And They Call it “Free” Time
Economist Juliet Schor estimated that for every hour of TV a person watches each week, he or she will increase his or her annual spending by about $200, according to a 1999 article in the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review.
Yahoo has an interesting article titled “How to Earn $1 Million by Not Watching TV” wherein they posit that if you gave up TV, and all associated costs, and invested the money, you would make a million over the course of your lifetime. While I applaud the notion, I have to say that their estimate of $700/month for TV costs seems a bit excessive. Still, the article makes me feel all superior and all, so there ya go.
I only wish it were true! But giving up TV has resulted in something much more valuable than mere money. We’ve reclaimed time for ourselves (please insert obligatory disclaimer stating that we don’t hold it above anyone that we don’t watch TV. If you get enjoyment out of it, knock yourself out. Not making a value judgement for others here).
Last night Erin and I spent a delightful 4 hours or so not talking to each other. No, we weren’t fighting (that’s exceedingly rare anyway). We were each seduced by our own books. As part of my telescope research I plowed through the book “The Neptune Files” about astronomers William Herschel, John Couch Adams, and Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier and the discovery of Uranus and Neptune. I never knew there was such a fracas over who got primacy for the discovery. Herschel discovered Uranus the old fashioned way: by looking through a telescope, but Adams and Le Verrier both independently deduced the position of the next planet out, Neptune, by calculating the invisible hand of gravity on Uranus. This took over 10,000 pages of extremely dense calculations and will probably stand as one of the greatest feats of calculation by a single person (Matt, correct me here if I’m wrong). What’s more amazing is that both astronomers did the calculations independently with very little support (Adams’ brother did watch over the astronomer’s shoulder to make sure he didn’t make any basic math mistakes). In the end, both astronomers came up with very nearly the same answer, pointed their scopes at the sky, and found the distant orb. Well, there’s more to it than that, but you’ll just have to read the book.
Erin, on the other hand, is trying to plow her way through the Harry Potter books again before H-Day on saturday. We’re getting a special release day delivery from Amazon and we probably will have a rare fight over who gets to read book 7 first. 
I’m amazed at her pace through the rest of the books. She started at book 2 about eight days ago and is now in book 5. Last night, in a single sitting, she read 200 pages to finish book 4, got up, went upstairs, and came down with Order of the Phoenix twenty seconds later.
My point is that, two years ago, we’d have wiled the time away staring blankly at the tube (please see disclaimer above if you’re feeling like I’m getting all self-righteous on you). I much prefer this way of living!
But anyway, yeah, the article. I wonder if they calculated the added cost of buying books into their figures? I think that’ll more than offset the savings.