Bye Bye TV

I may have mentioned it a few million times before, but we are broke. So so so broke. I haven’t received a paycheck in about 18 months and Josh just does not make enough to support us independently. So over the last 18 months we have done everything we can to try to cut our monthly expenses to a minimum. We very rarely eat out, we are on the cheapest cell phone plan, we don’t have a land line, we got our car insurance rates reduced, Josh takes the bus to work rather than driving, we don’t buy gifts for ourselves or anyone else, we moved to Valencia for the lower rent, etc.

We held out as long as we could, but finally had to give up paying for cable tv about nine months ago. Although, as it turns out, we didn’t really have to give it up entirely.  We bought some rabbit ears and got a digital converter box and we were able to get all of the basic channels perfectly clear. And FOR FREE! It was such an exciting revelation that I could still watch most of the shows I wanted and not have to pay for them. So that worked out really well until we moved to the fourth circle of hell that is Valencia, where THERE ARE NO DIGITAL SIGNALS! NONE! We can’t get a single channel!

At first, it seemed like a mini-tragedy! What will I do if I can’t watch my nightly news while I cook dinner?! What about my evening vegging time?! What about my Sunday mornings with David Gregory on Meet the Press?! Well, Josh was pretty sure we’d get over it. I was skeptical. He was right.

It actually was not too much of an adjustment. In the evenings, we can watch almost every show that we like on the internet, and we have also been renting series that we haven’t watched before from Netflix. So that has been fine. While I cook dinner I listen to NPR on my laptop to get my evening news. That has been wonderful, I really missed listening to NPR since I no longer have a commute, and it really is much better news than on network television. I can also watch the occasional Meet the Press interview online when I feel like it. I’m also finding that I am more likely to pick up a book than watch tv, even when shows are available on the internet. So, I’ve been reading a lot more lately which is really nice. I was a voracious reader before going to law school, and it’s really nice to get back to books that aren’t textbooks.

Overall, we’ve been living happily without tv for the last few months. But then the new season of Oprah started and it made me miss tv all over again! Oprah!! I love Oprah!! Why aren’t your shows available online, Oprah?! Someone needs to fix this problem immediately!

We will also be pretty sad when the new (and 40th!) season of Sesame Street starts in November and neither it or any of the PBS kids line-up are available online. So sad. Eleanor used to love those shows. Especially Sesame Street it was such a fun part of our day, to get to watch it together. I think I love it as much if not more than she does. Oh well…someday we’ll get cable back, or just move out of this digital signal dead zone!