If you’ve been following our string of posts about cutting monthly budget costs, you know that we recently cut the cord to cable TV. (Yep, we took the leap, and we ditched cable TV!)

I have to say, as much as I loved being able to watch recorded shows (that’s right, the DVR is gone, too!), the thing I’ve missed most about our cable box being gone is the fact that we don’t know what time it is anymore. We were so used to glancing at the digital clock display on our cable equipment!

Digital Tuner

And when my husband told me that he might be able to figure out a way to record shows with the one-time purchase of a digital tuner, I was thrilled. (It’s on order and will arrive next week, so we’ll be sure to let you know how it works soon.)

Our antenna

For now, however, we’re left with watching whatever TV channels we can receive through this antenna he installed in the attic of our garage. If you’re able to receive digital TV over the airwaves, you know how clear the images are, especially HDTV. (That’s high-definition TV, for those of you who aren’t so technically minded!)

After an afternoon of climbing up into the attic above our garage to retrieve our old antenna, handing it down to the wife, then climbing back up after figuring out that the garage attic was the best place to install the thing, and climbing back down to the basement to run the cable from the antenna to the existing cable infrastructure running to our TV—not to mention the holes we cut in the drywall to fish the cable down through the wall—presto! We had TV again. (I don’t know about you, but I’m out of breath just reading that last paragraph, let alone climbing up and down the ladder so many times!)

Sounds easy, right? Especially when your husband does all the work! (heh, heh) He even found this nifty website that will show us which signals we can pick up, depending on how high our antenna is. Pretty cool!

So what if the kids are left with PBS, and only if we happen to be home when the show comes on? We’re saving money, guys! Besides, I’ve promised them extra trips to the library, so no one is complaining. (I should note that PBS isn’t the only channel we receive. We actually get several stations, but PBS is the only one with shows suitable for our kiddos.)

Even better, now that we ditched cable TV, we’re spending more time together as a family. Our daughter even asked if we could make long walks part of our Saturday afternoon tradition. Bottom line: nobody misses the hours we spent glued to the tube, or the money we spent so we could waste all that time!