Life does go on with minimal cable service
Posted
May 03 2008, 02:33 PM
by
Karen Datko
We're not sure we're willing to totally give up TV, as our partner blogger Donna Freedman has. We have gone without before, but we want our CNN, our "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "The Sopranos" reruns, and our Steelers football in the fall. (We have DirecTV.)
But if we needed to cut back to a basic package or do without, "Frugal Dad" assures us that there is life with minimal TV service. He's been without expanded cable service for four months, and he and the family are very happy with the decision. Here's why.
You can save money. Their TV service went from $47 to $12 a month, and he's putting the difference into the family's emergency fund.
You can lose weight. When he stopped watching so much TV, he stopped eating snacks. "By breaking one bad habit, I really broke two," he writes.
They're spending more time together as a family, and much of it outdoors (where he's tending his square-foot garden.)
They are exposed to fewer commercials. They're not seeing those daytime and nighttime soap operas where everyone is very rich and real life isn't part of the script. They've cut the noise pollution. They've reduced the kids' exposure to racy content. (We're not prudish, but for years we've been amazed at what's shown on TV when children are still watching.)
We love this reason: "American Idle (no typo). Need I say more?" Frugal Dad writes. "This show has corrupted our idea of what makes a good entertainer. If Springsteen, Tom Petty or Bob Seger ever appeared here they would not have made it through the first round of auditions."
Here's one of the most important reasons to cut back on that TV habit: "Several studies have shown that heavy television viewing by children contributes to the development of attention-deficit and other behavioral disorders," Frugal Dad says.
On a side note, we had thought that we'd all save money if cable and satellite TV companies charged us only for the channels we want. But you can find a pretty convincing argument that you'd actually pay more in this article in The New York Times. Plus, we wouldn't have accidentally found that crazy guy on the Travel Channel who'll eat anything anywhere in the world.
