Living without DSTV makes all kinds of sense

There are many simple financial cuts which make it possible for me to be a SAHM.  Our cars (Hyundai and Kia) are 11 & 9 years old.  We don’t need expensive cell phones, my basic Samsung Galaxy Fame does what is needed (R750 at Pep cellular and is on pre-paid not contract).  I’m actually grateful not to have a more fancy phone providing temptation to waste unnecessary precious time.  Not having DSTV was never a sacrifice as we were never subscribers but it would be out of our budget.

These are my reasons why DSTV would be money ill-spent.

• I don’t have to worry about the children watching or imitating lippy American teens in sub standard sitcoms.

• We only watch TV 4 – 5 nights a week for an hour or less (excluding rare movie nights).  DSTV would not be value for money.  We buy DVD’s or download what we want to watch, and our viewing is our choice.  We usually have 2 series going over a given period, 1 comedy and one other such as X-Files, Breaking Bad or Battlestar Galactica.  The children do watch TV to but also bought and downloaded stuff.  How many series and movies can you buy for a fraction of the DSTV price?

• Instead of watching TV just because something is on, our family has more time to communicate and interact.  This week sitting by the fire Fjord told us that sometimes he thinks that he is the only person on earth, and he’s not even here but he’s in heaven and this is all a dream.  What interesting thoughts an 8 year old can have.
• When we’ve stayed somewhere with DSTV there’s usually nothing on worth watching.  Past documentaries like Cosmos were interesting and intelligent.  Now the cliffhanger style is just plain irritating.  I could read you a paragraph from To The Lighthouse (most boring book I’ve read) in that dramatic, suspense laden modern documentary voice and have you on the edge of your seat, despite the fact that bugger all happens.

• The quality of most stuff on DSTV is so poor that I feel that in watching that shit I would be volunteering for dumbing down.

• I love reading, not much can beat curling up with a book and traversing worlds found between pages.

I do wish that I could watch the big cricket games.  Cliff would like to sometimes watch rugby, but when there’s a big game on he goes to watch at a pub.  For R759 a month it is so not worth it.  In the near future we will be able to stream sport anyway.

We can get so locked into the ‘must have’ mind set that it’s hard to imagine life without certain things but we need more imagination to free ourselves.  That said I will now climb out of my warm bed, leave the laptop and get on with something constructive.