I was going to say the same thing, get an LLC, it will protect your personal assets. It cost me $110 to file in my state. Since you are just an indie and don't employ anyone, and your "company" doesn't own any significant assets (property, vehicles, stocks, etc), you might consider skipping the insurance altogether and simply file corporate bankruptcy and close up shop if you ever get sued. Since the chances of an indie developer getting sued are less than winning the lottery, personally I would just keep that insurance money in my pocket. And once you file bankruptcy the chances are very high that the lawsuit will just get dropped.

I went through exactly the same thing (and back - sort of). Ditched the cable completely (except for internet of course). That was great for about 5 years, watching the occasional Netflix or Amazon Prime movie, but really found myself missing sports and local news. So when I recently moved into my new place I made the tough decision to get TV again, but only the most basic channel package they offered. Now I can watch football and news on the major networks (FOX, CBS, etc but no ESPN for me). The great thing about being away from it for so long is that I have absolutely NO desire to watch all the other crap shows anymore. Kinda like quitting drinking for a long time and then reverting back to only having the occasional glass of wine with dinner. It's a good balance :)

OH PLEASE MAN, get off your high horse! I programmed C++ for years, you make it sound like we're gods, above everyone else. I'm sure the assembler guys would say the same things about us. IT'S JUST A LANGUAGE, and it's the technology that was available at the time. I knew a lot of C++ guys who wrote crappy code, so how is "a C++ developer is a true developer"? C++ still has it's purpose, but it's on the way out, like COBOL, Fortran, assembler, etc. A "true developer" is one who can adapt to and embrace new technologies as times change. After using C# for the past 5 years, I can honestly say that it is a much more robust OO language/environment, and takes just as much brainpower to wrap your head around some of the more advanced concepts such as anonymous delegates, LINQ, Lamba expressions, etc. And with p/invoke, you still have the same access to low level platform API functions. Your last two sentances are the only ones I completely agree with.

TpB wrote:

The strange beast works on all of the tools that allow other developers to develop websites such as this. They develop the runtime engines that support the code that java, .Net, etc. put forth. They create the tools that edit the C#, VB, SQL etc. All of these things and more are written using C++, Objective C, or just C, and in some cases they too use MFC. Most importantly what this strange beast does is keep the OS from Linux to Windows, devices from the Apple iPod to the Zune functioning so that individuals who want to write with higher level languages can interact with these OS's and devices. C++ Developers write the code the keeps the military functioning, the code for hardware that controls and move missiles around, and that monitors space travel. The .Net and java languages are not considered reliable enough, secure enough, or stable enough to do a lot of the development that occurs on these levels. (Read these language specifications). As far as detecting memory leaks, a C++ developer is able to manage memory on his own. He is the one that writes garbage collection routines for those who are less skilled an unable to manage their own memory. Yes we may have to track a memory leak, but we can also move into and write assembly language routines from our code and back out again. The routine that allow your editors to track memory leaks. This is just touching the surface. If you want control over the machine learn C++. As far as the comment about tracking down memory leaks, if all you can come up with