May
2
2011

Going TV Free + The Minimalist Resource Guide

Filed under: Contentment, Daily Life, Minimalism

Don’t worry, we haven’t been robbed.

We’ve decided to live life a bit more fully…which means that the large TV that used to sit here has been returned thanks to a generous return policy at Costco. We are making some big changes in our life…and this is one of them. The room already feels completely different and we love it.

We are not anti-television. We enjoy it and feel that it does have educational benefits. We just didn’t want it to be the main focus of our evenings and weekends anymore. We want our focus to be on relationships and connection…and getting rid of the TV just made a lot of sense for us right now. We are cancelling cable, but will keep one TV to watch movies/Netflix…just not in the living room.

I have big plans for this empty corner…it will involve paint and hanging things and light and other yummy stuff. Stay tuned for that update

One of my most recent eBook discoveries is “The Minimalist Mom” and it’s partially responsible for our TV exodus. I LOVE Dusti’s bold stance on her beliefs and I am completely inspired by her passion to live life on her terms. She recently compiled an AMAZING minimalism resource list. It will rock your world.

She also just launched a new blog, Undefinable You with all kinds of goodies happening in the next month. Check it out…she’s a little firecracker

I am working on a new series about minimalism and the first post is on how I am downsizing my wardrobe…can’t wait to share it with you all!

Have you gotten rid of your TV and/or cable? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it and how it has changed your life…

Posted by Sara @ 10:50 pm | Leave a Comment

Anna

My husband and I never bothered paying for cable tv in the 8 years we’ve been married… We have Netflix and I’ll admit, sometimes it can be just as bad as tv. Internet can be worse! There’s just so much information out there. It can be brain overload. Any tips for that? Not getting overloaded by the media that’s out there? Several years ago, I read in your posting about “the compact” about something along the lines of not letting the junk “in.” By way of media, advertisements, and I suppose websites fall into this category as well. I’d REALLY love to see a re-visit – 4 or 5 years later – on this topic of not letting the world in. I’d LOVE to know how you maintain this. Just a thought. Oh, and also, how do you get your hubby to comply? That seems to be a recurring issue on this blog. My husband uses the tv to zone out and he doesn’t seem to be convicted by this, but it’s how he grew up.
- http://www.walkslowlylivewildly.com Sara
  
  I agree that internet can be just as mind-zoning We try to place limits on it’s use as well. As far as getting hubby to comply…I just waited until he was ready. It was actually HIS prompting, not mine. So no advice here, except to wait. Because if it’s done against his will…it will be a short-lived change.
  - Anna
    
    Thanks girl! You and your family are a bright light for me. I’ll just pray for my husband to be dissatisfied with what the tv has to offer.
http://www.perfectlyflawedwoman.com Tanya

Kudos! We’ve had only one TV for years now and love it! Primarily for movies. I can’t even remember now what it was like to watch TV all the time, and I know we did at one point. Now to limit internet!
http://ahomeschooladventure.blogspot.com Rambling Heather

We are TV free and it has changed our lives. At first we did it as an experience for one year. My three kids were not too happy about it but we all ended up loving our life without. The kids played more creatively with better imagination and our time was spent together more playing board games and making memories! We plan on never going back. You are going to LOVE it!
http://www.travelingontheoutskirts.com/ TravelingOnTheOutskirts

We haven’t had cable in many years but now we’re addicted to our internet connection instead. Luckily we’re hitting the road soon so we’ll have limited internet access and we’ll have to refocus on the real stuff again! I’m really getting tired of being attached to this damn laptop all the time!
Anonymous

Many years ago my daughters 2nd grade teacher (that daughter is 22 now,how did that happen?)had a contest to see who could go two weeks w/o tv at the end of those two weeks the set wouldn’t come back on and I didnt replace it until the 8th grade yr.best decision I ever made.As a single parent it prevented fights,gave us more time to connect,etc…truly was a blessing in disguise.I will say it did have a “social consequence” because sometimes she didn’t get the humor of her friends which was sometimes mocking tv characters,I viewed that as a good thing and today her sense of humor is something everybody loves about her.And…we never had cable until she had her first yep boyfriend.LONG TIME READER,love your sweet little family.
http://lightenough.wordpress.com/ LLM

I’m late to see your post. But just had to write a quick response. We have lived TV free since 1997. We got rid of our one TV and have not owned one since then! However…At first we did not watch movies either, but then we found a way to hook a DVD player to our computer screen. And with the onset of hulu.com a couple yrs ago, we do now watch an occasional show through hulu.com on the computer screen. So, we do watch a little but not the traditional way. We like the “control” we have this way – with a regular TV it was too easy for us to sit down and start flipping and just waste time. It is much harder to do this with “TV through computer”! We aren’t “anti-TV” but would just prefer to “do” something instead of “sit and watch” a show or movie. Of course, the internet is so developed now that it can be the same time waster and pit that TV was…so you have to be careful with it too.
http://katelynvonfeldt.com/blog Katelyn

It has been over a year since I got rid of my television. I was working way too many jobs, trying to train for a race and had recently transitioned to a vegan diet. There wasnt enough time in the day for everything and I didnt have time to cook the healthy meals my body craved. There were so many things I wanted to enjoy that just got pushed to the wayside.. and then I got rid of my tv an everything changed. That is how I have time to cook homemade meals everyday and read books, and sew and work a garden. So while I am just as busy- it is with more meaningful activities. We still have a large tv that we use as a computer monitor, but we do no have cable and only use it for watching the occasional netflix. as a result of not watching cable- there is a significant reduction in the amount of commercials I see.. commercials telling me that I must buy this in order to be hip.. yada yada.. that combined with not seeing all of the “new fashions” on tv make it much easier to live more simply and be less materialistic
blogstalker

So, how did you end up transforming this corner? Would love to see it!
http://www.baleboosteh.blogspot.com Baleboosteh

Coming to this post very late but I just wanted to say that I don’t think you will regret your decision. We gave up television over 7 years ago and it was one of the best decisions we ever made. We truly don’t miss it at all and our sons don’t seem to be ‘culturally disadvantaged’ without it! More time for talking, playing games, reading aloud to each other, listening to audio books and working on projects as a family. Friends worried that we might become isolated from ‘the real world’ when we gave it up – and that makes me smile when you consider how artificial and contrived the ‘real world’ of television can be. Being television free has, I think (or hope), made us more critical consumers of the media and we try to get our information and news from as broad a variety of sources as possible. We hope the transition will go well for you all!
Jen

We got rid of Cable about 6 months ago. We still have a TV and a netflix streaming account which we use a lot. However, we’ve probably cut back TV time by 75% and instead play board games, talk, or catch monsters
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Timarie

We got rid of TV a few years ago, and haven’t looked back! I love the fact that my children (I have 2 of my own and 2 step) can be found at any given time reading, making card houses, drawing, painting… without TV to occupy them they are forced to find other things to do with their time! At first we got rid of it because my husband, an auto worker, lost his job. We realized quickly that we were better off, and when he went back to work we decided that we would not be going back. We do have a small TV and blue-ray player, but we do not use them much at all. We enjoy playing board games and listening to audio books. I take a lot of slack from people because of our choice to not have television, my parents even offered to pay for us to have cable. It’s amazing that people assume that it is impossible to live without TV, or that I am permanently scaring my children by not allowing them to watch TV!
Mini

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