Always Looking to Save a Buck

picklewart.blogspot.com

-- Money's tight... especially right now. I've been laid off since before Christmas, so we're always on the lookout to save money here and there. You may not have anyone in your home "laid off" or out-of-work, but I think we're all being much more frugal these days. When we started looking at our budget, we had some big decisions to make. Where could we cut back? We were already living pretty darn lean since I had already left a very good full-time programming job for a part-time position. I kept thinking, there's not a whole lot left to cut back on! We live in the country, so our chickens and our garden help quite a bit with our grocery expenses (as well as Courtney's hunting when he's successful), so there's not a whole lot there to cut. I already cook 3 meals a day from scratch most of the time! Where else... where else... we could drop our TV service. Oh mercy. That sure brought up a "discussion". I'll admit it, I'm a network TV viewer, so for me, it wasn't such a big deal. My hubby, on the other hand, enjoys The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel... all NOT freebies. Well, after much deliberation and a trial period currently going on, we decided we'll try the scenario of having an antenna for network stations and then just link up our laptop or Vaio media tower and use services like Netflix and the freebie, Hulu to bring in some of the other much wanted shows and movies we both enjoy. Initially, we'll have to invest in the purchase of a large antenna to make this happen though. Like I said, we're just trying it right now... we've not cancelled our DirecTV yet - oh but I do believe it's coming! We'll save about $652 a year!! Right now, we're running both "systems" side-by-side until we determine if it will meet our needs - well, "needs" so to speak anyway.
I'll let you know how it goes!