Roku, my new bff

TV has always been a bestestest friend of mine. A friend that occupies your time so much that even when they say the same thing over and over (re-runs) you still listen intently. When I was young, I can remember having a schedule during summer breaks that ran from 9am-5pm. A TV schedule that is. It went a little something like this:

(it takes a lot to admit to this much television viewing....baby steps)

9am: Live with Regis and Kathie Lee

10am: Price is Right

11:05: Batman (the old old version) "POW"
11:35: Batman (the old old version)

12:00pm: All My Children (hey it was my parents lunch break, and they hadn't missed an episode EVER)

1:05pm: Brady Bunch (TBS always had strange start times!!)

1:35pm: Brady Bunch

2:05pm: Saved by the Bell

2:35pm: Saved by the Bell

3:05pm: Family Matters

3:35pm: Family Matters

4-5 I can't really remember. Probably whatever was on after Family Matters. Anyone???

I heart Zack Morris

I was in love with Saved by the Bell and Brady Bunch.  I watched everyday because I KNEW there had to be an episode I hadn't seen. I may have blog mentioned this before, but remember the one SBTB episode with the lizard? Yeah, I actually saw that for the first time not that long ago.....proving my point.


So when we had to cancel our cable because we were getting ripped off by DirecTV, it was a sad day. Although the hubs and I had watched every History/VH1/MTV/Discovery reality show episode three times over, we still liked having the DVR and all those channels at our beck and call.

Its been over a year since we've had cable and we're still alive! For awhile, we didn't have anything. Then I noticed bunny ears at a friends house, and she was getting all the main channels for FREE.  Wait, I thought those channels were going away, and we were being forced to buy that "box"????? Not in this small years-behind-technology town!  So we have the bunny ears. Downside? It seems all 4 channels sing a different static song so we were constantly having to get off the couch to adjust the antenna. How 1960 of us.

Then I was at another friends house, and she was surfing these channels on a screen I had never seen before. It wasn't DirecTV, it wasn't Dish, it wasn't basic cable, it was like this little tiny box that harbored thousands of movies and TV shows waiting to be watched. I immediately felt my inner TV junkie coming out as I asked her a million questions about it.  Its name is Roku. And I love Roku. A lot. 

It hooks up to the TV with those red/white/yellow cords, and just plugs into an outlet. Thats it. Well, you have to have wireless internet of course.  Its not that magic. And you pay for it 1 time, no monthly charges. On it are channels: Pandora, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Crackle, Amazon Prime, plus more.  We already had an account with Amazon Prime (bc I have a Kindle Fire) and Crackle is free (TVs and movies).  We decided to get into the monthly charge of 7.99 for Hulu Plus and cancel our Netflix, just because there's soooo much to watch on Hulu Plus that we didn't think we needed both.  Now that we've surfed hours and hours through Hulu Plus, we decided to switch back to Netflix for 7.99/month and temporarily cancel Hulu+. So, for 7.99/month, we have streaming movies and tv shows.  Sooo much cheaper than satellite, and better because all the shows are waiting for you as if they were on a DVR. Plus no commercials.  I repeat. No commercials.

If you are interested, click on the link I attached above.  You'll get $5 off, and possibly free shipping. Totally worth it.  We've saved over $1000 in the last year by not having satellite/cable TV.