Good news: the apartment people called and I get the apartment! Yeah! But I can’t move into the other one as that one was rented the day before I got there. Darn! The next solution to find:

How do you choose which telephone/cable/internet packages to go with???

I have to pay around $35 a month for sewer/water/garbage to the complex on top of my rent. The property manager said for a unit my size he has never seen it go over $37 a month for those three. I budgeted $40.

The manager said natural gas and electricity should be around $100 a month. Gas item is only the water heater and should run about $25 or less a month. Everything else is electric. So, if I continue to keep things around 68 degrees and use layers and the occasional electric lap blanket and dry most of my washables (excluding sheets and towels as I hate scratchy sheets and towels) by air dry and hanging I should be able to keep both under $100. My goal is $75 for the two. The apartment is 700 square feet, surrounded on all but the front wall with other apartments so I don’t think it will be hard. Unfortunately for the winter I am in the back of a building so I get no direct sunlight into the apartment but for summer this should be good as it will keep the apartment cooler, I think?

I am trying to determine if I need to have a land line or if my cell will get enough reception in the apartment to not need it. I’d like to save money and only get cable and internet if I could but I am not sure of the signal strength in the apartment. Talking to the office staff, three of them live at the complex and have only cells phones and have no problems so that is a comfort. I think I am going to try to be cell phone only at this apartment as well for the time being. It will save me some money.

I am looking at bundling the cable/internet/land line into one product. Do I have to have a landline to get internet services? Can I get internet through the cable wires and still have it be wireless through out the house? I won’t have a TV or cable in my bedroom but I would like to be able to use my laptop or netbook in my bedroom and watch a movie if I want online.

How can you tell which is a better service: 1.5 mbs or 12 mbs? Is it worth paying $30 more for the second service over the other? How about $5 or $10 to increase it up to 6?

Is there anyone out there will to give me questions to ask as I begin to look for these packages? I have never had cable/phone/internet at any place I lived that I had to set up other than dial up internet about 15 years ago and have always been cell phone only.

What should I be looking for speed wise to be able to down load and watch movies and TV shows from places like Netflix?

Ugh…I knew this was going to be a learning curve but really do they have to make it soooo confusing? The people I spoke with were really confusing me yesterday when I called to compare some different plans and get information.