man owns tv… still leads meaningful life and saves for financial independence

May16
by TFS on May 16, 2018 at 6:52 am
Posted In: Rants

The 3rd best day of my life, when we upgraded to our lovely 50 incher 😉

 

I’m sure if you’ve spent more than half an hour perusing frugality and FIRE related blogs, you will have noticed that there is a common meme flying around that the humble Television Set is the mother and father of the devil, that it will make your life miserable and you should probably smash yours up with a sledge hammer right now and live a happy life of redemption and frugal godliness from this point onwards. OK so maybe that is a *slight* exaggeration, but I’m sure you get my point, TV often seems to be frowned upon, to say the least, and many people advocate getting rid of your TV entirely let alone just cancelling the cable/Sky subscription.

Look, I get the points made, and they are no doubt valid ones:

  • TV’s cost money. Don’t buy one and save more money
  • Cable/Sky TV costs even more money. If you don’t have TV you don’t even have to think about this. Save even more money
  • TV is a massive time suck that leads to many unproductive hours slouched on the couch. This is time that could be used to foster new skills and fun hobbies, do some exercise, and connect with your friends and family.
  • Watching TV exposes you to excessive amounts of advertising, turning you into a consumer drone. Don’t own one and you will never buy anything you didn’t really need, ever again!
  • They say that No News is Good News 1 but obviously if you own a TV you will end up watching CNN or BBC News 24 hours a day and become incredibly depressed. So ditch the TV set and live a life of blissful ignorance.

OK so I have been a bit sarcastic with a few of those points, but in general… Yes! I am totally cool with all of them!

However I don’t see the need to actually not own a TV to get all of those benefits. Why can’t people own a TV and just use it appropriately (i.e. less than average) and just be a bit more picky on what kind of shows they watch.

The adverts thing? Come on people!!! In todays age of catch up TV and digital recording, you never have to watch an advert in your life if you don’t want to!?! I bet you are subjected to far more adverts online nowadays that are actually harder to skip than TV based ones. Admittedly, a lot of 2 the posts I’ve read about not owning a TV are from the American FI crowd, where adverts are waaaaaay worse than over here. But as far as I am aware they have a thing called TIVO which allows you to record things and therefore skip the ads.

And let’s not forget there are many benefits of owning a TV as well.

 

in defence of the humble television set

  • TV can be very educational, if you watch the right shows, of course. People complain about kids minds getting warped and ruined by TV but there is plenty of evidence to show that actually they are on balance a great educational tool. Listen to this Freakonomics podcast on the benefits of Sesame Street on school drop out rates when it first aired, for example.
  • Time spent together watching a show is sometimes great bonding time with your friends and family. You can cosy up on the couch together and then discuss what you thought about the plot or whatever during/after the show. Some of my best “chill times” with TFS Jr are snuggled up on the couch together.
  • Sometimes you just need to unwind. You can’t be doing something productive with every waking hour of the day – in my opinion that is in itself unhealthy. Yes, I know you could read a book, listen to the radio, meditate, whatever, but TV is not that bad a second choice for relaxing. And if you are ill for example, you don’t want be doing something even slightly active like reading.
  • While social inclusion may not be on some peoples priority list, it is actually still fairly high on mine. Yes, there are plenty of other ways to be socially included, and in todays day and age, you are more free than ever to make your own social groups which have no interest in TV whatsoever. But on a day to day basis, especially if you are still in the grind of working, watching a handful of mainstream TV shows can at the least lubricate a few social conversations at work or in the pub etc. Likewise, I don’t want TFS Jr to be an instant social outcast at school, when that time comes, just because I decided somewhat arbitrarily that TV is synonymous with Satan.
  • Call me a bad parent if you will but we have a TV in our room, and when TFS Jr wakes up occasionally at 6am, we stick the TV on to amuse her and get some extra shut eye. I know it’s a bit lazy, but I’d rather do that then be up for playing enthusiastically and an attentive parent for the rest of the day, rather than a half arsed one because I’m knackered due to getting up early.
  • I love watching sports, when I get free time and something I want to watch is on. I don’t get people who constantly bash sports lovers/watchers but that is a rant I will save for another day, although David Cain has already said it way better than I could already.
  • Lastly… TV shows can be, you know, fun to watch!

my beef with the “No TV” crowd

Before we go on, I would just like to say, I don’t think anyone espousing this “No TV” lifestyle is trying to make others feel bad about owning TV’s or anything like that, and they are trying to help people improve their lives. So while I fully support their original intentions, I still “got beef” with it I’m afraid to say:

It’s all just a bit hypocritical – Most of these people admit to still watching TV shows via online streaming, so they clearly have no issues with consuming entertainment via the medium of a glowing screen of some form. So what difference does it exactly make if that is a 17″ laptop, a 28″ monitor or a 60″ Flat Screen TV? I just don’t get the obsession on the “TV” part of it.

It’s all just a bit sanctimonious – Again, I have to stress I know that it is not the intention to sound like this. But I’m sorry… no matter how many times you say you respect peoples decisions to own TV’s and what not, it just comes across that you think you are better than everyone else for not owning a TV. Sentences such as “Not owning a TV isn’t all about saving money, it also let’s me spend more time with my children” are implicitly telling everyone else who does own a TV that you think they are not spending enough time with their children. This may well be the case in many instances, but as a general point it is clearly Bullsh!t and not a fair judgement to be making.

 

ostracise or incentivise?

I don’t think this helps. It doesn’t help the average Joe or Joanna connect with frugality and FIRE principals. Maybe that is not your intention? Maybe you are trying to distance yourself from the mainstream, create your own tribe, and if so, then that is fine. MMM often talks about this and deliberately makes things an “us vs them” type of situation which he says is more likely to bring people listen to you, support your cause, and bring them back to your blog for further reading. But what if you are the “them”?

I feel a lot of people could be missing the really important messages us FIRE types have to say because of this sort of attitude.

I think the FIRE/Frugal crowd should be trying be more inclusive and touch as many people as it can, and therefore do the most good 3. I thought that was the whole point of all these blogs, but maybe I am wrong?

To be fair, this “sanctimonious” thing is not just restricted to TV’s and it has been noted by many others before. There is even a very long Reddit thread on it which is worth reading if you are a blogger trying to work out how best to connect with people on these sorts of subjects, or even just how to talk to “normals” about it in day to day life without coming across as a judgy douche.

And there is no doubt I’ve been guilty of it on many occasions if I were to read through my post history, so it’s definitely something I need to work on as well.

Finally, if you don’t own a TV or have written a post about not owning one, please don’t think I hate you or you are even wrong in anyway to have done so! I just thought I’d add my two pence to the conversation about it as it’s not really one I’ve read in FI circles so far.

 

Well I think that’s enough from me on the subject, what do you guys think!?

 

 

Totally random aside: While searching for that Reddit thread I linked to above I came across this which made me laugh.

 

Notes:

  1. Which I totally agree with ↩
  2. In fact it might well be 100% of ↩
  3. Assuming you think a large amount of people not spending beyond their means is a good thing. If you want them spending and consuming so your investments in consumer related products and services continue to rise, maybe that is not the case 🙂 ↩