Doctors, cutting expenses, and old neighborhood update

I put in a call this morning and got DH set up with a doctor appointment with a PA here in town, so he can get his cholesterol medication refilled. Their first available appointment isn't until Thursday of next week, so he'll have to go a day without his cholesterol med. We can walk to the doctor office - it's a block away LOL. I'll have to double check on his insurance, but I think it covers a few office visits where we only have to pay the co-pay and not meet the deductible. Might as well gets something out of that damn $511 I am paying per month for insurance!

Next thing I need to do is schedule a vet appointment, but I'm waiting to hear if my PTO days request gets approved, so I can make the appointment on one of those days. I have to drive like 55 miles to the nearest vet.

We've decided to save $15 a month and cut out the HBO and Showtime we have with our satellite service. It was going up to $30 a month next month, as the special rate period will be over. I was just going to keep one at $15, but we decided to cut both. I will miss out on the new season next month of Game of Thrones, but I'll catch it at some point. Sometimes they have Free HBO weekends during the year. We have Starz/Encore as part of our package, some Dish Movies on Demand and also still have Amazon Prime video through DD's membership. I also cut down the coverage on his pickup truck to the bare minimum. It just sits in the garage and never gets driven (1999 with 53,000 miles on it), so that saved about $20 a month. I didn't have a lot of coverage on it, but was still able to cut down some more. I think he's driven it once since we moved here.We really need a pickup for driving around these logging roads and hauling stuff, but he won't drive this one anywhere at all, unless it's the nicest day of the year and even then he won't drive it because then he'd have to wash it. He can never sell anything, so we're stuck with what I call the metal sculpture, rather than selling it and buying a nice used old truck to have and actually use.

DH still follows a bit what is going on in our old neighborhood, as far as a couple of the low-life's have been in jail. First off is our slumlandlord neighbor's drug dealing/using son. He got arrested Feb of 2016 for intent to distribute - 3 charges of it, for 3 different types of drugs, a gun charge attached to all those and possession. It has taken this long to finally resolve. It was delay delay delay for over a year. He was a failure to appear at least twice on his court hearing, they'd pick him up and let him back out the next day and reschedule and he'd FTA again. And then they'd be delayed until they caught him again and then delayed some more. Last month he plead something just prior to his jury trial and they dropped/reduced most charges (unbelievable!), let him go and told him to come back in 30 days (ridiculous) for his sentencing. This is the guy that, when he originally got arrested, the prosecutor assured DH he was going away for like 5-7 years. So, last week was his sentencing. Of course he was a Failure to Appear. Duh! They caught him a few days later and he's been held in jail and his sentencing is today. What do ya want to bet it will hardly be anything?

The other one is one of the brothers that lived behind us, in the walk up drug window house. He got arrested a few months ago, the main charge being failure to remain at the scene of an injury accident, as well as theft and assault2. He's been in jail this whole time, apparently no bail for the felony charge on the FTR at injury accident. He just got sentenced yesterday to 13 months, which means he's going to prison. Anything under 1 year is county jail, anything over is state prison. At least the neighborhood will have a break from him for awhile. Our good neighbor said it's been very quiet back there, as well as the rental house at the end of our street hasn't had the traffic, with the "better" renters that moved in just before we moved.

Then, his group of buddies from the neighborhood that was near us, with all the same problems (and many of same people dealing with) got arrested! He's kind of a hot head, but he's also SO sick of dealing druggies 24/7. He rides a motorcycle and was coming home from the gym late Sunday night. A big group of them standing in the street just before his house. He stopped to tell them to move on. One of them tried to tell him she lived in the camper trailer at the drug house. He lives  next door, so he knew that was a lie. They started to threaten him and he open carries (or maybe he was conceal carrying) so he held his gun down at his side. The druggies called the cops on him and he got arrested for brandishing a weapon. Stupid of him to do, but I totally understand he is beyond frustrated, after 2 or more years of it, and the cops will do absolutely nothing to these people. That's one of the reasons we moved - DH said he was getting so frustrated that he'd be the one they arrest for something, like trying to protect his own property. It will be interesting to see what comes of the charge against friend. They all joked with him "hey, just ask for drug court. That's what all these lowlife's get off on their charges with".

DD and her BF just installed the SimplySafe security system in their house. She said it was really easy and only took them like a half hour to set up.