Our Decision To Give Up Television

As a family, we recently made a decision that a lot of folks won't understand.

Four months ago we cancelled our satellite television. We now have no TV hook up in our house. No antenna, no cable, nothing. We still have the actual TV and we are still able to watch movies on DVD or play the Wii.

The decision to finally let go of television has been a long time coming. I mentioned to my husband a few years ago that it would be nice to have that extra monthly payment. I also know a few families in my life that do not have it and they just seemed more connected to one another. So, on our quest to simplify as a family in all areas of our lives, this seemed the like the next logical step.

Visit Molly Green to read the rest of the story and see what it's been like for us living without a TV!

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Unplugging From TV

Little House on the Prairie, Saturday morning cartoons, Friday night videos, Schoolhouse rock....

Do you remember watching television as a child?

When I was a child in the 1980's we had only one television in our home. We often could be found watching classic Disney movies in the evenings and classic shows like Little House on the Prairie after school. I don't remember watching very many nightly sitcoms, and the only cartoons we watched besides our VHS Disney movies, were Saturday morning cartoons that lasted until noon. After Saturday morning cartoons, it was time to head outside and play with your siblings or the neighborhood kids.

It seems that television watching has drastically changed in the last thirty years. What used to be an occasional thing, has turned into televisions being on constantly in every home. Most households these days have a TV in every room of their home. Saturday morning cartoons have turned into Nickelodeon and Disney channels that give our children access to cartoons all day long, even in the middle of the night.

Along with our increased television watching, we have seen American obesity expand (literally) to an all time high. Child obesity is rising rapidly here in the United States with more and more children being diagnosed with preventable diseases. Children are often found sitting in front of a television versus running around outside with the neighbor kids.

In June of 2014 we decided that we were done paying for satellite television for two reasons: one - we started to see it as a waste of our time and money, and two - we wanted to be able to think for ourselves.

Having a television on all the time is like someone coming into your home and telling you how you should act, what should wear, what you should think, and what's cool and not cool. And don't get me started on the kid's cartoons these days. Seriously? Is there anything more annoying to watch or listen to? Talk about dumbing down our children. Oh, and what about how men are treated on the nightly sitcoms? They are portrayed as idiots who have to have woman there to tell them how to function. They have nightly shows on now that I would be embarrassed to watch with my grandparents in the same room as me. Not to mention, I don't want my son exposed to any of that at his age.

We have not had a connection to satellite television or an antenna for ten months now. When we first shut it off, I will admit that I did miss it. I was never one to get into the nightly shows but I did enjoy watching some reality shows...if you can even call them that. God spoke to me along time ago about watching some of the more controversial shows. I'm not judging those who do, it's just something I felt like I didn't need to be viewing in my own home. I don't even miss the television now. We have an antenna, and we have talked about hooking it up, but we just haven't done it and we are pretty content without it.

Here are seven benefits we have experienced from shutting off our satellite connection:

1. We go to bed early and get enough sleep.

We used to head to bed around nine-thirty or ten o'clock and now we are in bed at eight. That probably seems early to some of you all, but we get up at five and I haven't had to take a nap in months.

2. Our son has found new ways to occupy his time.

My son has always been a reader but after shutting the satellite off he starting devouring books. A trip to the library is the highlight of his week. He also started playing with his toys more and going outside to play. It's hard for an only child to really get into playing, since he only has himself, but he still has a great imagination and now he is using it even more.

3. The silence.

Can I get an 'amen' for silence. I used to hate silence, and sometimes I still do, but I am trying to embrace it because silence it's what makes you able to think and process things. My husband is big on silence. He doesn't even listen to the radio in the car. I am not quite that fond of it. I love to turn my music up in the car and rock out but I am learning to appreciate silence more.

4. We talk to each other.

We have had some of the deepest and best conversations in the evenings as we sit there with no television on. Communication has increased and we have each others full attention with no distractions (unless we are on our smartphones, but that's another topic for another post.)

5. We are more physically active.

We are going for walks more, and because of the added sleep, we have more energy to do more things during the day. I find myself cooking more from scratch and reading more books. I have had time to totally revamp and update my blog. Not to mention, more physical time in the *ahem* bedroom with an early bedtime, if you know what I mean. ;)

6. Our stress level is way down.

We just aren't as stressed as we used to be. Without the added noise and the nightly news telling us all a bunch of horror stories, we just are more relaxed.

7. We are getting school done.

I find that my son doesn't get up and turn the television on just to zone out and ignore me. I am not using the television as a babysitter anymore and we are actually getting our school and house work done.

8. It saves us money.

We were paying approximately $860 for satellite TV per year. I don't know about you, but I can think of about a hundred things I would rather do with that money than watch TV. Even the best movie or show in the world couldn't get me to pay that kind of money for it.

Overall, I would say not having television has only had positive affects on our family. We still do rent and watch movies on a weekly basis. It's always family friendly movies and the latest Disney movie that we rent. I would highly recommend trying this as an experiment for your family to see if you discover the same benefits that we have.

Do you have a cable or satellite connection? Let me know your reasons for having it or not having it.

Jenn

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Top Five Reasons For Buying or Building a Smaller Home

 

Have you ever considered downsizing your living space?

What if I told you there are a lot of benefits in making this decision? Imagine more time to do what you want and less time cleaning? How about getting out from under all that clutter you have accumulated? We did this two years ago and it was one of the best decisions we ever made!

In 1970 the average square footage of a house in America was 1400 square feet and in 2009 that had grown to 2700 square feet. It seems like Americans in the last year or so are finally catching on to the fact that consumer debt and bigger houses are not buying them happiness. After the housing market crash of 2007-2008, a lot people have decided to downsize and we are one of those families.

We started our life together in a ranch style, 1500 square foot, house we lived in from 1996-2011. When we moved to Kentucky in May of 2011, we purchased a beautiful, almost, brand new 2600 square foot house. After a year in this house, I was feeling unsettled and overwhelmed by the size of it. We are a one child family due to unexplained infertility and we were living in a four bedroom, two and a half bathroom home. It seemed excessive and a waste of our resources. I told my husband I wanted land and a smaller house. We found one hundred acres, put a down payment on it, and sold the house we were living in.


In May of 2012, we started building our little house in an existing tractor shed on the property we bought. I absolutely love my little home. It is approximately 1100 square feet with two bedrooms and one bathroom. We do have a tiny basement that is used as storage and a tornado shelter during storm season.

These are my top five reasons for downsizing your living space:

1. Lower monthly expenses.

Our monthly expenses have dropped drastically since living in our little house.

We decided to dig a well instead of pay for county water which eliminated a water bill.

Our electric is much cheaper with less lights and less space to heat.We installed mini-split units that both heat and cool our home. We have three of them, one in each bedroom, and one in the main area of the house. Plus, we installed a woodstove in our garage to blow hot air under our house to keeps pipes from freezing.

Insuring a smaller, less expensive, house is cheaper than a larger, more expensive home.

2. It takes you less time to clean a small house.

I used to spend so much time cleaning. I spent time cleaning rooms we never even used. It's amazing how a space that's not even used can collect so much dust! On average, it probably takes me a total of two hours to clean my entire house. That includes vacuuming, mopping, dusting, and cleaning the bathroom.

I don't know about you, but I could think of a million things I would rather be doing than cleaning. And this is coming from a person who likes to clean and organize.

3. You accumulate less clutter.

I have clutter phobia so this has never been a problem for me.

I used to decorate with more knick-knacks and pictures but now I keep it to a minimum. I do save some sentimental things, mostly from my son, but there are not very many. I just don't want to have to move five things out of my way to dust a surface.

You cannot collect things while living in a small space, unless you want to feel suffocated by it all. I am forced to clean out closets and drawers more frequently because we just don't have the room to keep buying things without getting rid of things.

4. You are literally forced to be closer as a family.

In a small house you cannot escape each other as easily. You are forced to spend time together because you have no other place to go! This is a good things, friends! There is a popular country song that says "Love grows best in little houses with few walls to separate" and I believe this to be true. I love how close we are as a family.

It forces you to go outside more. We may have a smaller house but we have one hundred acres to explore and roam around on. If you're getting on each other's nerves, just head outside.

5. The cost of building and financing is much less with a smaller house.

A rough guess estimate of how much it cost to build and furnish our house was less than $100,000. That was with doing the majority of the work ourselves. The house we previously lived in cost over twice that much. Most of the money in our mortgage now goes to pay for the land it sits on. The land is a much better investment than a house that deteriorates over time. We will be able to pay our mortgage off much quicker living in this house because our cost of living is much less.

Now, before you tell me that "You only have one child so it's easy to live in smaller space," I will tell you that my grandparents raised five children in a three bedroom home that is about the size of ours now. In fact, most people of that generation did, and the last time I checked my mom and her brothers and sisters all turned out fine. Besides, let's be honest with each other, the extra space in a house is usually just used as storage anyway. That's a pretty expensive storage unit to pay for if you ask me.

These are just a few of the reasons I love the choice we made to live in a smaller home. It has been well worth it for our family.

Jenn

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Striving For A Debt Free Life

My husband and I have been on a journey with our finances for awhile now. After we went through the big job loss scare at the beginning of 2013, we realized that things really needed to change. I am happy to say that we have paid off quite a bit of debt since then.

We even went down to one vehicle for about ten months. We recently have purchased a second vehicle that we had to borrow money for. I know the ideal situation is to pay cash for a vehicle and someday we will! Right now we are working toward paying it off as quickly as possible.

I have been researching ways to save money this week and I love that we do a lot of these already. Since I am the manager of our home when it comes to groceries, laundry, cleaning, etc., I started making a list of all the ways we save money and ways to continue to save money. There are a few of these I need to work on.... like menu planning! <------ my nemesis!

This is the list that I have so far on how to cut expenses in our home:


1. Menu plan -

I know it works. I know it saves money. I just have to do it. I would like to do it monthly, but even if I can start out weekly it would help.

2. Coupons -

I don't love couponing and I don't use a lot of coupons, but I know that there are coupons almost weekly for stuff like batteries, paper towels, toiler paper, etc. Even if it's only a twenty-five cent savings, you would have bought it anyway so why not use a coupon for it?

3. Price matching -

I have already been using a savings catcher app from Wal-Mart on my phone and have saved a little using that. I know I could save even more by taking the time to price match with local competitors.

4. Make your own laundry detergent and laundry products-

I have done this in the past but I have just not been happy with the detergent. I will be honest...I love the smell of laundry detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. It just smells so clean. They are very expensive though and there are alternative things you can use. I watched a laundry detergent tutorial the other day where the woman made the liquid homemade detergent but then added a big bottle of store bought detergent to it. I am going to try this next to see how it works.

I am also going to try to start substituting vinegar for fabric softener and make a wool dryer ball for the dryer so I can skip the dryer sheets. I would love to have clothesline eventually. That may be a project for this spring.

5. Shop second hand -

I know some people have issues with this but I am not one of them. We live in a consumer driven, I have to have it all, and I have to have it right now society. I am completely happy taking advantage of someone's used clothes and other things they have no use for anymore.

I also love to garage sale and have found many treasures at them. Just this summer, I bought a dehydrator, immersion blender (which I used a ton during canning season), and deep dish cast iron pan all for under $10.

6. Make your own cleaning products -

I love castile soap and I use it a lot. I use it as our soap to wash our hands with by filling an empty soap foam container with 1/4 castile soap and the rest water. I squirt a bit in my mopping bucket along with some lavender and orange essential oils to mop my floors. It's much cheaper to do this than to buy hand soap and mopping solution.

For my bathroom cleaning I just use straight baking soda and vinegar. I have scrubbed my toilet with baking soda for years and it hasn't let me down yet. I put the baking soda in an old parmesan cheese container and sprinkle the toilet with that.

7. Cook from scratch and don't eat out -

I have been making our own bread for awhile now. We were still buying bread from the store but we are in the process of transitioning to all homemade bread. I have some other homemade bread products I would like to try and make - like hotdog buns, hamburger buns, and bagels. I also would like to try and make our own cream of mushroom soup mix since we tend to use a lot of that. I have come a long way with cooking from scratch and I aim to improve it even more.

Eating out is expensive! I don't think it's wrong to treat yourself occasionally but if you are in the habit of eating at fast food restaurants often, I would reconsider that. Not only is packing a lunch more healthy but it can save you a lot of money by doing it.

8. Beauty products -

I have been slowly using up some of my old beauty products and lotions and I am trying to transition into more natural stuff. Not only because of the chemicals but because of how much money you save. A nice bottle of lotion can cost you anywhere from six to eight dollars. I have been making my own body and face lotion for awhile now. I mix coconut oil, shea butter, and essential oils. I have even made it for a few friends as a gift. A large container of coconut oil purchased at Sam's Club will last a very long time. Plus it takes up less space in your bathroom if you limit the amount of products you own (I have clutter phobia as some of you know...).

I have been trying to grow my natural color out for years but I always end up coloring it. Last night I was looking up ombre hair on Pinterest (in my deer stand! LOL!). I can't make any promises that I will not color again but I sure would like to stop that habit. My hair dresser is very reasonable with her prices but a savings is a savings.

9. Can and preserve your own food -

This one was a huge one for us this summer and fall. We managed to can a lot of produce this year. We have canned tomatoes, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, pickles, peaches, pears, jams, and all kinds of beans. We also have a freezer full of corn, squash, and venison. Sometimes it really stinks harvesting and canning when it feels like a hundred degrees out but as I sit in my little house with my shelves stocked, it feels so good!

My next preserving project is going to be homemade chicken broth. I have been saving chicken bones for awhile and I am anxious to do this. Broth is expensive!

10. Cut your out going expenses -

We cancelled our satellite TV this summer because the content on TV is not worth watching anymore and we just didn't want that extra payment. We do not own a home phone and only use our cell phones. We also canceled the exterminator this year since we couldn't really see where it was making a difference. Besides.... I'm just not sure about spraying all those chemicals around my house. We supplement our heating in the winter with a woodstove and the wood is free from our property. I also just applied for job to review homeschooling curriculum for free and blog about it. I am hoping to save some money and have fun trying new stuff with Evan.

These are some of the ways we are trying to save money in our home. How about you? Do you have any tips for us? We are in an aggressive mode to get debt free right now so any suggestions are helpful!

Jenn

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A One Vehicle Family

 

Three months ago we sold our second vehicle. We just couldn't see the sense (cents) in keeping it when it was under a loan and we were trying to eliminate debt. I stay home with Evan and I really wasn't going a lot of places because we are trying to save money and eliminate debt. It seemed like the right thing to do.

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