The cellular service world is a prime candidate for a makeover; the limited unlimited plans and the prorating and charging for texts and calls you don't want are two examples of the shell game the companies play with their customers. While some carriers have come a long way in the last few years in clarifying their charges, most still have a long way to go.

For example, Verizon imposed prorating on me earlier this year when I switched from a 1,000-text-message plan to an unlimited one. Even though I was under the limit, the company billed me almost $40 for overages incurred because it had prorated my plan. When a carrier prorates a change you make they basically look at how long you've used the service that month, for example half of the month and then charge you half price and half the allowance you would have had. In my case Verizon cut the 1,000 messages to 500 and the charge to $2.50 but in doing so caused any messages already sent to be billed as overages. To complicate matters, even when you don't get billed in that matter, prorating makes your bill jump up because you are being billed for 1 month and a partial month as well.

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Or consider unlimited plans, which seem akin to a one trip, all you can eat buffet! My friends have horror stories about unexpected charges on supposedly unlimited plans, such as data plans with caps or overage charges on unlimited minutes and texting plans.

Another common complaint lodged against cell phone plans is that users are charged for calls and texts they receive, even if they don't want them. While users can simply choose to avoid a phone call, they have no such option with text messages. Instead, they are charged for the text messages, even spam messages, they receive. It's no wonder subscribers are upset when their cell phone bills contain overages.

Laundry has always been a chore I have a hate-hate relationship with. It seems that no sooner do I get a load out of the dryer that I'm doing the whole darn process all over! Not only do I seem to waste lots of time on laundry but I've found that we also waste a lot of room in washer loads which translates into wasted cash. We try to always run loads of laundry which are full but since we don't have a lot of space we kept all of our laundry in one hamper which made it difficult to figure out what we had the most of as opposed to what's easy to grab.

Last week we splurged on a $20 collapsible hamper with 3 compartments and I'll never look back! After only a week I can honestly say this is the best $20 I've spent on a household item for our apartment. The new hamper takes up only slightly more space than our old hamper but the way we do laundry is transformed. We no longer need to guess at how many towels lie hidden below our work clothes; each type of laundry has its own spot which is conveniently 1 load's worth of laundry.

I don't have any hard data from my experience to back up the savings yet but the cost of one load of laundry depending on utility costs and detergent ranges from $.60 to $1 so even if I only save one load a week I've paid of my hamper purchase in 2-3 electric bills. That doesn't even factor in the reduction in time spent sorting laundry or dealing with moving a half load through the entire laundry process which I can use to do other things like write posts like this one. Finally, since the basket is collapsible it takes up less space than our old one and I feel a sense of accomplishment from finishing a load!

I just finished reading an article on CNN about individuals who send out invites to their friends for a party without asking them to pay for any of it and then expecting the friends to go dutch when the bill comes. For a second I felt like I was reading a bad chain letter forwarded to me by a distant cousin; I almost went to Snopes to check and see if this was really happening to people. Are there still people who are either this aloof or this self centered out there that they would send out an invitation to dinner and not indicate on the invite that the attendees should expect to split the entire bill?

Don't get me wrong, if I am invited to a dinner party out on the town I have no problem footing my bill. I'll avoid high priced alcohol and stick to something from the middle range of the menu. When a host informs everyone at the end of the night that they should just split the bill 8 ways and I have to subsidize everyone else's filet mignon and alcohol induced stupor then that is a different beast entirely. Maybe it's just living in a relatively small Midwest town that I don't run into this, or possibly I just don't have the tolerance to put up with anyone who would pull this kind of stunt long enough to get a dinner invite!