Frugal Spending - CableTV & Internet

For the longest time, I have pride myself to be a shopaholic. I used to remember I would spend every single cent I earned. But my outlook towards finance gradually took a turn when I started work in SPHM and it became even more intense when I realised I was pregnant.

Apart from devouring books on pregnancy and childbearing, I have been reading up on managing finances, frugal living and investments as well. The truth is, everyone of us can get better in managing our finances. And I have been yielding the fruits of frugal living and careful planning of my finance. I feel very strongly about this aspect for a while and I figured it would be good to share some on some of the stuffs we did.

Brandon and I are both movie-junkies. We enjoy time park in front of the Tivo and coming back to the cable channels after a long day of work is a highlight for us. Not to mention the tidbits and junks that went with it. I enjoyed watching E!news, which is junk as well (What's with me and all the junk in my trunk!) to family, cooking programs and all. And Brandon is just happy to have all these options, it's our way of rewarding ourselves for slogging so hard in our jobs. It's not to much to ask for actually. But we cancelled our cable and internet about 6 months ago and we have never looked back since.

You probably think it's crazy, to not have internet at home. That was Brandon's response when I gave him the proposal. I have my reasons.

1) To cut down on our expenses, $100 per month means we would save $1,200 a year. That easily can pay for a vacation for the entire family.
2) We only watch the CableTV 3 out of 7 days per week. We were out for church activities or with family/friends rest of the time. It's not justifiable.
3) Both of us are in the digital online business, we have access to the internet at work for 12 hours a day. Any work done require the internet can be done at work. So we don't need internet at home.
4) And if ever we need the internet, we can use our iPhones, which runs fast-speed internet.
5) I came to a conviction that when we come home, we want to spend the time unwinding. Not having Cable & Internet gave us more time to read, talk to each other and pray. Our life has become more meaningful after we cancelled our Cable & Internet.

You probably would think having Cable and Internet is no big deal, but for us, and even with the arrival of the baby, we want to choose a lifestyle that enhances building of relationships, not just what the culture tells us.

We had a couple of adjustments other than this. And believe me, all good things comes through sacrificing. Sometimes we have to sacrifice a temporal pleasure for a long-term goal. My long-term goal is to build my finance and savings and find a good channel to invest in them. And let me money works for me and my family.

How about you? I will share on credit cards tmrw. I have very brutal but interesting perspectives on it. Have a lovely Friday y'all :)