A Simpler Life: No TV...Well, Kinda

A few months ago I shared with you that we sold our second vehicle and are now a one car family.  It's been one year now and I can honestly say that the change still has not been really bothersome.  Yes, it has been a little inconvenient sometimes, but certainly nothing I would say I wish we hadn't done.  And the money we have saved has been worth the small amount of inconvenience.  If you are looking at downsizing the number of vehicles in your family, I would encourage you to read this first.

Something else we did several months ago was to cancel our cable subscription.

I remember the good ole days when you watched TV you got your 4-6 local stations, all free.  Yes, having a good antenna did make a difference to the reception of those stations, but then again people's lives did not revolve around what was on TV.
Television was something you watched when you didn't have anything better to do, not the other way around.  So, part of the reason we dumped our cable was we wanted more for our family than to become a family of couch potatoes.  Strike one.

Another part of the equation was we were absolutely, positively, without a doubt DISGUSTED by the majority of commercials that are on.  I know they say that sex sells, but when you are watching a program on a supposed "family network" and an adult-themed commercial comes on, I gotta question what kind of family do these TV execs have?  Strike two.

The last factor was definitely financial.  Like I mentioned before, TV used to be free.  Now you gotta pay.  Even though we were down to basic, basic, they-didn't-want-to-tell-us-they-had-this-cheap-of-a-version-basic cable at about $15 a month, the previous two factors made us decide to just cancel it altogether.  The garbage that was on didn't make it worth $180 a year.  Strike three.  That little black box is outta here, baby.

Okay, so that brings us to where we are now.  For a while, we did watch some free TV occasionally through online sites like Hulu.  That was all good and fine...except again the advertising was questionable and sometimes just downright raunchy.  I mean, come on!  "I Dream of Jeannie" should have commercials about good, wholesome stuff, right?  Guess again.

We've been Netflix subscribers for a very long time.  When I was pregnant with our oldest who is now almost 11, my husband realized that we probably wouldn't be going out as much so he signed us up.  Over the course of the years, Netflix has morphed.  As a matter of fact, they recently made some screwy decisions which the CEO promptly fessed up to and changed.  Regardless, we really love that they have ALOT of programming that is online streaming and they are working to get more movies and TV series available all the time.  (By the way...did I mention that there are NO COMMERCIALS!!!  Oh, yes!)  We did cancel our DVD part of our subscription recently and have not missed it one bit.  And Tom and Reilly can watch all the Star Trek TOS, TNG and Voyager they want.  All for a mere $7.99 plus tax a month.  (Okay, I gotta say it...Worf is my favorite.)

One other thing we invested in was a Roku player.  We splurged and got the $99 one.  Not sure about the difference in the models, but boy does it make using Netflix to watch TV super easy.

So there ya go.  Yes, we aren't totally off TV, but what we do watch is what we want to and when.  And we don't have to fast-forward through commercials to do it.

 

Photo sources:  freakingnews.com; netflix.com, jumbojoke.com