We decided to stop paying for TV. This has nothing to do with the transition to digital. Where we live, your only choice for TV is to get cable, there is no free TV with an antenna. We actually had a nice deal for basic channels for $11.95/month through the phone company fiber optics. Our small town was one of the first in the area to get connected.
When we first signed up for it we were hesitant because you had to sign a contract for 3 years and we are never sure if my husband will get a Call and if we will be here that long. When we started the basic channels were $9.95/month. We've been here for 3 years since then and the price has gone up two dollars too.
We feel we can spend $11.95/month much wiser than TV. The only show we both like to watch is CSI and it's been changing so that we no longer like it as much. We don't watch sports except Ram likes to watch NASCAR but it is rarely on the basic stations we got. We can get our news off of the internet and I'm sure there is lots else we can get off of the internet. The Lambs have a few movies (mostly Richard Scarry) that they enjoy but they have never watched Seseme Street or TV shows. The most frustrating thing is the news always talks about the Twin Cities and rarely mentions our part of the state. The weather people usually stand in front of our part of the state. We are able to get news from both Fargo and Twin Cities and neither show our weather.
We had paid through January but they forgot to disconnect us so we were able to watch the SuperBowl yesterday. We called this morning and it is really disconnected now.
You may be surprised that we aren't rushing out to get a NetFlix subscription and we have never had one. We also live 7 miles away from the library and a movie rental place. And we live 1 1/2 hours away from Blockbuster. I know that we could watch much of TV and movies on NetFlix.
We found that when we had TV available, we just vegged out in front of it every evening even though there was nothing on that we really wanted to watch. I think without it we will read a lot more. Plus, we have a lot of movies that we own that we have never watched or only watched once that we would enjoy watching again. We just never get around to putting our movies in the DVD player.
We were discussing this with a couple from church last Sunday. They agreed with us that it probably is good to save the money on TV. Then the conversation came out that they have cable TV from both the phone company and satellite because he wants Big Ten sports and she wants her shows. Plus they have two TVs so they both can watch what they want. So I think our conversation went right over their heads because we only had one TV with 11 channels to begin with.
Growing up, both Ram and I had a long time without a TV. Ram had one in the closet for when his mom thought it was something important enough to get it out. My family didn't own one from about the time I was 5 until the time I was 12. My family played a lot of board and card games together and read aloud. We joked that my younger sister was all the entertainment we needed.
I'm happy TV is finally gone at our house now too!
2 comments:
Good for you Rachel...you are a stronger woman than I am! We went to basic cable once and the Rev went batty without Fox news! But we did not have internet at that point either! We are a fairly hopelessly techno addicted home, and if you can avoid it I applaud you! If I had the stamina I would, but the TV feeds my ADD qualities and allows me to get laundry folded, it my ritalin! Well, that and coffee!
We talk about this, but that is as far as it gets - talking. ;-) One day we might take the leap, but that day has yet to arrive. Off now to watch a history video with the chitlins. :-)
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