Disconnecting from TV and Internet

Today is the first day of Spring! Every year I find myself more and more appreciative of spring and the promise it brings for fresh starts, warm summer nights and hot daytime sun.  Maybe it's living in the Northwest Territories that has me loving spring more and more each year.  The winters here are long and dark and cold. This Spring is particularly exciting because we're getting married in May! Other springtime plans include spring cleaning my house and spending as much time as possible outside now that the temperatures are starting to creeping above freezing.

Another big change we're making this spring is as a family, we're making a concerted effort to disconnect from technology and spend more quality time together.  As of April 1st, we are cutting ties to our Satellite TV and the WIFI in our home.  It's going to be a big adjustment! I find the TV on whenever we're home just for the background noise, and I'm pretty much always scrolling through social media.  We're hoping that cutting off these services will force us to spend more time outside playing and gardening, more time reading books, more time exercising after Max goes to bed and more time checking items off our to-do list around the house.  I'm also hoping it will teach me to be more present when I'm home. I'm a slave to my cell phone and it's pretty much always in my hand. I'm seriously addicted! I want to spend more time playing with Legos and blocks, colouring, swinging on the swing set in the yard and walking to the local parks.

One of the other reasons we're disconnecting is to save money.  When we looked at our monthly expenses, we realized we were spending over 300$ a month on these services.  That's a lot of money! We're going to use that money to help pay for our wedding and to help pay off our vehicle sooner.

While we won't have satellite TV or internet in our home, I will still have access to internet at work and limited data on my smart phone.  We are also lucky enough to have an amazing library in our town where we can rent movies and seasons of shows and of course books.  So we aren't disconnecting completely from electronics, but our use will be drastically reduced.

We've disconnected for 6 months and we're going to re-evaluate in September.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes!  Until then, I'll be binge watching bad TV and Netflix until April 1st.