Our subscription to the little local paper expires next month, and we won’t be renewing it. It’s not in our new budget. The paper is the first of surely many things that weren’t important enough to be thought of when we planned our move to one income.

When Andy told me about the renewal notice, my first thoughts were, “Oh! We need the paper, and it isn’t that much. We should go ahead and renew it.”

Then I realized that isn’t us anymore. That can’t be us anymore.

I enjoy our local paper; it makes me feel a bit more like I belong. It keeps me current on local news like who is celebrating the big 100 and when the fair is. I have to admit I skip all the sports, and I don’t read the seniors column, or the market column, or the church and music pages. Realistically, it takes me about ten minutes to read the paper (as long as Anya isn’t trying to poke holes in it with her fairy wand).

Fifty cents for ten minutes of enjoyment is $3.00 an hour. (I’m not sure what that means in terms of anything meaningful right now, but the Frugal Zealot is always calculating cost per hour, so it seems the thing to do.) I can read the paper at the library for free, and since I plan to spend a lot of time at the library in the coming weeks, being able to read the paper will be a nice something to look forward to.

So, bye bye paper…first unexpected budget victim of 2011.