The Ten Things I (Thought I) Can't Live Without

Okay, so the title is misleading. The aforementioned list is forthcoming - but that day is not today. Instead, a longer than necessary anecdote!

So a few months ago I started drafting a blog about the 10 things I can't live without. It never got published because honestly, ten things was pretty hard to come up with. Funnier still is the fact that one of those things is being lived without at this very second.

Our DVR.

Man I was in love with that bad boy. I first set one up when Erik and I had a little apartment in Black River, NY. I knew we were only going to be there for about 5 months before moving, and the cable company had a 6 month free trial (which is WAYYY too long, my money is on people being addicted by week 2) so I thought "Why not?". I expected Erik to chide me when he got home, instead he thought it was the most amazing thing ever and we've had one at every house we've lived in (4, incidentally, not counting the place in Black River).

But at the end of the year, we started looking at our bills and decided to stream-line. We switched our cell provider to Virgin Mobile (LOVE them, BTW!) which saves us more than half our old bill with Sprint, and then, still on our money saving high, we decided to switch off our cable in favor of internet cable and just keep our internet service.

I didn't want to admit it to Erik, but I was super hinky about not only giving up my DVR, but giving up my back ground noise during the day (CNN or the Food Network were my preferred "white noise"), but I've barely noticed it! The unprecidented benefits are less TV exposure for G and more "get stuff done" time for Sheena. Also, I now have no idea what's going on with Kim Kardashian, and I'm really fine with that.

Here's what though: We have a BluRay player that's connected to our internet, and Erik's dad gave us an AppleTV that someone gave him (he already had one), so the transition was virtually free. We have Amazon Prime, so that affords us tons of free shows, but better yet is Hulu - it's seriously JUST like our DVR - you set up the shows you like, it'll put them in your "Queue" when there is a new episode of whatever show, and you only have to deal with like 4 :30 second commercials. I think we pay $7 a month for that starting in March (we got a 3 month free trial in December). We also have Netflix on our AppleTV, my moms man friend is sweet enough to share his password with our family, so I'm pretty sure he, his son, my mom, my sister and us benefit from whatever his monthly fee is. (If you work for Netflix, don't turn us in...) And honestly, if you're up for commercials you can stream live TV super easily as well. We don't miss any shows. Seriously. Any. EXCEPT for the Food Network, because they just don't put their stuff online. HOWEVER, I'm pretty sure I've absorbed just about everything I'm going to absorb from Ina Garten before I'm no longer able to avoid moving to the Hamptons and surrounding myself with gay men.

So anyway, my point is... Well, my two points are... 1. Cancel your cable. 2. The things we think we can't live without today, are the $770 savings per year of tomorrow. ;) Or secret point 3. I was wrong, at least about that one item. I do NOT see myself giving up my hair straightener.