KILL YOUR TELEVISION

OK, nothing as dramatic as beating your TV with a bat, however you can modify the way you consume your TV entertainment to save money and take commercials out of the equation. I'm really not sure why my husband and I ever subscribed to cable, we rarely watched it. When we had a cable subscription we also paid for a Netflix account and we typically just watched the Netflix movies. A few years ago we bought a Roku box for about $90, now you can get one for as low as $50. We have the Roku hooked up to our Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts and between those two Roku channels we have more than enough entertainment for our family. After the initial $90 layout for the hardware, we pay a bit over $8 per month for Netflix and the Amazon Prime video is included with the Amazon Prime account. There are also TONS of other awesome Roku channels - Pandora, TED, Vimeo, and CHOW to name very few. Some are paid, but the ones that we use other than Netflix are free. They have a channel for HBO GO, but you need an HBO subscription - so I don't understand that one at all since most people with a ROKU are not going to also have cable but I may be mistaken.

As far as Ned's Atomic Dustbin goes (musicians from the video above), they may have softened their stance on TV if they have kids. Watching Netflix on the Roku is so awesome for kids since they can watch the same.thing.over.and.over.and.over. There is always content for little kids and they're not assaulted with commercials. For us there is always something to watch and if I can't find it on Netflix, usually it's on Amazon either free or paid for just a couple of dollars. About once a month we spring for a $3 movie on Amazon to see a newish release.

I'm pretty sure there are now live sports channels on Roku, but if you watch a lot of sports then you may find that cable is easier and cheaper. If you're really into the prime time TV shows you can subscribe to the HULU plus channel for about $8/month - we prefer Netflix, but we're more into movies and kid programming than TV shows (the exception is Mad Men). The first month of my son's life I did subscribe to Hulu Plus and I watched A LOT of Parks & Recreation, then his nursing habits were further spaced and I watched mainly movies while I nursed. How do some mother's read books while nursing - I'm so curious? We used to spend about $80 each month on cable and now we spend about $11 on our TV entertainment. That is a savings of about $828 each year!