BellaOnline Forums Family Work & Family What *Can* You Do Without?

I was recently asked how I can live without a microwave oven. I laughed and said "I don't know, I just can." I have not had a micro for many years now. When I gave my old one away, it was my intent to buy another one, but days slipped into weeks, etc. I am fine without a microwave.

I also do not have cable television. I may be one of a handful of people who still have 'rabbit ears' on their television Fortunately, I do have access to PBS.

How about you all. What can you or do you "do without?"

Vannie,

We are a microwave-free family. On purpose.

We were also a family without cable TV until November when I cracked and signed us up. We had never had cable before that (8 years of marriage) so now I feel like I'm livin' the high life..LOL

Jan

Oh Jan,

I am so happy to know that I am not alone in this microwave world. While I don't have cable, I do admit to being a NetFlix junkie, I watch 3 to 4, sometimes more, movies per week. When I am away, I do watch the cooking shows.

I mostly use my microwave to heat the cherry pit pack I use on my neck & shoulders, but I sometimes use it for thawing and melting or heating, just not much.

I do have satellite TV, but I don't have a TV in the bedroom and just won't. Seems silly to me--that's where we go to (mostly) rest.

I also can do without new cars. Mine is 7 years old. I love it because I bought it brand new and it's been paid off for some time now and still runs very well and looks okay.

Oh, and now that I work mostly from home, I can (mostly) do without business suits. I haven't bought one in 2 years, actually. Yay!

Add me to the rabbit ears club! My boyfriend keeps complaining that I don't have satellite TV, but he hasn't decided to pay for it yet (and we're here more than at his place.)

I'm still driving my first car - a Toyota PU I bought in 1993 when I got a job that required a reliable car. It's still reliable and it's payed for, what more do I need.

There is a lot of new technology that I can do without. I've found that I actually need to be careful about that because I work in IT and I start to look "unsuccessful" or backwards for not having and being familiar with the gadgets everyone else has. (It's sort of like showing up to a high power business meeting in a cheap suit.)

Julie

Hi all
We have microwave oven for nearly four years that more use by my wife and daughter for warmed the food. I still prefer to use regular oven by gas.

We have satellite dish and could see Hotbird and Nile sat as most of Iranian, it help my so much to improve my English ability, beside I like to see news via CNN, Euronews and BBC, and serials like "two men and half", "charmed", "smallvile" and specially "friends" are fantastic for me.

We have a Peugeot 405 two years old. My wife hates driving, although we had two cars for three years but she just had drive less than five times because our streets is too crowdy.
We belong to middle class family here and most of our equipments are old ones but work properly, my wife and me more like to spend our money in travel rather than buying new ones.

It is really interesing reading what some of us do not have or if we do have it, use minimally. I guess this shows that we each continue to "march to a different" and do not live a cookie cutter existence. Like you all, I am also one of those, "if it's not broken, etc." people.

babak, you are right television is a wonderful teaching tool.

I say two thumbs up for all of us.

babak,
you are in Iran? Wow, how's life? Maybe we need to go to a different post for that.

I have never had cable. I bought a small microwave with a baking option all in one unit. The only reason I have a stove is because it came with the house. It's very useful for entertaining though. I have never in life bought a TV, since my friends keep upgrading, I simply inherit their old set. Same with a CD player, which I inherited just last year. I did buy my own DVD player a while back. I have a state of the art dishwasher with a top rack only washing option. I was very proud of myself when I bought my first washer and dryer, what a luxury!
I spend a lot of money on exotic travel, and I just bought an investment property. I also make it a point to tip well when I travel, especially to other countries.

I have a friend who bought a dishwasher for his mother and picked out all the options very carefully, paid over $1,000 and then paid extra to have it installed. Was very proud of himself to be able to do this for his mother. He called her to ask if she was using it and if she liked it.

"Yes," she said, "I'm using it and I like it."
"You promise?" he asked.
"Yes, I promise."

Next time he was there, he opens the dishwasher to find that his mother has neatly stacked all her folders in there with important papers.

Well, not only do I not have pay tv, I also do not have a tv. I know I am a weirdo. It does not bother me. It is something that I lost interest in as soon as I moved out on my own. It has been a long time since I have sat down and watched the tv or gone to the movies. Although I do watch the odd thing on the net every once in a while.

Yes, we seem to be spending a lot more time online that watching TV. Much more interesting!

I wish I could do without going to work every day, but I'm still working on that. The Internet is very promising and moving in that direction. Maybe one day!

You know, I think I could easily do without tv. Although there are a few shows that I love watching. But I think I would have a hard time letting go of the internet, but above all, I would definitely miss not having a stereo. If I didn't have tv or internet I would have to have a stereo! Now that I've had a dishwasher for awhile that would be hard to let go of too!

I guess in the end, I could do without all of those things, but I would have to take up something interesting and something to keep me EXTRA occupied... it's awful, tv, and internet, and all those wonderful luxury things just make life so much "easier" but really, it makes you lazy... or it CAN make people lazy.

At the moment I could really do without a second car as my car is sitting in the carport doing nothing and wasting my money because my boss has given me a company vehicle to drive. I'd die without my garden, my sewing machine, my broadband, and my digital camera. All of these things keep me sane.

chillin,

I love your story about your friends mom. My mom was like that, she wanted 'things' because her neighbors in her building had them, but she would never use them. I would get so excited when I bought these conveniences for her--she always said that she really liked them. I finally caught on that she never used her electric can opener, her new television, the blender she just had to have. There were countless things that she did not use.

I agree that the internet can be far more interesting than television--I love instant answers to my questions and wonderings (is that a word?)
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pinklulu,

Wow! just wow (LOL) One thing for sure, I will never feel odd again. I will watch my 2 13-inch (one b/w) televisions with pride. (smiling)

I think they are going to discover in the future that microwaves are not good for you. If we know they give off radiation, then don't you think that some might be in the food that we eat too??

I can do without absolutely everything I currently have.

Everything.

I can't do without love. Love of my wife and children. Love of my parents and relatives. Love of my God and brethren. Love of my friends and enemies (ok... I can do without the love of my enemies).

But one thing I can do without is a car.

My friends think I am crazy as it is not as if I cannot afford one... but life is simpler and cheaper without a car.

I can live without a dishwasher but I guess I'll stay married anyway.

(lol sorry couldn't resist)

Wow Vance - hope you don't have to do the dishes for the next month! LOL

I wish I could live without a car, but I live in a remote area, and have to drive everywhere, unless I want to steal groceries from my neighbors. LOL

At this point I could do without malls - they frustrate me!

I love this question posed. Yes we have done without a microwave and still ate I remember living in europe and had no TV for 2 years and survived. I can live without most mod cons as long as I have my crafts around me and my bible. Sounds quirky but gee the simple way of living seems to produce alot of happy people in society I found.
I seriously can do without those catelogs that crowd the letterbox I am definitely over that.
I can do without mean spirited people in the world and those senseless acts of crime in society that I shake my head and wonder what where they thinking. Have a nice one and keep smiling.

I can manage just fine without designer clothing, new cars or fancy vacations but don't mess with my internet connection, library visits or certain television channels. I like my information resources more than keeping up with the Joneses, I suppose.

I am not using Microwave oven but planning to buy it as it helps in cooking food fast.Now without this, I think my Kitchen is uncompleted.

Lots of things I COULD live without, but prefer not to.

Cell phone -- I rarely use it (it was a gift from my folks, when my dh had just gotten a job out of state, and they were worried about me driving my less-than-healthy car and breaking down. Of course, that could have happened while he was there, but... ;-) and I don't even know the number. It is usually off.

I could live without pollution, but don't seem to have that choice!

We've manage for 16 yrs to raise a child without a gaming system. (Of course, we DO play games on the computer....)

I'm surviving without a basement, but would rather have one... (We have pack-rat syndrome.)

Could definitely live without those aches and pains...

I am also one of those strange people that doesn't have cable TV. We like to watch movies sometimes at night, most often in the wintertime, but these are DVD movies. We just like doing other things outside when the weather is nice.

My husband and I are both engineers and we like to try to repair things that become broken. We've had a lot of success. Sometimes it would be easier to just buy a new thing but what would we do with the old one -- throw it in the landfill? I hate that thought. So we try to fix what is broken.

As the years go on, I've noticed that the house gets cluttered. This is because we bring more things into the house than we bring out! So I try to make it a rule that if we bring something in, we must throw something out. Very simple but it works!

Oh, I forgot -- we have a dishwasher but we never use it! It just seems like so much more trouble to use it than to just wash up the dishes.

Another related issue is that I really love those cheap plastic melamine dishes. Since they are inexpensive, I can have lots of them in pretty colors. I can make all kinds of pretty table decorations with them. They also are pretty unbreakable and they don't make that awful screeching sound that ceramic plates make when they rub together!

Dishwasher, they waste too much water and beside it's not the end of the world to wash dishes by hand.

As for the satellite if the NHL would show every games online I would pay for that and go without a satellite but the playoffs games are not included, I refuse to go without my Dallas Stars games. Now that Fringe is over all the shows I watch can be seen on Youtube or on another website so technically I won't miss anything, for the movies I would rent them.

The internet I don't think I ever go without it except if I could afford a vacation far away from people, in that case for the time being there I would not even watch television (thats the only way i see myself missing games). I am thinking of giving myself a little internet break to see how that would go, I was able to survive the three times my old computer broke and had to be fixed and I also survived the time it took to get it plugged in when I moved in November of 2009 (the satellite was installed before i arrived..i would not of come if that would not of been the case).

The microwave I only use to reheat leftovers and to eat microwave food (rarely). I did buy something that is used to cook food in microwaves, it was on sale and I always wondered how food cooked in a microwave tastes like, I have yet to use it.

My cell phone is only to receive and make calls.

We do without cable or satellite TV. We do have a subscription to Blockbuster, however - so we still get movies.

Our oven died many years ago and we never paid the money for a new one. We do have the stovetop for cooking things, and we have a small toaster oven which serves us well for things we have to bake. I figure since we never bake anything "big" that we probably save a lot of money on electricity, by not heating up an entire oven to cook things.

We wear jeans and sweats, so we don't spend much at all on clothing.