by Victoria Rose Perkins

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 05, 2009

During these hard economic times, most people may, sooner or later, have to sacrifice the extras in order to keep the basics; food, clothing, shelter. At least, that is how it appears at the moment...during this current recession. On tight budgets, entertainment is usually the first thing to go. However, there are many wholesome recreation activities that are free!

How can you save money by getting rid of the televison? Easy! My husband and I did it four years ago. Money was not the main factor, at the time. We no longer could stomach the canned-laughter sit-coms that were not really funny, nothing-worthwhile-to-watch every night and enough commercials to make you want to pull your hair out!

In 2005, we pulled the plug on the brain drain and put the idiot box and us out of our misery! Paying $60.00 per month for cable which gave us around 50 extra channels, for us, seemed crazy! Who can watch 50 channels at once anyhow? Our final "shows" consisted of watching reruns. We liked them, but when we got so we knew what the actors were going to say next, it was time to quit! So, that was it!

In the last four years we have saved $1,500 alone in cable service charges. Not even counting the electricity saved in pulling the plugs completely out of the walls. We had two televsions and gave them away to charity.

Did we have withdrawal symptoms? Yes...for about a week. After that, we learned to enjoy the quiet. Do we miss it? Absolutely not!

We have been conditioned to love our TV's so much, like everyone else, that they have practically become the centerpiece of every American livingroom, not to mention, one in every bedroom, too!

Perhaps you are not ready to throw your TV out the window yet, however, you can still save money by possibly considering the following.

LIMITING TV USE:

1. Can you cut your cable or satellite down to the basics? The major Networks still give a variety of the newer programs and carry live news. Maybe you can live without the extra channels. And public broadbacsting is usually available in every town and city.

2. We get all the news we need off our Internet and our radio. Also, for entertainment, we pay $15. per month which gives us rotating movies by mail. The service is a quick-turn around, no postage, no further than your mail box to return, plus over 5,000 free movies come with the different packages offered. It is much less expensive to rent a movie this way and play it on your computer. And, no annoying, interrupting commercials! Check it out!

3. As

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