Waste Follow up

In my last post I talked about a wasteful family that was featured on Oprah. They were followed by another family in a similar situation. The consensus that both families reached is that they didn't realize how wasteful they were being. I think the same is true for most American's. The exact area may vary, be it food, electronics, fuel, but in general we don't realize how we are being wasteful.

Since I talked about others in my last post I feel the need to share an issue that I have. I hate being home alone without the TV on. A while back Single Guy Money wrote about how his childhood affects his finance. My TV issue goes back to the very first time I stayed home by myself. I was in second grade and had to take medicine at certain intervals. Instead of going to a friends apartment upstairs in my building after school my mom and I decided I had it together enough to stay home for the 2 hours until she got home.

For the first 30 minutes everything was great. I thought I was grown and loved the freedom. Then two guys down the hall got into an argument. It was loud and scary and I freaked out. I put the chain lock on the door, went to my mom's room (mine was across from the front door), turned on the TV, and got under the covers.

Now, almost 20 years later, I still don't like total quiet when I'm home by myself, especially late at night. A lot of the time the TV is white noise in the background. Reading is the main activity I can think of doing at home without the TV on. I'm going to try to get used to quiet and not use the TV as white noise. I'm going to try to use more radio, itunes, and podcasts to fill the void when I want some sounds. I'll let you know how it's going in a couple of weeks.