For the last 10 years we haven’t had TV and we love it! OK, I guess we have an actual Television, but we don’t have Cable or Dish or whatever else there is. Some people think we are crazy. Yeah we probably are, but we have really enjoyed it, and it seems to be more popular these days.
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 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 $50 a month for basic cable, and in the 10 years we haven’t had it we have saved $4200. 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! Although we do miss watching BYU Football every year. So what do we do when were board and need downtime? 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! We as a family love to do things outside together or if the weather isn’t great we enjoy playing games together!
Here are 6 why reasons I like not having TV
1- More peace and quiet in our home.
2-We don’t have to see commercials.
3-My kids don’t ask for it all the time.
4-We are saving a lot of money.
5-We have more time to spend with family and friends.
6-I don’t feel like I am waisting time.
I understand that some people use TV as their downtime, I totally don’t judge you for that. I blog and am on the computer for my down time. We also let the kids watch some shows on PBSkids.org or they can pick a movie that we have or have rented from the library. We know letting kids watch a lots of television each day is not good for their brain. I know I waisted a lot of time as a child flipping through channels. It was just so easy to do. Grab a remote, lay on the couch and veg. I waisted so much time! My husbands family was the same. We didn’t want that for our kids. Do we watch anything on the TV? Yes we do. We love having family movie night and my kids look forward to it. I also let the kids watch a short show every few days either online or a movie we have rented, but we limit it to that and we don’t have any fights about it.
I am not saying not having TV, cable, satellite, antennae, whatever you want to call it, 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. 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 at how much time you have and how much you can get accomplished if you cut out a few shows during the day!
Hope you are all having a wonderful week!
We haven’t had TV for years also and I LOVE it! Netflix and YouTube are all we need. The library and PBSKids are great sources too. Thanks so much for sharing Kendra!