No TV? I get this all the time. For about 5 years now my husband and I haven’t had TV, well we have an actual Television, but we don’t have Cable or Dish or whatever else there is. I know what your thinking. ARE YOU CRAZY? Yeah we probably are, but we have really enjoyed it.
We decided to do this when we moved to California to sell security systems for a summer and didn’t want to pay for the hook up, and stuff since we were only going to be there a short time. We really enjoyed not having to pay that extra expense. I figured out that we were paying about $25 a month for basic cable, and in the 5 years we haven’t had it we have saved $1500. That’s a good chunk of change!
A lot of people wonder how my husband can handle it without being able to watch sports, and I guess I got lucky with that, he LOVES sports but only to play them himself and not watch them! The thing we got most out of that summer away was how much time we had. I found a great site that has a lot of great ideas to do instead of watching TV, called Instead of TV. Go check it out. Even if you have TV. Maybe it will give you some great ideas of how to help your kids not to watch as much!
Here are the only reasons I miss TV
1- Watching Good Things Utah
2- Having something to do when I am bored {which I really never have time to be now}
Here are the reasons I like not having TV
1-Peace and Quiet
2-There is SO much junk on the TV, even on the basic channels, and especially commercials
3-My kids don’t even care that we don’t have it {yes they do watch it at friends and families houses, which I am totally fine with}
4- I like saving money
5-I don’t have to hear all the crazy stuff that goes on on the news.
6-I get a lot done during the day!
So do we watch anything on TV? Yes, they watch movies! Good clean movies that don’t have commercials! Actually everyday my kids either watch something on PBSkids.org or they get to pick a movie.. I even started watching The Biggest Looser online this last season.
I am not saying not having TV is what everyone should do. I actually have considered getting it and getting DVR which is really nice, but I like the saving money idea better. Also there’s a lot of crap out there on the TV and I am glad we don’t have it for that reason, but I know there are a lot of ways to be able to block it. There were some great ideas here to read more about that! I think the best thing to do if you have Television is to limit the time not only your kids, but you watch it. You will be amazed the things you can either do with your kids, or get accomplished if you cut out a few shows during the day!
Hope you are all having a wonderful week!
We didn’t ever hook up to cable or dish when we moved into this house – over four years ago! We haven’t missed it one bit and wonder how we got anything done when we had it.
Good ideas! I go back and forth with the kid’s TV watching, but I pretty much HATE commercials and they know it! So we was PBS almost exclusively…the days we don’t watch any TV are the best!
I think it’s great! I remember when we got rid of cable, and my kids only watched PBS, they couldn’t think of anything they wanted for christmas that year! When we had cable and comercials, their lists were miles long with toys they saw on TV!
Thumbs up on this one. We gave it up to save money about 8 years ago and have not missed it. My kids all agreed. We use dvds and stream on the computer. But people are often surprised that we do not have TV. Netflix fills in for needed documentaries for home school. Love it!
A relative of ours, who is a pediatrician, does not have a tv in their house, and they have six children! The kids have had to learn to entertain themselves and each other. I have two children, spaced 10 years apart. The kids watch tv every day. I would rather read a book. We should unplug all the tv sets or at least enforce no-tv days.