When it comes to finding things to trim in the family budget, entertainment is an area where many people could probably make a few cuts. Unfortunately, the very idea of scrutinizing your family’s entertainment budget may be very unappealing when you consider the people in your household that may be very attached to their entertainment of choice, be it television, video games, or movie rentals. That said, there are a couple of options that you could consider if you are thinking about how to save money on television.
The first option is the most obvious – go without television. No, I am not crazy, nor am I insane. I have been living without television for a couple of years now, and I can say with confidence that I do not miss it. It started out innocently enough, we bought and renovated a house and upon moving in, we started calling around to see what the prices are for cable and satellite television in our neck of the woods. Cable television, we were told, is not available at our house even though they have it two houses down the road and four houses in the other direction. They are in no hurry to connect the two lines unless all of the houses in between are willing to subscribe. Okay, so cable was out. Satellite is available, however we may be selling our house and we did not want to get locked in to a multi-year commitment. We thought we might be able to get television and internet in a bundle from the phone company, but to no avail. We could only get either or both of those things if we get a land line phone, which we have no need for. Fast forward two years, and we occasionally rent movies from the library or Redbox and (rarely) watch a TV show online. We spend our time in other ways, and since our little guy is only fifteen months old and has never had TV, he does not miss it either. This may or may not work for your family, but if push comes to shove and your financial situation gets precarious you will quickly find that you and your family will do just fine without it.
I also recently learned about a low-cost way to watch television. Netflix has expanded beyond renting DVDs through the mail, and you can now watch television shows online any time with no limit to how many you can watch each month. The best thing is that it costs less than ten dollars. Now, you may be thinking “that’s great, but I don’t think my family will like gathering around the computer to watch their favorite shows”. No worries. If you have a Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, or certain other devices and a broadband internet connection, you can stream the Netflix TV through the device and onto your television. Of course, I must say that I have not tried this, nor has Netflix offered me anything in exchange for mentioning it, but if you want to cut back on your entertainment budget without ditching TV altogether, it may be worth a closer look.