Back when I was in high school, every boy was supposed to take at least one year of Shop (and every girl was supposed to take a year of Home Ec).

I didn’t want to take Shop; I never played with tools as a kid and didn’t see any reason to start. I convinced the administration that it would be just fine for me to use that period for the Literary Magazine (most people on staff used their Study Hall period for that purpose) – I got away with a lot of things back then.

Boy, was I dumb!

Over the years, I’ve learned some of the basics of home maintenance when I had to – but I’m still not comfortable with tools and am always worried when I have to deal with electricity, and I wind up calling in contractors for projects that I feel I should be able to do myself.

It’s frustrating. And expensive.

I guess it’s too late to tell high school me to develop some manual skills, not just academic ones!

I recently switched my mobile phone from T-Mobile to Google Fi. The main reason I changed was for the better international service – T-Mobile gave me free 2G service internationally, while Google Fi gave me full-speed service at the same price I paid at home ($10/GB, capped at $60 for up to 15GB). Having full-speed data was worth paying a little money!

And it’s worked out well – I could use my phone in Europe and Asia as if I’d been at home, with great coverage, good speed, and no worries.

Every month, whether I traveled or not, I found myself using just under 6GB – so I was paying almost as much as possible while not taking advantage of the free data above 6GB. This seemed silly, but, unless I wanted to use data for no good reason, what could I do?

Last month, I decided to try something different. I’d already started using Apple’s Screen Time feature to add a little resistance to spending a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter; now, I decided to try not to idly pick up my phone while I was out and about, at least not without WiFi.

And at the end of the month, I had used 0.88 GB, for a data bill of $8.80 instead of the usual $57. I didn’t feel particularly deprived, and it was kinda pleasant to look at the world instead of my screen!

I don’t think every month will end up under a gigabyte, but having that tiny incentive to stay off the phone seems like a good idea.