Cheap Thrills

You may not believe this, but it's true. Yes, yes, I kid you not. People can change and I'm evidence of that. I've become a devout follower of tightwaddery. (Is that a word?) Yes, moi! I loves me a great bargain. And I'm not talking about the sale rack of Nordstroms or Dillard's or Macy's. Noooo. Not even the clearance rack of Target, though I still like to browse that one. Nope. I proudly proclaim that the vast majority of our clothes, shoes and toys come from Goodwill, St. Vincent dePaul, yard sales and various rummage sales. And don't forget Freecycle! (This does not include Jay. His skin's too good for "used" clothes, so he rarely gets any new clothes since they cost too much.) And it's so much fun! It's all about the hunt, baby, and how cheap I got my name-brand ensembles compared to other's, and they paid full retail! Crazy.

Just walk through our little cozy home and I can tell you, though it's tacky and crass, where I got which items and for how little. He he hehehe. (Insert evil witch laugh here.) And even better than cheap is FREE. Case in point, our TVs.

Now the little TV in the kitchen my parents got me in high school. (Pretty sad, but in our house of five growing up, we had 8 TVs and phones in all our rooms.) So that TV still works and keeps me company as I, when the mood strikes, cook or clean in my kitchen; never at the same time or on the same day, of course. TV #2 is the massive, hideous monstrosity in our basement--the 35" Jay bought in his single days when he had money to spend and only himself to spend it on. It's dated and as deep as it is wide but it still works and we enjoy it. And then we've got #3, a FREE TV from some friends that they didn't have room for. (Thanks again, Matt and Angie! We love you!) Now we replaced the remote with a $5 universal one and there's a slight whine but we just turn up the volume to drown that out. Add rabbit ears to all the sets and we're good to go!

So Jay comes home a week or so ago and says that his co-workers claim they get more channels with the HDTV converter box. Say it ain't so?! Alas, in our frugality, we'd eliminated cable TV soon after we moved here for law school, aka livin' and lovin' on student loans. Plus, in case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of trash out there on TV. It was a painful withdrawal from FoodTV and HGTV, but I just get my fix when I'm at Mom's. So more channels? Show me the way!

Jay hooks us up and SCORE! Double the channels and for FREE! It's like cable for cheapies. Looove it. Now instead of 2 PBS stations, we now get 12, yes 12 various PBS stations. AND at least 2 of those are all-day cartoons. Now it's just like we've got Nick Jr. or Disney, but it's free. And, all three old TVs, well at least 2 until we buy another box, have better pictures and sound. That little whine is almost gone. So life's good--it feels like we've got new TVs, new channels and we didn't spend anything. (Besides buying the boxes, duh.) Makes me want to kick Jay for letting them sit in the sack in the basement for 3 months.