This household is just gettin' all wild and crazy and out of control. We are knocking things out and taking names in 2014. We are rebellious and we are standing up for ourselves.
Or maybe I'm just trying to make us sound more exciting than we really are.
The thing is, like most married couples, there have been a few times in our blessed union that we have decided to get ourselves on a budget. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
We're approaching it from a different perspective this time around. We are not going to focus so much on not spending so much money (which is obviously important) but we are going to focus on SAVING money. Isn't that a novel idea?!
Basically, we're making cuts. We're getting rid of the unnecessaries. And I'm not going to lie, y'all. Some of that is kinda scary. Some of it's easy.
I'm stopping my magazine subscriptions because, let's be honest, I'm never really sitting down and reading a magazine. I'm just paying for someone to mail me something that ends up being thrown away. On the technology front, we've been paying an absurd amount of money for bad wireless service that we've been unhappy with for a long time. Turns out, we can get out of our contract for free because their stats show that 1 out of every 10 calls that I make is dropped. Seriously. So, we switched carriers and Grant is hopping onto his company's wireless plan. Grant ended his golf membership and I am collecting items that I plan on selling in a garage sale. I've started using Amazon Mom for some of our frequent household purchases. Honestly, we have already seen some big impact which shows just how lazy we have been when it comes to this kind of stuff.
But here's the scary part:
We might cancel cable.
Let's have a moment of silence.
Seriously. Stop whatever you're doing and consider the gravity of this decision with me. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Take it all in. Say a little prayer for me.
CAN WE JUST HAVE A MOMENT ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE MY PRECIOUS TELEVISION AND ALL OF THE PROGRAMMING THAT IT OFFERS ME
Okay. Okay. Okay. The plan is that we would use Amazon Prime/ Hulu/ Netflix and things of that nature to watch our shows instead of paying a small fortune for cable service. This is 90% acceptable to me.
Things that scare me:
1. Not every show we watch is offered on one of these live streaming setups. For example: The Bubble Guppies. There are no words to describe how problematic this might be.
2. There are certain shows I love to watch as they happen. Scandal is one of those shows. I don't want to watch them the next day. I want to watch them immediately.
3. Sports such as football games and golf tournaments would not be viewable. This is more of a bummer for Grant than for me, but a bummer nonetheless.
4. There will be no DVR. In the event that I am able to pick up a show such as the Oscars or the Miss America pageant on a local channel with an HD antenna, I have to be in front of the TV. No recording it and fast forwarding through the commercials if I'm running late. No rewinding. No pausing to check on Ellie.
I'd like to pause here and acknowledge the fact that this whole entire blog post is the poster child for FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. I know this is all trivial and stupid but these are the things that we are considering as we try to save more and these things are making me a little panicky.
We can do it. We will survive. I am not a slave to my television.
But we won't have HGTV so I'm sad. It's my favorite channel to watch when I'm sick.
So basically, we are obviously taking drastic measures around here, people. If you want to give me a medal for bravery I'd be fine with that.
I'll keep y'all posted on what we decide to do. This could be a huge way to cut our monthly bills so I'm on bored with that.
But, in the words of Jessie Spano from the band Hot Fudge Sundae.... "I'm so excited!! I'm so excited!! I'm so.... (
sob) .... scared...."
