No, I don't want your service!

Back in April, we cancelled our TV service. We had noticed that we were watching the TV instead of spending time with each other. This had to stop. We decided to suspend our service for 6 months to see if we still wanted it. Suspending the service allowed us to stop the service and the bills without disconnecting from the service. This would save us the connection fee if we decided that we wanted to keep the service.

Well I received a call from our TV service provider the other day to remind me that my service would be turned back on mid-October. I immediately told the representative that I wanted to cancel our service. When the representative asked why, I said that we haven't missed it in 6 months and I see no value in continuing the service. To cancel the service the representative had to transfer me to someone else. They tried and tried to get me not to cancel the service. They offered me all kinds of discounts and credit for free months, but I stuck to my guns and told them to cancel the service.

Not having the TV service saves us $55 per month or $660 per year. We spend our nights having dinner, playing games, talking, reading, and just being together.

You may not want to cancel your TV service, but you can use the possibility of cancellation to obtain free service and credits from your provider.

Fun Filled Day for $5

Twice a month, KJ and I have a Mommy/Daughter day. This is a day were we get dressed up, go have breakfast, and do something together. Our recent Mommy/Daughter day was spent at a local festival. We spent the day collecting balloons, looking at art, thanking the local firemen and police for their service to the community, getting our face painted, building a bird house, making corn husk dolls, watching a dog parade, listening to music, and the list goes on and on. It was great! We had a blast! The best part was that all of this only cost $5. The $5 was my admission into the festival. KJ got in free, because of her age. We brought a small bag with water and snacks with us, but so many booths were giving away water and snacks that we never opened our bag. We only spent 4 hours at the festival, but we could have spent the entire day.

Below is a picture of some of the stuff we collected.

Warm and Cozy Project

I love this time of year. The nights are cooler and there is a nip in the air, but not cold. Perfect weather for cozing up with the ones you love. But it can be hard finding a blanket that will cover 4 people. So we made one.

The girls and I went to Hancock Fabrics and picked out a fleece print that we liked. Can you guess which print we picked? Ariel. Right! Then we picked out a coordinated solid color fleece for the other side. We purchased 3 1/2 yards of each, because we want to make a really long blanket. Then following the instructions found at http://www.exploringwomanhood.com/homelife/ideas/pom-jan03.htm we made the blanket, together. Well, Dy watched and ran up and down the blanket supervising as KJ helped me make tie the double knots.

It was a lot of fun! KJ learnt to make double knots and we had a fun afternoon activity for about a week. (It doesn't take a week to make the blanket, I could have made it in 3 hours.)

The blanket we made ended up costing us $45. That was because the Ariel fleece was expensive, but there are lots of fleeced to choose from and I could have made the same size blanket for $25.

Maintenance as Entertainment

Maintenance as entertainment? Sure! During our last camp out, on the boat, we washed the boat for fun. Armed with a 5 gallon bucket, boat brush, and Simple Green cleaner we began our "cleantainment".

I tied a rope onto the handle of a 5 gallon bucket to lift water up onto the deck. Then I would pour the water over the deck and onto KJ and Dy as they scrubbed the deck with the boat brush. There was so much laughter that an onlooker would have never know that we where doing boat maintenance.

Any task can be fun and entertainment is everywhere!

Time Spent, Spent Time

You have only 3 ways to spent time: a) Making you money b) Costing you NO money or c) Costing you money. We try hard to find a way to turn everything we do into an option (a) making money activity. When that isn't possible, option (b) is sought. The last resort is always (c). When forced into (c), cost per unit time is considered. Notice we don't necessarily find a money making activity to do. Rather, we turn our activities into money making. You can do fun things and still have (a) or (b). Walking, for example, is a fantastic (b) activity that can turn into an (a) activity under the right circumstances. ;)