The New Years Resolutions

This year I decided it was out with the old tired stupid resolutions that I never keep and time for some new ones. They both boil down to saving money, though they are entirely different indeed.

Resolution number one, wear glasses more. I first had to get a new pair since my current ones were from high school and not so much with my current vision (or style). I still plan on wearing contacts from time-to-time but I am at least going to try to wear glasses everyday to work. Because currently I wear the daily contact lenses that cost me about $500 a year, ouch.

So far I have done great with this! For the first week I felt like I was always on the verge of vomiting from dizziness, but I got through that. Now when I work out and put contacts in, I feel dizzy. Anyone have any advice for not being dizzy from switching back and forth???

Oh, and for the first time ever I cut an onion up the other day without contacts in. I must say, I should apologize for all the judgement I passed on people that cry when they cut onions. Yeah, as it turns out I always had an invisible shield that prevented me from being too affected by cutting onions. The other night I looked like I just had a pet die and had to actually stop cutting three times just to cry into a paper towel. It was so sad.

Except not sad.

Just pathetic.

The second resolution (breathing deeply), was to give up cable television. This actually started several months ago with my roommate having a series of unfortunate events that left her a little more tight for money. She asked if we could cut back or not get cable all together. So I tried "to quit the gym" (if any of you are avid FRIENDS fans, you know what I mean) but with the cable company. But all I tried to do was cut back to basic cable and un-bundle by giving up the house phone.

(Which I bet none of you knew I even had because I NEVER used it. In fact, the cordless phone we plugged in (also from high school) didn't even ring anymore. And I will point out that several of the saved phone numbers were of college roommates ex-boyfriends that shall remain nameless.)

Anyhow, I was not able to cut down on anything with that phone call to the cable company. The lady from the retention department said she could apply all of these discounts to my account and that if I downgraded it would actually cost me more. So FYI, if you want your cable bill to be cheaper, try to cancel/downgrade, as she said, they have "secret" discounts to keep you as a customer.

But after looking at the difference in the bill, it wasn't much and I can see my roommate is still struggling to get by with the bills. And the biggest thing that started to get me is the fact that it's TV, not something that is actually improving my life. And I look at all the books on my "to read" list and I looked at the fact that the current book on my Kindle is 47% read and I have been reading it FOR SEVEN MONTHS.

(It is a beast of a book. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that my brother insisted I read. It's good in the building your self-values kind of way, but it's a bit dry and very slow. But I will finish this monster, you can bet on that!)

So anyways, I told my roommate I would consider getting rid of cable after college football was over. With the wrapping up of that on Monday, I was ready to "pull the plug" on cable. Of course, I had to still "quit the gym" and it was tough, I think as the very last measure the lady offered basic cable with movie channels (free for six months) all for $20. Which I almost crumbled to, but stayed strong. Because to me it's not really about the money, it's about the fact that I don't like feeling like I HAVE to have cable.

Now, don't think I quit TV altogether (I've got to have SOME sound connection to the outside world). But I got one of the new antenna's for digital TV. For the first time I am able to watch HD television on my HD TV, that's a bonus!

(Oh, and don't go to Best Buy and say that you get HD for free. They absolutely on no grounds will say that it is HD. Even though the box the antenna comes in and everywhere else calls it HD. I get that it might be a notch below cable's HD. But it's still much better than anything I've ever had!)

I also have a subscription to Netflix, which has something close to 100 movies on my que, so I'd say I've got plenty of stuff to watch there. Also, so much of TV can be found online, why not utilize the free way to see it!

But oh man if I can just give a quick tribute to the things I will definitely miss:
1. DVR, I am not even sure if I know the days/times that some programs come on TV, guess I will learn.

2. Speaking of knowing days/times, the menu. I mean, I guess I am going to have to do this old school by channel surfing. What an inefficient waste of time. However, when there are only five channels of interest, it's not THAT great of a waste of time.

3. Conan. His show alone almost made me back out of this. He finally comes back and I cancel my ability to see him? (I think I can watch him at least in parts online?!?)

4. The news channels.

5. The Weather Channel.

6. Random movies at the perfect times.

7. HGTV

8. ESPN (purely for Aggie sports, I looked at their schedule today and they have SEVERAL televised basketball games on that channel coming soon. Ummmm....I'm a bit nervous about that.)

9. On demand movies and television shows from Showtime and Stars.

10. TV in general in the living room. We haven't set up that TV with the new digital hookup and we are unsure if we ever will. I don't so much sit out there to watch TV but I do watch it when I cook.

(However I did bust out my old VHS cassette tapes of "The Best of FRIENDS." And I now watch those as I cook, which is fine by me.)

This all brings me back to a much simpler time when I lived in the sorority house in college. Because that was the last time (and maybe only time) I went without cable (and for some reason we had a TV but it didn't get any channels at all). However, when FRIENDS came on Thursdays, we would venture over to our neighbors room (thanks Brooke!) and watch it in there.

If I made it then, I can make it now!

(Now if you learned anything from this post, it would be that I really love FRIENDS. I just realized I made three references to the show as I re-read this post. Dang, I will try to take it easy on the FRIENDS references from now on.)