Saving Money: TV

Before LMS was born, I used to watch a lot of TV. Well, I don't know that I actually watched it, but it was on most of the day. Usually HGTV, so somewhat educational, but still not the greatest habit. As LMS got older, I realized that if I didn't want her watching a lot of TV (which I didn't), I needed to set a good example. I started watching less, and made sure it wasn't on all day- mostly just in the evening after LMS was in bed. We had a DVR on our cable box, and that was wonderful- we could watch our shows when we wanted, and not when the TV schedule dictated and we could fast forward through the commercials.

When we moved, we got rid of our TV- I bought it when I was a junior in college, and it was definitely showing its age. If we had wanted to keep using it, we would have had to get one of the digital converter boxes. Instead of buying a new TV or a converter box, we watched movies on the computer and discovered streaming TV. Now we watch our favorite TV shows on the network sites or Hulu.

We don't have cable, but we do subscribe to Netflix, which is waaaay cheaper. We pay less than $15 a month to have two dvds at a time and unlimited streaming of the shows they have available on their website.

We also borrow dvds from the library. The library in one town we lived in in the past charged $1 per movie, but our current library lets you borrow dvds for free.

So how does all this save us money?

1. We don't have an expensive TV we're trying to pay off.
2. We don't have a high monthly cable payment, for lots of channels we never watch.
3. We don't see very many commercials. This is huge- no repeated bombarding of what we must have or do. Things that always cost lots of money. This is also great for LMS- she's at that very impressionable age where if she sees something she wants it. I know if she saw lots of commercials she'd be wanting more things. This helps us save money because we don't feel the need to go out and spend money we should be putting to debt  to buy stuff we don't need.

Eventually we'll save up for a projector, but I don't know that we'll get cable again. In the meantime, every little bit helps us save money, and we're helping LMS learn good habits.