so i thought i invented a new word. fruglife. frug, short for frugal. upon fact check – not a new word. the frug was apparently a dance craze in the 60’s. and frug is used (according to the urban dictionary) in the context of frugality except with a miserly connotation. the UD reports another unsavory meaning as well. the king is no miser. anybody that knows the other def probably isn’t reading this blog or can have a giggle. so i’m gonna run with fruglife.
we bought our first tv. QoF scored a great deal. no cable. ever. so we needed an antenna for local channels. plugging coax alone into the tv brought in four religious channels. no local networks though and bishop jakes climbing into some kind of nest frightened princess youngest. adding some tin foil brought in a couple more. sticking one end of the coax into a window screen brought in a handful more. not practical and still no networks.
given the price of the tv, i was willing to splurge 16 bucks. princess eldest and i picked one up for 10 (less 8 in meijer mperks). not bad. it had huge rabbit ears though and only got one channel. good news, it was the Queen’s channel. bad news, not much else. we exchanged the rabbit ears for a flat antenna with an amplifier. 30 (less 8 in mperks). whoah. the KoF had a budget of 16. sure i only spent 22, but 8 dollars of mperks is still 8 dollars. not happy. i began to philosophize why we had tv in the first place. if you’ve read my posts on tv before (there are a couple coming in the Debt Free 101 series) you know, i’m not the biggest fan. by the grace of God, the flat (and apparently paintable) antenna did not work well enough. enter the magic of google and youtube. mad props to guy who youtubed himself under: how to make your own hd antenna. sorry to the folks who landed here because they googled: how to make your own hd antenna. not a how to. you should stay and read my blog though, it’s getting better.
basically it’s a 2×4 with clothes hangers (donated by the dry cleaner) attached to it. $3.49 total (receipt below) and i’ve got 48 washers to spare. i’m beating myself up because i think i could have done it cheaper. just because we’re debt free, doesn’t mean i’m going to pay 10 times as much for an inferior product. the homemade antenna picks up all the local stations and 30% more total. fruglife friends. fruglife.
