I've been shopping

Today I have signed up with optus for a capped plan of $49 a month which entitles me to $300 credit per month. The picture is of the phone that I chose. I could have had a phone for nothing, but I liked this one as it has the qwerty keypad and only costs me an extra $5 per month. The same phone retails for over $600, but this way I will end up paying $120 for it. it is taking abit of getting used to, but already the keypad has made entering my address book quick and easy compared to the multi letter keys. This phone also has a planner on it for my memos and appointments. I can also access the internet , emails and GSP, but unless I buy an internet 'bundle', it is at a high cost. I have no desire at this stage to access the net via phone, but I can organise the extra payment if I change my mind.

There is a bit of a story to my phone buying experience. Up to yesterday, I had all good intentions of buying a telstra phone as I was led to believe that most people have telstra these days.In the past few months I have looked at the telstra catalogues and wandered in to the store a few times, but just had never taken the next step to have someone eplain the plans to me. The catalogues were quite confusing.

However when speaking to a friend yesterday morning, I asked her if she was with telstra as she said she had a great phone plan. She checked her bill and said no, actually it was with optus. So yesterday afternoon I went to an optus store, spoke to a very helpful young man called Sam and brought the literature home to study over night.

So today I went back to the store prepared with questions and was a tad disappointed that sam wasn' t there. However another young man was available and I told him the background and he answered my questions the best he could, but there was one he wasn't sure of, so we had to wait upon an older [my age] guy to help. While we waited, the young man asked if I went to Sam's church, I said no, but explained that sam and I hadn't actually discussed religion. He then explained that seeing my T-shirt, he had assumed the connection [world youth day Tee with scripture]. So we then embarked on discussing christianity, and he then mentions that Network Communications is a christian business and anyone signing up for a contract can have it linked with the Christian mobile plan. He went on to explain that it meant that 5% of my monthly costs would be donatd to a Christian Organisation of my preference, and I would get one month phone service for free. Wow! So I have chosen my 5% to go to 'Youth Alive' which is working on preventing youth suicide.

Now I would like to do another 'plug' here. last year I decided to have a go at mulching my garden and I bought bag upon bag of organic sugar cane mulch from the local nursery. We have 3/4 acre and the front 1/4 acre is basically garden, so lots of area to cover. The mulch broken down really well and was great at stopping weeds as well as retaining the moisture. So I have decided to do the same this year.

Today I purchased the last five bales, which cost $12 each. I don't know if they have changed their packaging since last year, as it basically looks the same, but this year I have noticed that at the bottom where it states that it is Australian Product, there are two fish symbols, one each side of that statement. I have looked up the website and sure enough, the Christain fish symbol is on there as well. The company name is Rocky Point and is based in QLD.