Share your ideas here on how you simplify the TV in your house.

This is what we do here.

1. We have only one TV and we keep it in the basement so we only go down there to watch something specific rather than just having it on all the time.

2. We use a TiVo / DVR recorder and record all of the shows we watch. There is nothing we watch live. That way we watch TV on our time and we never have to watch the commercials. (I do have to be careful not to check the news though before watching American Idol .. the headlines have started to give away who was booted off before I've had a chance to see it.)

3. We use the parental controls on the TiVo so that the kids can't mistakenly (or on purpose ) see anything above PG.

4. We keep all TVs out of the bedroom. The kids know this is a long standing rule in the house. This is a personal family choice and not a judgment on anyone who does this. For us, we chose to do this to keep us together and not holed up in our rooms watching different programs.

We watch what we want, when we want, and never have to watch commercials.

How do you simplify the TV in your house?

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One TV and it is in the basement. We have no TV channels and only watch DVD's. We probably watch about 30 minutes at the most each day. My daughter will usually watch her movies probably 2, maybe 3 times a week.

Now if we did a simple internet use ... that would be a different story.

I completely agree with the TiVo DVR tip. We have had this for over a year, and the amount of our TV watching has gone down, and the quality of shows we watch has gone up. We can pick and choose what we watch when we want to watch it. Plus, we speed through commercials which isn't just a time saver it cuts down on exposure to marketing for both the kids AND us.

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i'm new to mommysavers, so i just want to preface my post with 1. i'm not a mommy, yet, but i want to be in the near future.

we actually have 2 TV's but one is unplugged in the closet.. so i dont know if it counts. since we live in a small apartment right now, we have the plugged in TV in the living room. we havent gotten cable yet, hubby wants it, but we have other bills to pay right now. we do watch DVD's and play playstation on a regular basis, but hubby came from a family that had a TV on constantly, even if nobody was watching. So i'm working on him. i play about half an hour of my game everyday, because i enjoy it but i have seen him play 4 hours straight, swearing at the game the whole time. we usually watch 1 movie every other night, but we sit and watch it together and talk while we watch it.
i was never allowed to have a tv in my room as a kid, and i never intend to have TV's in my kids rooms. we have tried having a TV inour bedroom but we dont use it so we stopped plugging it in and stuck it in the closet, even with my brother in law living with us we dont need a TV in our bedroom.
i would love a DVR so i could watch house or law and order SVU sometimes but i would rather miss tv than give my hubby another exeuse to zone out.

we don't have cable, so pretty much the only channel that comes on is PBS every now and then. or the news if it's stormy. our problem is simplifying the internet. spin off, anyone??

We have one tv, it only gets turned on in the evening - and thats to watch normally one show a night and the news. After that it gets turned off again.
I dont believe in tv in my bedroom - as I know that will ruin my bedroom life. Children and tv's in bedrooms is just asking for trouble.

One of the first things I did when I got married is banish dh's TV from the bedroom. He complained at first, but now he is totally on board with that concept.
We have one TV in the family room that is on at specific times during the day -- mainly for the Wiggles -- and dh likes to watch sports in the evening.

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~Jeweled

We are in the middle of simplifing a lot since I have recently become a stay at home mom. One of the things is to cut the tvs off after a while or putting music on. My youngest son watches a show during his morning and afternoon breathing treatments but we are slowly decreasing the amount of tv viewing. It not only forces the kids to think of new things to do, but also saves on the electricity.

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Ta ta for now!
Beth