Maximizing the entertainment backlog
Posted by Lise on 15 Jan 2008 at 02:37 pm | Tagged as: entertainment, frugality, personal finance
The Simple Dollar’s post today, “Maximizing the Free (or Nearly Free) Things That Make You Feel Good,” got me thinking.
If I read through my library of unread books…
Played through my library of unplayed games…
Watched all my unwatched DVDs or downloads…
Knitted through my yarn stash….
… it’d keep me entertained for the rest of my life. Just off the top of my head, I could: read the first four books of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, finish playing Oblivion (hell, play through the two Morrowind expansions that I never got through), watch all of Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and learn to make socks.
And this is ignoring such things as board games, which can be played again and again, and of which we have a sizable collection.
So why are we paying for two MMO subscriptions, a 3-per Netflix account, and cable? By eliminating those services, it would save us $188 per month. ($31.98 for two WoW accounts, $39.98 for two CoH accounts, $98 for cable – though that includes cable Internet, and they can have my bandwidth when they pry it from my cold, dead hands – and $17.84 for Netflix), or $2,256 per year, or $15,453 in 5 years (if invested at a conservative 4% interest and compounded annually). That might even buy you a sandwich in 2013 dollars!
Question to readers, and to my husband (the most important reader): How can we realistically cut back on these services and not resign my husband to a life of Wii Tennis?
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I’m *this* close to cutting out cable. Writer’s strike is making shows go dark anyhow. What keeps me going is the fact that I *just* rebuilt the PVR. Actually, pretty much replaced the whole thing, all said and done. Know anyone that wants to buy a fully functional PVR? Seems I have a spare now. Then again, the new system supports ATSC (Over the Air Digital HDTV), so I could probably still get a decent amount of material that way. I’d probably add netflix at that point, at the 2-per level (watch one while another is in transit). I don’t play MMOs, and the computer games that I do play are free (and many of them are electronic versions of board games….). So I’d save less than $50 a month, probably closer to $25. I’ll stick with what I’ve got for now, staying current on the shows I do watch is worth that for now. Let’s see how long this strike keeps going.
Oh, and if you’re looking to get more mileage out of the wii, you are welcome to borrow my gamecube games. My gamecube died over a year ago and I haven’t replaced it, so I’m willing to make a long term loan, and the wii will play gamecube titles.
Of course, it seems like everything is crapping out on me, electronically. Just replaced the PVR because I thought the old one was dead (It wasn’t, it was a bad electrical outlet causing a ground loop). Dropped my ipod in november, replaced the screen to have the hard drive die, so I ended up getting a new one. Phone battery is effectively dead, but that’s a cheap replacement. Laptop battery is definitively dead, that’s not so cheap. Work laptop battery may have mysteriously died, but I don’t travel with it much, and may get a new desktop soon. iPod I got for Amanda a little hwile back is dead now too. At least the Nintendo DS keeps going. Ignored that for most of the year I’ve had it, but just got Puzzle Quest for the holiday. Damn infectiously addictive game.
What keeps me going is the fact that I *just* rebuilt the PVR.
That’s kind of how I feel. Well, we didn’t *just* rebuild it; we built it over a year ago, but I still remember that we invested like $600 in the parts. But I guess there is that term, “throwing good money after bad”… and I wonder how much it applies here.
I’ve often considered suggesting we *share* in some way, considering that we watch a lot of the same shows. Like, one of us gets cable for a year, but we share the cost, and the person recording uploads all our favorite shows to their webspace? Or we could just come over and have a Friday night Monk/Psych viewing *grins*
I’ll tell Matt you’re offering up your Gamecube titles
for sacrifice. I don’t play many console games myself (I’m more of a computer gamer), but he might be interested. He just bought Twilight Princess two weeks ago and already finished it, so he’s short on Wii games >.<[...] So it’s taking us a while to work out the monthly entertainment expenses issue. [...]