Watching TV

 

If I had to admit to a guilty pleasure it would have to be watching television.  I thoroughly enjoy taking a break from reality and losing myself in a good TV program, just like I do when I read a book.  Lately, I've noticed my list of guilty pleasures seems to be growing an along with that a little guilt about it.  I guess that's what they mean by the saying "guilty pleasure." 

For years we went with basic free television.  In fact, practically my entire life time.  Ten years ago I started subscribing to basic satellite service and for this diehard Thrifty Mom it was one of the toughest decisions I'd ever made.  The reality is that if you add up all the expense for one year, even for basic service, it's a lot of money! 

Now that we have scaled back and we are living tiny so has our television viewing.  For one thing, we no longer own a TV.  That has made for some good change in our home.  We visit more, play our games more often, read a lot more books and I spend far more time writing.  We also save a lot of $$! 

We still have our favorite shows and we all admit to being more than a little concerned about going cold turkey and giving them all up.  Fortunately the internet has managed to provide us with enough free options to keep us well supplied with tons of television viewing.  Free too!

Last year, before we moved, I signed up with Amazon Prime for the free two-day shipping and the free streaming videos.  It was $79 for the entire year!  Less than two month's worth of satellite bills.  So easily, justifiable, except that at the time I still had the satellite subscription too.  Because I do order a lot of things from Amazon and use it quite a bit for my business and now my writing so I do plan to renew it when it comes due next year. 

 

So what are we watching?  Well, a little bit of everything.  New shows that air on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC air a day later on Hulu.com for free.  Plus Hulu has a ton of older series, some movies, and a lot of children's programs to select from as well.  Amazon streaming has a boatload of TV programs and movies to choose from as well.  And then Youtube has music videos, TV shows and even movies plus quite a bit of BBC.  For those Downton Abbey fans PBS.org airs that show plus many others online as well.  So we have plenty to choose from. 

So what do we watch our shows on?  Most often we watch on my laptop but for a good movie or if we feel the need to seriously relax we all grab our pillows and fuzzy blankets and get comfy on my bed and watch the big screen on my old desk top.  We watch all our DVDs on there as well. 

So there you go.  Free TV and like most people we still watch too much of it.  But we're happy!