectly good phone for a while, you've decided to increase your net debt by $400 and spend a whole bunch of extra cash on accessories. Good job.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

How do you upgrade your phone each year? AT&T only lets me get a new phone every two years.

You're on a 2-year contract where you get a subsidy on new phones. Bushie is on a lease plan where he pays full price, with payments tacked on to his monthly Bill. He can pick out a new phone after a year and stop making payments on the old phone. But he effectively loses all the money he paid, plus he no longer has the old phone. It's a cycle of permanent indebtedness to Sprint.

He is essentially paying $375 a year to rent a phone instead of $750 every two years to buy one, simply because he cannot bear to be without the fanciest, most expensive smartphone possible. While unemployed.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

oh my god Bushie pays over $100 per month for phone service and his plan has minutes

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

First off, I have Sprint, who I believe is the best cell phone carrier in America on account of continued unlimited data which I have.

Just for the record, Sprint is in fifth place, quality-wise, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can check out how good each carrier's coverage is in your area by putting your city or zip code into opensignal.com. AT&T is ranked first, Verizon second, T-Mobile third, U.S. Cellular fourth and finally comes Sprint. But hey, at least Sprint does better than the Connie and Jack plan over at Consumer Cellular.

If you just bought a new iPhone, you should have gotten the $50 Unlimited plan at Sprint. It does come with unlimited minutes, so IDK where all this minutes nonsense is coming from like it's 2006 or something.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

also, lol, corporate worship

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

OK I don't know how much data your parents have/use, but AT&T offers $40 per smartphone on a shared data plan and $40 for 3GB. I don't see Bushie's parents being huge data users either so 1GB per each is probably enough. That'd be only a bit over $53/month split up. And even for 6GB (and thus 2GB per phone), that'd be $70, so about $63/month. And significantly better coverage based that site linked as well.

That iPhone plan Bushie got is actually a pretty good deal so far as individual (non-family) plans go. I just think it's really wasteful and a bad idea for someone to lease a new phone every year and renew a very expensive two-year commitment, especially when they're unable to keep a steady job. I also think Sprint is terrible in general, but there are easily more expensive plans out there that Papa could be paying for.

Unfortunately, I don't think our dear Bushie will be going on his parents' family plan. He is an independent adult now, you see, and to prove it his dad needs to pay more for this individual plan. Just like how he needs his own place with his own super deluxe cable package. And the super nice iPhone is pretty good too, I guess.

It is The Bushie Freedom Tax that Papa must pay to keep the 33 year old boy out of the train room.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Damn, cell phone plans seem expensive in the US. I pay about $30/month for unlimited calls and texts, 10 GBs of data at high speed and then unlimited at low speed. That doesn't include one of those scams to make you overpay for a phone though, that I had to get separately. But still.

And even $30 is rather high (here at least). But yeah, the US seems to be extremely expensive.

Data speeds in the United States tend to be slower than in Europe and Asia, while simultaneously being more expensive. It's a consequence of trying to jam what should clearly be a public utility into a private enterprise box run by one or two corporate behemoths.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

In Europe, cell phone providers are required to make service available to a set percentage of the country (in the U.K., it's 98% I think). Here in the U.S., carriers can focus their efforts only on areas with high population density or low participation by other carriers. This leads to less direct competition, which means higher prices. Do you really have a choice in cell carriers if Verizon is the only one that doesn't drop your calls every 2 minutes? Is T-Mobile a real option for you if your phone can only connect to a 3G data network when you use it?

European carriers also required to sell access to their infrastructure to smaller competitors at fairly negotiated rates. In that way, a smaller competitor doesn't need to build its own multi-billion dollar infrastructure to start up business -- it merely needs to pay fair market rate for access to the infrastructure that's already built. (This is how land line service works in the U.S., but not mobile service.)

In short, government regulation in Europe leads to more private companies with more competition between them. Things are more expensive in the U.S. because cell phone service and data is not regulated as a utility.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

They are literally all over New Jersey and I've seen a good amount in PA as you head north. They can't possibly be that uncommon.

I am from New Jersey. They are not "literally all over New Jersey." I can't say I've ever seen more than one or two here in my entire lifetime.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Oh, well. Sure. South Jersey.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Ugh, no, these burgers don't look appealing at all. They'd finish Bushie off for good.