New Years seemed to be a fitting time to finally start our experiment of turning off our cable TV. It wasn't going to be a New Years resolution, but it seemed like an easier time to break the habit after the holidays, when the weather was going to be crappy and we had no real plans of leaving the house. 1/3/11. we were going to be back to work and we wouldn't know what we were missing.
In the past we've talked about the idea of turning off the cable as a way to save money. But I always came back to the reasoning that it didn't save us a huge amount of money.. and if we were going to cut out other things, we would want to have the TV around as entertainment Plus anything of quality worth watching seemed to be on channels you had to pay for. But now I am starting to see it in another light.
Now with the kid we are starting to pay attention to just how bad the programming has gotten. I don't want Emmett to grow up being glued to the TV. I want him to get out and see the real world. I don't want him to idolized the idiots who all seem to have their own reality show or fall for the slick commercials and to just spend his life consuming. I don't want him to mindlessly waste his days in front of a television. If we don't want that for him.. then we have to set the example.
I have to admit the idea is a little scary to me. I really do like to watch TV. Even just having it on as background noise. But when I really started to think about what shows I would pay for (if we paid per show we watched) a lot of things I was wasting my time on where things I'd never pay to watch. So WHY am I watching them? Why am I wasting my time... time with Emmett and Brian? Why waste one bit of life on crap? Time that I always say I don't have. I'm excited to see what else we can do with that time. I hope we find other things to do and not just fill it up with our other tv options (watching even crappier tv.. or just a bunch of movies) Plus, we'll be saving money. Maybe we should plan something fun to do with that money. Save it for a trip or adventure? How fitting would that be?
I want life to start being more about quality and quantity. That is my theme for the year. Food, clothes, entertainment.. time.. all (or most of it anyway) quality. So here we go....
Day 1
1/2/11 - 9:30 PM Brian made the call. Down to basic, local channels. Instantly we lose what we are watching. We learn there are plenty of fees to make the "free channels" $29 a month. Seems crazy. I get that they want you to bump it up to basic cable.. but really, don't they want to keep any business they can get? If this goes well, we'll invest in that antenna.. and really start saving money. I'm starting to have the same evil corporation feelings about cable companies that I do about banks. I don't want give any of them my money any more. I have a small panic attack. It's been a long time since I've lived life cable free. I've also grown used to having the DVR watching shows almost commercial free ... what will we do if we go to antenna? Brian sets up the channels .. we have maybe 19-20 channels.. 10 which me might actually watch every now and then. We watch the end of the wonder years. I notice how little Fred Savage is. He looks so young. 1990... 21 years ago? Crap where did all that time go?
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