How to Watch TV Shows on the Internet

When you’re living on a budget like me, living frugally is just not a option - it’s mandatory!  The more I can cut down on monthly expenses, the better - every penny counts. Unfortunately, my husband and I live in an area where the new broadcast digital television (DTV) is not available over-the-air for us at all (we‘re in a “dark” area).

How do we cope without the television?  Well, we don’t!  Our solution is to watch movies and television shows (or programs) on the internet!

What we do is:

1) We joined Netflix.  They have movies and TV shows available on DVD.   They have many options - 1 movie at a time, 2 movies at a time, up to unlimited movies. We subscribe to the 1 movie at a time option for $9.62 a month (including tax), and we can get an average of 2 movies a week (the first day we receive a movie and watch it, the second day we mail it back, the third day Netflix receives it and mails out the next one). With this option we can also Watch Instantly many TV shows and movies right on the computer - it’s also called Streaming.
(UPDATE: 12/

　

2) We also watch streaming network and cable television shows on Hulu.  This is one of the legitimate sites that has permission for all the shows that is has available. They do have commercials interruptions, however they are only from 30 seconds to 1 minute long. From them, we get a lot of HD (High Definition) shows in 420p (some even in 720p) and if your bandwidth is slower, they have 320p and even 288p.  They play many first run TV shows the day after they air on broadcast television as well as older shows.

A great feature that Hulu has is that if you search for a show and they don’t have it, but they know who does, they will have a connection available to that website! For instance, I searched for “Nature”, and they show you that PBS has it and you can launch it right from Hulu. Great!


　

3) We also watch Fancast - they have many shows available as well. Also, we can watch  Joost  for music videos.

　

4) The above websites offer TV shows and movies in all the different genres. There are other legitimate places to watch TV shows as well. But beware, watching TV shows on places that are not legitimate, as well as being illegal, may open your computer up to receive viruses.

　

5) We monitor our local weather on Wunderground   - it’s great for the local radar and local temperatures. We also compare it to The Weather Channel - we watch their current video updates on hurricanes during hurricane season too!

　

　

6)We catch the national news headlines on BBC  and CNN.  We can also check our local TV Channels on the web for local news.

　

We also wanted to watch these streaming TV shows and movies on our TV in the living room - it‘s so much more comfortable in there - so we connected our computer to our TV. ("How to" article coming soon)

　

If anyone knows of additional legit websites to watch TV shows on, please share that information with me.


Thanks and Enjoy!

How to be Frugal When Buying Organic Fruits and Vegetables

apples

I have found that organic produce is usually more expensive than conventionally grown non-organic produce - hopefully, that may change in the future if more people demand more organically grown fruits and vegetables. For us, being on a budget and all, it’s hard to be frugal and purchase all our produce organic. Fortunately for us, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) comes out with a listing every year called "The Dirty Dozen" (see list at end of page). This list contains the top 12 fruits and vegetables containing the most pesticides when conventionally grown. So, the best healthy approach for us: Only buy organic fruits/vegetables if they are on "The Dirty Dozen" list AND if we eat a LOT of them REGULARLY.     

organic lettuce, carrots and celery

For example, we eat a lot of salads, and I snack on celery and carrots - so we buy ORGANIC celery,lettuce and carrots (they are #4, #9 and #11 on the EWG Dirty Dozen list). We purchase non-organic onion, broccoli and tomatoes.     

organic strawberries

fruit smoothie drink

We have a morning fruit drink that has bananas, papayas, pineapple and strawberries - so we buy ORGANIC strawberries (#6 on the EWG Dirty Dozen list), and the rest as non-organic as these fruits have less pesticides in them. We occasionally eat peaches, pears, apples, nectarines, cherries, kale, and grapes - so, because we don’t eat them regularly or eat tons of them, we buy these as non-organic produce.     

peaches

This way we are reducing
the total amount of
pesticides that we ingest, and being frugal at the same time.     

Below are the 2010 lists from the Environmental Working Group (EWG):     

“The Dirty Dozen” - the most contaminated fruits and vegetables, and “The Clean 15“ - the least contaminated fruits and vegetables.
(See EWG Foodnews for a handy printable guide that you can bring to the store with you, or an application that you can download to your cellphone.)     




Update 8/13/2010: The EWG has updated their Dirty Dozen List and their Clean 15 List for 2010!  The new lists are reflected below.  (Oh no! Blueberries are on the Dirty Dozen List - my refrigerator is full of frozen blueberries - it may take a while to eat through them!)  You may also want to see the EWG full listing of 49 fruits and vegetables.    

The 2010 "The Dirty Dozen" -- the top 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides when conventionally grown (From Worst to best):        

1. Peach Celery


2. Apple Peaches


3. Bell Pepper Strawberries


4. Celery Apples


5. Nectarine Blueberries


6. Strawberries Nectarines


7. Cherries Bell Pepper


8. Kale Spinach


9. Lettuce Cherries


10. Grapes (Imported) Kale/Collard Greens


11. Carrot Potatoes


12. Pear Grapes (Imported)

　     

"The Clean 15" - the top 15 fruits and vegetables containing the least amount of pesticides when conventionally grown (from Best to worse):     

1. Onion


2. Avocado


3. Sweet Corn


4. Pineapple


5. Mango


6. Asparagus Sweet Peas


7. Sweet Peas Asparagus


8. Kiwi


9. Cabbage


10. Eggplant


11. Papaya Cantalope


12. Watermelon


13. Broccoli Grapefruit


14. Tomato Sweet Potato


15. Sweet Potato Honeydew Melon

What is Homeopathy - A Simple Explanation

Homeopathy is a system of medicine that stimulates the body and mind to heal itself. It is legal in the United States and remedies are controlled by the FDA.

Homeopathic Remedies are made from plants, minerals and animal substances. Remedies are tested by a series of provings - the effects and symptoms of the substances on healthy and sick people are recorded and added to the Remedy’s symptom list. Homeopathy then matches the persons symptoms with the remedy’s symptoms list and chooses a remedy with the closest match possible.

These symptom lists are compiled into 2 different books or sections of a book - a "Materia Medica" which is in order by remedy with each symptom listed, and a "Repertory" which is in order by symptom with all remedies listed.