The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: KMB on February 16, 2012, 07:32:25 AM
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We have one. No cable, but we do have a netflicks streaming account. Getting rid of it completely seems a little too extreme, even though I'd really like to.
I'm wondering how many forumers have gotten rid of their TV completely.
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KMB- we do the same thing. We have a small TV with a Wii console (for fun times) and we stream netflix. No cable. No anything else. I'm with you though- I'd love to get rid of it completely, but we do like movies and playing our games.
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Could just be me but I finding having a fairly large media room/big tv's actually help me stay at home more as opposed to going out to the movies and the like.
its questionable if the money I spend on that stuff really evens out to any savings, but it seems to work for me.
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We have a TV, but also no cable. Seems to be a pattern.
Poll might be a little more telling with this crowd if it had 3 options: TV + cable, TV & no cable, no TV.
We download some shows and do a little free streaming, but don't do Netflix or anything that costs money related to the TV.
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We're in a similar boat. TV (no cable) + netflix streaming subscription. A couple years ago I bought a $35 digital antenna from radioshack and an extra long cable; and subtly snaked it up to our second story and have gotten perfect digital reception ever since. I also bought an $8 cable off amazon 4 months ago to connect my netbook to our flatscreen* - we basically use it like a tivo; just go online and watch shows whenever you want. There may come a time when I ditch the streaming tho, b/c there's less and less we really watch on there.
*note: we've never paid more than $100 for a tv; i kind of refuse to. Just upgraded to a flatscreen last year after my mother-in-law got us a grill we didn't need off amazon. We returned it and had $250 in credit; found a great LG flatscreen for $300 w/ free shipping. Those are the kinds of opportunities to wait for, I think, with luxury goods like tv
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I haven't had one in years. Long before I started reading MMM's blog. I find that if I'm in the house with a TV, I'll watch the least bad thing on. But if I'm somewhere without one I will only watch things I want to watch, on computer. I play computer games but have always perferred PC games to console ones anyway.t
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*note: we've never paid more than $100 for a tv; i kind of refuse to. Just upgraded to a flatscreen last year after my mother-in-law got us a grill we didn't need off amazon. We returned it and had $250 in credit; found a great LG flatscreen for $300 w/ free shipping. Those are the kinds of opportunities to wait for, I think, with luxury goods like tv
Huh? How is that not paying more than $100 for a TV? You paid $300, 250 in credit, 50 in cash. But you could have spent that $250 on other necessities such as food, clothes, etc. Just because it was part of a returned gift, once it was turned into credit, you chose to spend it on the TV, yeah?
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We don't own one, but at the moment we are staying with family that does have one. I HATE it! it sucks up way to much of my time.
That being said, once in our own household we'll probably still watch a few select shows online. Perhaps in the future we'll stream to a larger screen, but that is thinking way ahead. We did not have one for the 4.5 yrs I was in grad school and we never missed it. We rented movies and watched what we wanted streaming. The extra effort it took to think about what it is we wanted rather than just turning it on really cut down on the time sink.
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TV with no cable here as well. We stream Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon prime as well as occasionally watch DVDs or play a video game.
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No TV and no cable for me since 2006. It was an adjustment for my wife to go without the TV and Cable.
I have a 27inch Apple Cinema Display for my office, and we end up sitting in here watching movies. At some point, I would like to get an LCD for our living room. As both my wife and I are movie buffs. We also like to do Netflix marathons from time to time, especially when we're sick.
I don't pay for the netflix streaming though. I'm guilty of using my parents. They still receive disks and we've just been using their account to stream for the last two years literally.
Ideally we'd find a used LCD off CL and grab and Apple TV.
Luckily, I'm pretty sure I can justify a TV as a business write off.
I do have one rule for our family to live by, we will never have more than 1 TV in our home, and our children will never have them in their bedrooms.
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No, but we do have a projector set up in the basement. We've had it about 5 or 6 years. :)
We haven't had cable in ages (last time was when we lived in a house full of guys back in 1997, I think), but about a year or two ago, we decided to try Netflix since the little one started watching more movies. We have family movie nights every Friday (and sometimes a documentary night on Saturday as well).
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One TV in the house, but no cable. My bf and I do love movies (checked out from the library or a buck at redbox!) and playing wii occasionally.
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TV, no cable, Netflix. Just like everyone else, apparently.
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I didn't have a TV or cable for 10 years until I got married. My wife just couldn't live without the news so we bought a TV and watched over-the-air. The quality is terrible so she decided to sign up for cable. Now I've convinced her it's a bad idea to spend $65 a month to only watch CNN, but we're stuck in a 2 year contract.
I recently found this helpful hint:
http://lifehacker.com/5076441/watch-cnn-live-and-full+screen-with-vlc
that will allow her to watch CNN without a cable bill. Trying to convince her to let me build a small computer to connect to the TV so she can watch CNN for free! Wish me luck...
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One tv that has been cable free for 3 years. We stream Netflix via a Roku box. Occassionly I'll pick up something at a redbox kiosk if a newer release strikes my fancy.
Oh, and the tv IS hooked up to an antenna I bought at Bestbuy for $75 when we cancelled the cable. We are able to receive all the major broadcast networks, although outside of football, we rarely watch.
3 years ago, we were paying $164/month for cable + Internet.
Today we pay 7.99 Netflix + 29.99 15mb Internet. ( and Roku box @ $90, antenna @ $75' amortized over 36 months is an additional $4.58/month)
Staching a little over $121/month!
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We have 27" and 13" old school tv's. They are used 30 hours a week for homeschooling and 60 hours of combined use for pleasure watching(streaming netflix), background noise and video gaming. Basically, a tv is on here 2/3 of the waking day. I hate that. Our usage goes down 75% in the summer. I love that. We are a family of 5 although the youngest(1.5yo) doesn't really use the tv.
I lived 5 years of my life as a kid with no tv. I missed my old movies and old tv shows but mostly it was awesome.
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I've been fighting tooth and nail to ditch the TV, but no no avail. I know its dumb, but to me the TV is somewhat of a symbol of consumerism, and I refuse to upgrade ours. Its one of those massive old tube TVs, and we have a very small house (<800sf). It takes up way too much space, and we only use it for DVDs (no cable, and we can't get over-the-air). The household stand-off is me on the one side trying to get rid of it, and DH on the other side trying to upgrade it. DH's brothers are always trying to one-up each other with their electronics purchases, and I feel like we'd be condoning that behaviour if we upgraded. (Yes, dumb, I know.) We get Netflix during the off-season for shows. There's enough on Hulu to keep us busy in season, and the streaming selection on Netflix isn't enough to keep us signed up all year long. I'd like to say we could give up TV altogether, but DH and I have very separate hobbies, and that is something relaxing we do together on weekday nights. I think it is probably here to stay.
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I work on TV (video editor) therefore I have a TV, but other than movies every now and then, I don't watch commercial TV.. specifically news. Everything is so biased and re-constructed these days.. I should know since I do it for a living :-|
Of course I don't pay for cable/satellite TV, but since my partner wanted the occasional distraction, I built her a diy hdtv antenna. I spent about $8 total (plank of wood).
http://s3dl.com/diy_antenna.html
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I received a TV for my birthday when I was 15. I gave it away when I was 16. I haven't owned* one in the 16 years since and I haven't missed it a bit. I attribute not having a TV as a major contributing factor to many of the diverse experiences and successes I've had in my life. My wife also came into our relationship without a TV, conveniently.
* Technically, we inherited a flat screen TV and a DVD player 2 years ago, but we use the TV only as a monitor connected to an Apple TV and just use it to rent the occasional movie from the comfort of our sofa or to the DVD player to watch the odd movie rented from our library.
More scandalously, shortly after receiving the TV, we had family in town that always has the TV on in their house. They announced they were going to have to make the 6 hour drive home early, after just a 1 day visit instead of the planned 3 or 4, because they had to watch an important football game. I averted this loss (we really seeing these family members) by buying a set of rabbit ears for $9.99 from Best Buy. We got perfect reception and everyone was happy. The rabbit ears have only been back out again once or twice (for those family members) in the last few years since this purchase. As such, I still feel okay saying we're a TV-free household.
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Technically, no I don't own one.
However, what I do is connect a projector to my computer to stream movies or tv shows. Might use more energy (not sure) but it cuts out commercial time and I can make the screen as large as my wall can handle. Used projectors are relatively cheap as well, replacement lamps on the other hand, are not.
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We have a tv. No cable, but in the UK you have to pay a tv license fee annually (about £100/household), which pays for the BBC (which has no commercials) and includes additional channels paid for by commercials.
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We take a different tack than other readers. Have a TV, with a home theater PC, and 'rabbit ears' antenna.
-Live TV? Check. Rabbit ears gives us ABC, CBS, FOX, CW, and a couple other major networks.
- Movies? Check. Using the internet through our HTPC lets us watch anything through instant streaming on Netflix. No waiting for DVDs, no trips to the rental store. Plus full seasons of lots of TV shows.
- TV shows? Check. We can easily download any cable show, and in fact we have a system that downloads shows as soon as they're released, basically like a DVR.
And the bonuses:
- Music? Check. We have our full MP3 music library on the HTPC, along with easy access to Pandora for 'Radio' and Spotify for any songs we don't have.
- Pictures? Check. We have all of our digital pictures on there and can bring any of them up on the screen at a moment's notice to show friends and family.
- Video games? Check. We bought an aftermarket N64 controller, and downloaded an emulator, so we can now play virtually any N64/SNES game ever made.
- Youtube? Check.
- Internet browser? Check.
- Beautiful-look Media Center software? Check. Compared to your DVR's interface, this thing looks like it's from the future.
- Power consumption? Allegedly better than most set-top boxes, although I've never measured.
Negatives:
-Live sports (in our case, football and hockey). Although football airs on CBS and FOX, hockey is cable only. All the internet streams I've seen are low quality, but can suffice if you really want to watch it. I don't watch much live sports, but when I do, I go over to a cable-equipped family member's house to watch, which is much preferable to watching alone. If I really wanted to, I could watch the playoffs in a bar, and drink plenty of cheap beers, and still make out like a bandit compared to paying a cable bill.
My HTPC cost about $300 to build (although you could build one for less, or buy a unit that would do everything except download shows for about $50), plus $25 for the powered antenna. Axing a $60/mth cable bill, it paid for itself in 7 months, and seemingly overnight moved us from living paycheck-to-paycheck to living somewhat comfortably. I'd recommend it for anyone.
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We have two TV's although we've only ever paid for a single TV in our 11 years of marriage. The wife had an ancient TV she got when she was 12 or 13 that we used until just 4 years ago when it died. It had been relegated to bedroom duty for exercise distraction when my boss at the time bought some $2500 rear projection HD monstrosity and gave us his old TV for free which was a gigantic rear projection deal we used for awhile. Last year a friend at work bought one of those 55" LED Samsung deals and gave us their old 50" LCD for free.
Our only TV purchase was a 20" Sony Bravia that had great picture for about a year and a half and then started showing problems with the panel. It's still limping along and we use it in the bedroom with an Apple TV and an old DVD player. The 50" freebie downstairs has a semi-surround setup, blu-ray, and Wii.
We cut the satellite cable cord about 3 years ago and have a Netflix streaming +3 Discs account (I think we could drop to one or possibly zero discs...) and our internet bill. We watch a few things on Hulu too and have jailbroken our Apple TV for access to some other great channels like news, ESPN, etc. (Not bad for $99.)
To the point about the TV being the representation of consumerism, I couldn't agree more. When our stupid 18 monthsish old flatscreen developed a black spot the repair guys told us it would cost about 2x what it would cost to buy a new TV to get it repaired. We went to two other places for estimates and they were all within $100 of what the first guy quoted. Disposable, just like the rest of the disposable culture it sells you. :-(
We do love movies and some TV shows so I think it's unlikely we'd ever be 100% TV free. My ideal setup would probably be a projector or slightly smaller TV with a home theater / media center computer. I'd really like to keep the TV stuff in one place that is not where we normally are so we actually have to plan to do it instead of collapse in front of it when we get home.
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We don't have a television and don't watch television, but we do watch movies (I have a decent size HD monitor) or particular TV series (rented or over iPlayer). I'm not sure whether that means we 'have a tv' or not, in the pure sense. I have a Playstation too, subject of another discussion...
The important distinction for me is that we actively choose to watch something particular and don't get exposed to programming or the advertising that comes along with it. We finish watching, we're done.
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TV with no cable. We do have a Wii and netflix. I have to wonder if I would have any of these things if my boyfriend hadn't bought them.
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We use a 32" flat panel TV mounted on the wall as our computer monitor. It connects to our tower PC with an HDMI cable. Before we got it, we were watching shows on Hulu twice a week while sitting at a desk looking at a 17" monitor, and my wife decided that it would be nice to be able to do the same from the couch. Usually, we use it as a monitor for web surfing, etc., with the wireless keyboard and mouse on a little moveable table. When I work from home, that's the setup I use, and it's nice to have such a big monitor.
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We have 3 TVs. One I bought as a moving in present when I bought my house in OCT 2006 (Fucking awesome timing btw, its still underwater). Its a 56" Samsung DLP. When my wife bought her house she had no TV so we got her a 40" Samsung LED. She also wanted one in her bedroom to watch the news while she got ready in the morning so we got her a $200 20" LCD mounted on the wall.
The DLP is still in my house, which is currently rented. We never would have had space for it anyway. The other two are in our current home. We have cable, but we don't watch TV very often, its mostly for movies and the occasional video game. When we move out (and break the contract with the cable company) and move back into my house we will likely skip the cable all together. I would rather get an HD Antenna and AT&T DSL. I found when I was living there before that my 6MB comcast cable internet got me about 768k/sec download while my 6mb AT&T DSL got me 6mb. Imagine that?
I'm an amazon prime member, so I can stream some movies/tv from that, and we can get various TV shows off many different internet sites. We used to have the 3 disc netflix, which we downgraded to 2, then 1, then got rid of it altogether over the summer because we tried spending every free weekend on the boat (Also, we get 3 free on demand movies with this cable deal we stretched from 3 months to 2.5 years by threatening to cancel every time it went up). It remains to be seen if we will get netflix again, I know they changed the pricing structure significantly. I may not renew the prime membership, I need to see how much I actually use it this year. I'm probably just breaking even, maybe.
So we should go from $160/month (tv/internet/phone) to $40 a month (internet) give or take. I might need to build an HTPC though because we're really going to miss having a DVR for those few shows we like to watch. Although I never had one before and didn't have problems catching up so maybe thats not necessary either.
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Not for me but this area of reddit has a lot of info for anyone wanting to move farther away from cable companies and the like.
http://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/
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I do have a couple shows I follow, which can be watched for free on Hulu, although I splurged and purchased a HuluPlus subscription for extended viewing capabilities. I can take my laptop and watch it basically anywhere, which is nice.
I donated/sold the TV that had been left by my roommate last year, since it was just taking up space. I have a large freshwater aquarium in it's place that I watch instead.
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Yes, I own a 36" Sony CRT. Haven't had cable for 3 years now. Still watch the occasional movie or downloaded tv program but most of my viewing is done on my computer.
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I thought I'd do some math.
Americans watch 4 hours of TV per day on average.
- 4 hours per day X 365 days a year = 1,460 hours of TV watched per year
- 1460 hours / 24 hours = 60.83 days and nights worth of watching TV
- 60.83 days / 65 years of living = 3954.13 days of watching TV in a life time
- 3954.13 days / 365 days per year = 10.83 years of constantly watching TV in a lifetime
However, nobody can watch TV constantly for 10.83 years, since they must eat and sleep for at least 12 hours a day so: 10.83 years X 2 = 21.66 years of constantly watching TV. That’s 21 years and 243 days of watching TV for 12 hours.
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Wow. That is... sad.
We own a TV, no cable or service or anything like that. We maybe use it once or twice a week.
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I didn't own a tv for several years, until my boyfriend moved in and insisted we get one. After a couple of years he was persuaded that the cable package wasn't worth it. We still have the 32" flatscreen tv, but we just use it to play the XBox and watch DVDs.
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I didn't own a tv for several years, until my boyfriend moved in and insisted we get one. After a couple of years he was persuaded that the cable package wasn't worth it. We still have the 32" flatscreen tv, but we just use it to play the XBox and watch DVDs.
I might be doing the same thing. I sold my TV as I've never really watched it- the tv was free but it was taking up space and I realized I could just watch DVDs on my computer. But SO and I are talking about shacking up together and he demands a TV. And since he's offering to buy the TV and he has very few other demands, I'm going along with. Hopefully we can forego cable and just rent movies though.
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I own a television, but I got it for free from my parents. I very rarely watch it. My roommate bought an antenna for it so we get basic channels, and sometimes I'll watch her shows with her. Other times I'll hook it up to Netflix through my roommate's brother's Wii to watch a movie or show with friends.
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I have cable, but only because the condo association voted to purchase for the entire building and worm it into our maintenance plan.
But actually I came here to say -- for those of you who are using a Wii to stream Netflix -- that this morning I noticed that my Wii had a message for me: Hulu Plus is available as a free download and will charge 7.99/mo for streaming content. Try it "free" for 2 weeks. Go to hulu.com to sign up for it (I won't anytime soon since I'm working my way through Star Trek reruns and am only on VOY).
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Well I do have a tv, with cable. I tend to agree with the poster who said that having a nice tv keeps him/her from going out to movies etc. Also, I have three kids and I want them to spend their time here at home rather than at a friends house.
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Sold my TV a few months ago--I had a flat-screen CRT (very heavy and bulky) and I wasn't looking forward to moving it. The conversion to digital over-the-air signals made the choice easier. I would have had to buy a digital antenna/converter, pay for cable, or buy a new TV. We decided to try not having a TV, and it's worked out well so far.
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I don't have a TV and haven't watched one for more than a few minutes for about a decade now, but I do spend a ton of time on my computer. It's not free even ignoring the cost of internet -- which is a given for most people -- since I do have a game subscription at $15/mo, but it's hours of entertainment and self-education.
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We have one 27" television in the house but we dumped cable last year. We rarely watched the TV anyways so spending $50 a month was a complete waste of money. We do a DVD player and like to pick out videos from the library. And we have our internet connection. The commputer is one thing that we won't give up
Actually, dumping the cable was the first step in getting my husband to just on board with retiring early. It's been snowballing since then.
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I am one of the few people I know who have a CRT. I'm probably burning five times the power of an LCD but since it's not used all that much, I don't care.
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OMG!! This is soooooo bad, but we have a TV in every room of the house. 5 total. All with cable. We had a 50" flat screen in living room, but my husband thought it was too small, so now we have a 60" (the 50" is now in kids play room)...purchased before I started reading MMM =( And I HATE TV!! My kids want to watch Spongebob all day, and my husband falls alseep on the couch each night watching reruns of The Office. IT SUX. We were spending $150/mo. for Direct TV with NFL Sunday ticket. I just got it down to $65/mo. But my husband about crapped his pants when I told him we need to get rid of cable altogether...plus, it cost us almost $400 right now to break contract...we have no Netflix though; I just cancelled because the movies would come and sit around the house for months and not get watched. Now I just go to Redbox and rent one for $1 if we want one. Living frugally is sooooo difficult when your spouse and you don't see eye to eye.
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We have one 32" TV in the living room, no cable, but we stream Netflix. Once in a rare while we'll DL something from Amazon on Demand that Netflix doesn't have streaming and we really want to watch.
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We have a TV that some friends gave us a few years ago, when they upgraded to whatever the latest and greatest was. We rarely use it though... no cable, netflix streaming, etc... just the coverter box and some rabbit ears. :)
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No TV here
We watch it too much when we have it. I'll watch sportscenter over and over, which I like, but which is very bad. We'll watch hulu shows on our computer (which I sort of feel like counts as a TV) though, but we don't pay for any of the hulu+/netflix services.
The only thing I miss is live sports. I miss it a lot.
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We have a single largish tv, netflix via htpc but no cable. Our household rule is that the tv is only on when somebody is exercising in front of it. We have a stationary bike set up for just this purpose.
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Does anyone else experience the "YOU MUST BE SOME KIND OF RELIGIOUS WACKO" when you tell people you don't have a TV/Cable in your home?
Seriously, people look at me like I'm a nutter or amish.
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It's a small tv/dvd combo. I bought it new in the box at an auction for about $25 before the digital switch-over. It's been quite a while since I used it.
Of course, my son and future DIL have a huge high def television in their basement. I often join them to watch movies on their set.
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Does anyone else experience the "YOU MUST BE SOME KIND OF RELIGIOUS WACKO" when you tell people you don't have a TV/Cable in your home?
Seriously, people look at me like I'm a nutter or amish.
I think it was that way a decade ago, but I actually experience the opposite, people tend to tell me it's awesome, they want to do it, or they know someone like that, etc.
Though it always reminds me of this article from The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/
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I was paid by various customers to take away from them a flat-screen CRT 27" TV, combo VCR/DVD player, CD changer, tape deck, PS2, and - best of all - a Replay TV, which is a DVR (like Tivo) which requires no subscription and automatically skips commercials. The company was sued by the TV industry over the skipping commercials part, went bankrupt; but for reasons I don't understand, has continued to provide updated program listing for years and years afterward, to this very day.
Add to that a (government rebated) digital tuner box and the amplified TV antenna that is built into my trailer, and we have about a dozen commercial free channels for a total upfront and ongoing cost of $0.
Also, we sometimes watch shows on Hulu.com (also free)
I have never had cable except when it was free (before the days of digital, when the company would sometimes hook you up by accident and not realize it - happened to me twice). I guess it would be nice to have Discovery, The Learning Channel, and Cartoon Network, but I don't understand why anyone could possibly need, or even want, 500 channels.
Last night my girlfriend and I made a deal - she won't watch TV and I won't play video games when we are both home for the next week, in order to have more quality time together.
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I thought I'd do some math.
Americans watch 4 hours of TV per day on average.
- 4 hours per day X 365 days a year = 1,460 hours of TV watched per year
- 1460 hours / 24 hours = 60.83 days and nights worth of watching TV
- 60.83 days / 65 years of living = 3954.13 days of watching TV in a life time
- 3954.13 days / 365 days per year = 10.83 years of constantly watching TV in a lifetime
However, nobody can watch TV constantly for 10.83 years, since they must eat and sleep for at least 12 hours a day so: 10.83 years X 2 = 21.66 years of constantly watching TV. That’s 21 years and 243 days of watching TV for 12 hours.
This is depressing.
I own a TV. No cable, but I have a rabbit ears to get the local channels. It's hooked up to our computer through a really long HDMI cable that my husband ingeniously ran underneath our house and through the wall behind the TV. So we watch stuff from the interwebs, and can rent movies online and such.
I don't have anything against screen media in general (although I definitely have something against cable prices). It's entertainment, like a lot of other things. I like movies every so often. I love watching cooking shows. I also love being outside. As long as there's a balance we don't see a problem with it.
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I sold mine when I moved in with a roommate (while finishing degree).
I don't know if I'll buy another when I move out in a year. I can get a lot of stuff on the Internet, and I can get a tuner fob for my laptop if I really want to tune in to OTA broadcasts. I hardly watch anything but PBS science shows, and a couple shows online anyway.
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I bought a clunky old beast when I moved up north so I would have something to watch my DVDs on. I haven't had cable/satellite since 2004, except for the year and a half I was living with my parents while going to school.
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we have a 40" TV that we bought several years ago for family gaming, football, and movies. Since we moved from a rural area to an urban one, we've picked up a few more stations (freecycle ftw) and follow a couple of series live, which has prevented us from paying for highspeed internet (And hulu). It also tends to be on around the 11P-2A block as background noise to help me focus when I'm writing, although I'll also use OTA radio for that. I also have a freecycle'd CRT which is hooked up to a VCR and PS2 in our bedroom, which is primarily used if my wife and I want to watch a movie in bed, or on those rare occasions that I have some spare time and feel like being James Bond for a half hour or so.
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TV? Why would I need one of those w/ my 23" monitor? It literally never got watched, we don't have cable, and my computer plays DVDs just as well as any DVD player and then there's Amazon Prime. Plus a whole bunch of other shows are now available for free online for those interested.
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I voted no, though I have technically had a TV sitting by my front door for a couple of months now. It was from a friend who was moving and I've never bothered to hook it up. There's really no space in my apartment for it and my lap top does the job just fine when I want to watch something over netflix or one of the broadcaster's streaming websites. If I should ever live in a place that has a logical place to put a TV, I might acquire one since I'm not really fundamentally opposed to it, but at this point, it's a non-issue.
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I voted yes, but I use it only for video games.
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Same as everyone else, TV without cable. Basically just a dead idiot box.
If the vote was changed to three options as mentioned by someone above, perhaps we could have got some quantitative numbers (within the Mustachian community).
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Technically, one came with my shared apartment, but I've never seen it turned on. It's pretty much the surface where mail goes when one of us goes to the mailbox. I couldn't tell you if we have cable TV or not, we might have it with the internet but I've never checked since my landlady handles the bills.
I may be slaughtering a sacred cow, but how is Netflix such a big deal that just about everybody, including people who scrutinize every expense, seems to require it as a basic ingredient of life? Why is Netflix not subject to the budget hack-and-slash and lifestyle tomfoolery of mustachianism? People in the states can't seem to live without it and yet everywhere else in the world where you can't get it there isn't some sort of campaign for "Netflix is a human right!"- we just go on living without it.
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I may be slaughtering a sacred cow, but how is Netflix such a big deal that just about everybody, including people who scrutinize every expense, seems to require it as a basic ingredient of life? Why is Netflix not subject to the budget hack-and-slash and lifestyle tomfoolery of mustachianism? People in the states can't seem to live without it and yet everywhere else in the world where you can't get it there isn't some sort of campaign for "Netflix is a human right!"- we just go on living without it.
Netflix has its place in my life because I'm not actually against all televised media and I do enjoy movies but have no desire to own many of them. It's an easy way (and at $8/month quite inexpensive vis-a-vis many other options) to keep those things available. The fact that I actively have to choose to turn it on and select each show I watch, rather than just having it on in the background as I've done when I had hooked up tvs and such means that I tend to watch less and only what I actually want to, as opposed to keeping it on for the background noise. If it needed to go, I could get some of the same things from the library, but I consider it worth it.
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I may be slaughtering a sacred cow, but how is Netflix such a big deal that just about everybody, including people who scrutinize every expense, seems to require it as a basic ingredient of life? Why is Netflix not subject to the budget hack-and-slash and lifestyle tomfoolery of mustachianism? People in the states can't seem to live without it and yet everywhere else in the world where you can't get it there isn't some sort of campaign for "Netflix is a human right!"- we just go on living without it.
Gotta get your entertainment from somewhere.
Whether that's Netflix, going to a bar with friends, reading books, whatever. As entertainment goes, it's fairly cheap, but yes, also fairly mindless.
I'm mostly with you - I had Netflix once for the free month trial. Cancelled at the end. Held out about 8 months, signed up for a month (and paid for a month of it). Then ended up cancelling at the end of that month, just wasn't worth it. We don't really watch TV/movies. But I can see the value in it for others.
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Haven't had a tv for a decade. Have not missed it once. The geek in me wants to calculate the time gained and money saved, but my wife insists that I refrain...
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While technically we do own a TV, we have none of the equipment to actually make it show programs. I live in England and I refuse to pay £100+ a year for the privilege of a TV licence. Everything the basic channels show anyway can be watched later for free using the various catch up services. So the TV just sort of sits there sad and unused and I have one less unnecessary expense to pay each month. :D
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I have two very nice TVs and I have DirecTV. I have two 42" LCD TVs, one in the living room and one in my bedroom. I won't apologize for it. It look at it this way: Everyone has something they purchase that is not necessary. Some have a beer or a glass of wine. Some will wake up to a starbucks coffee every morning. I watch a little TV.
I shopped around for the TVs themselves. One I bought brand new during a 50% off black friday type deal, the other I purchased used on Craigslist. I will probably own both until they die.
I pay $35 a month and for a little over $1 a day, I think that's a pretty okay price for entertainment.
I guess my point is that everyone has something. The point in my opinion is to think carefully about indulgences and identify why exactly you want them. If you have a good reason I think it's okay to move forward with it. There is so much progress that can be made by doing this in all areas of life that little luxuries you choose to keep are nice ways to reward yourself for progress in other areas.
I will add that I have always been 100% debt free with exception of my mortgage, which I am on track to pay off completely prior to my 29th birthday. I am not in emergency mode by any means, so I can truly afford the luxury of tv and satellite TV.
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Oh I'm quite jealous of all you non-tv households... If it were me by myself, I wouldn't have one (but I would still use netflix/hulu). Spouse really likes live sports so that's what keeps the TV AND expensive cable running in our household. Fortunately I convinced him to put it in our second bedroom (our "den" I guess) so the other living space in the apartment is TV-free. Hopefully I'll always be able to keep a TV out of the living room. The only problem is I don't get to hang out with my spouse at home often unless I go into TV room with him and subject myself to what he's watching. Constant struggle for me. However we both HIGHLY enjoy the Office and Parks & Rec. (Aziz Ansari/Tom Haverford is a hilarious opposite to MMM, as demonstrated in this short clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rgJwKZ2TZc).
I grew up in a household with a TV in every room but the bathroom. I had one in my room for about two years of my young adulthood before giving it up - and yes I did have one all through college that was mainly used to play old school nintendo. I HATED growing up with TVs everywhere (even though I watched my fair share as a kid and still do via internet while doing other things like cooking and working out).
I would be curious about that - how many Mustachians with TVs actually truly sit and only watch TV? I usually let myself indulge when I'm doing something else productive (finances, organizing/cleaning, in addition to the cooking and exercising)
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I would be curious about that - how many Mustachians with TVs actually truly sit and only watch TV? I usually let myself indulge when I'm doing something else productive (finances, organizing/cleaning, in addition to the cooking and exercising)
I'm jealous of your control over your tv watching habits. It's definitely my goal to only watch TV when doing something else that is productive, but at the moment I am guilty of wasting around 5 hours a week to pure TV viewing, plus a couple extra hours of watching whatever the SO is watching, usually in the form of crappy soaps (which I have an on again, off again relationship with - damn the slightly addictive bad acting)
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Flat screen TV & free to air channels. No cable TV, just internet. DVDs from the library or redbox. We use it mainly for DVDs, and watching PBS or a big football game a couple of times a year.
Instead it's internet surfing, walking and reading books (now from the library!)
TV just sucks the life out of your life.
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I do have one rule for our family to live by, we will never have more than 1 TV in our home, and our children will never have them in their bedrooms.
That was always our rule, until my son hit 15 and I started enjoying him spending more time alone in his room...
Heidi
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No cable, no netflix, 19-inch tv with 2-channel rabbit ears. Bought new last year; I had buyer's remorse almost instantly!