I want to introduce everyone to Catherine Alford, our first regular contributor to Money Life and More! She’s pretty awesome and I’m sure you’ll love her stuff. Here is her first post!

I don’t want to come across as a “TV hater” in this post, because everyone knows that Modern Family + a glass of wine could cause me to waste about 5 hours straight (must I always mention wine?) However, in the past few years, I’ve almost completely weaned off of watching TV, and here’s why:

TV Costs Too Much

The first time I cancelled my TV was because I was trying to cut expenses. My husband had just quit his job and started school, and I really didn’t need to spend the $50 or so to keep it. I admit that it was kind of boring at first. After all, my entire Saturdays used to be spent watching one HGTV show after another. However, I gradually got used to my life without it, and eventually I didn’t miss it at all.

TV Makes You Lazy

When we had a nice TV, I admit that my husband and I often ate dinner in front of it. This didn’t do wonders for our physiques, and it definitely didn’t help us connect at the end of the day. Instead of talking to each other and catching up, we were wondering what type of cake Cake Boss would create next, and (gasp!) would the cake actually make it into New York City or would it smash into a million pieces? Don’t let lazy take over your life!

Turning the TV off gave me back hours in the day and forced me to be more active and find interests elsewhere.

TV Makes You Want Too Much Stuff

TV stars and reality shows definitely don’t show the world as it really is. So, when movie stars grace my screen dripping in diamonds, it always makes want more “stuff.” Additionally, when The Bachelor drops down onto one perfect knee and proposes after just returning from a trip around the world, it made my own romance of movie dates seem kind of lame.

I know it’s not logical to feel that way, but that’s the effect that TV had on me. So, without all those distractions or influences from the world, I am definitely more appreciative of what I have.

TV Makes You Unproductive

Sitting in front of the TV is easy and mind numbing. When you have one, you don’t have to be productive. It’s much easier to tell yourself, “I’m tired. I deserve to watch this show.” So, you get very little accomplished in the evenings.

That’s Why I Work

Now, instead of spending time watching TV after work, I instead work on my personal finance staff writing business. Instead of flipping endlessly through channels, I’m tweeting with my blog friends, getting posts ready for the next day, and pushing myself to make more income from my website than I do from my day job.

Ever since I started working instead of watching TV, I feel more productive, more connected to the world, and more motivated than ever. I also have more time to do things that are healthier for me, like taking a jog down to the beach and spending quality time with my hubs.

In fact, there’s a whole world out there people who are also using their downtime to succeed in big ways. I just had to turn off the screen to realize it.

Do you currently watch a lot of TV or are you a TV-free household?

**Lance’s Thoughts** I do probably watch too much TV but it is our main source of entertainment. We could probably cut back a bit, but we do enjoy our TV shows… That’s why I’ve made it known I won’t be cutting the cable cord anytime soon! 

The Dress as Advertised

Hi Money life and More readers! I am Tori, Lance’s other half and the behind the scenes editor of this awesome blog! (Lance: Her words… not mine!) As Lance mentioned, we got engaged back in February of this year. We have set a date and started the wedding planning process but Lance isn’t a huge fan of wedding planning! So, Lance and I decided that it would be fun to swap roles for a bit and I would write a series of posts about our frugal wedding planning escapades!

The “Proper Order” of Wedding Planning

As our family, friends, and the media tell us, there is a particular order that you must follow when beginning the wedding planning process. We have already set a date and time as well as the frugal wedding ceremony and reception venues. The next thing to do right away was to get a beautiful dress for a “wear it just once” type of price. Unfortunately in the small town we live in, there weren’t many options for bridal salons without having to travel a minimum of two hours. I was not thrilled with the idea of traveling to buy a dress, and then traveling to attend multiple fitting appointments. So what do we do these days? Buy online! That’s right, I bought my wedding gown online for a great “wear it once” price of $208! And even better, for $15 more they tailored it to my exact measurements I sent them per their instructions. How awesome is that?! I was so proud of myself for saving lots of money and getting a fabulous wedding dress! About 3 weeks after placing my order my dress arrived at my future mother in law’s house! Deep in my gut I could tell something was not quite right when she called and told me it had arrived, but in a small box…..

Convincing Myself to Like the Dress

That afternoon I went to see my dress for the first time! As soon as I saw it my stomach balled up in knots, but my mother always told me, never judge it till you put it on. I put it on alone and looked into the full length mirror. I hated it. I wanted to cry, for days…. I tried to convince myself to like the dress, make a small alteration here and there, and maybe lose a bit of weight. But it was truly awful. It barely resembled the picture advertised, did not fit, and the quality was less than adequate. For the next few days I told my family I liked it, but in reality I hated myself for falling for such a classic mistake. I have always been cautious about situations like these and normally succeed in not falling in the trap.

So What Now?

The Actual Dress I Received

After a few days of feeling sick to my stomach over it, I knew I had to find a new dress and tell my family. I called my mom first and she told me, “You don’t want to wear a wedding dress you don’t feel beautiful in. We will find a way to fix this in the budget”. She was right. As soon as I told her I hated the first dress that I spent $250 (after shipping) on I knew I had to tell Lance. He said the same thing and at least we didn’t learn the lesson on a more expensive online dress. Once he knew, I felt an immense amount of relief and began the new search for a dress! Just a couple days later I bought a new dress that I absolutely LOVE! Yes it is more money that I intended and wanted to spend on a wedding dress ($645), but I felt it was worth it because it made ME feel beautiful. I have also decided to not be mad at myself anymore and just remember the lesson learned. The important thing to note is, despite the dress fiasco, we are still sticking to our original budget. It stinks that I now have $645 less to spend on other parts of the wedding, but the dress was really important to me. If I had a horrendous dress I wouldn’t enjoy my wedding day anywhere near as much because I would be constantly obsessing over how I looked. Looking back, (because hind sight really is 20/20), I figured out what made me let down my guard and fall for this too good to be true trap. Ultimately I was avoiding actually going into the bridal salons and have the “Say yes to the dress” experience because I didn’t have my mom with me. She and my dad are still up in Virginia and it still makes me tear up thinking back to not having her here with me for this experience, but it was a decision I made when moving to Florida.

Total Wedding Cost So Far: $995

Venue: $100    Dresses: $895   Do you have any wedding fiasco stories or did everything go perfectly for you? Did you bust your budget on one part of the wedding and make up for it by cutting somewhere else? Or did you get lucky (or plan well) not run into any problems?