The Land of Ozz

I was sifting my RSS feeds today and got turned on to a great article titled How to Earn $1 Million by Not Watching TV. I found the link via Maki over at DoshDosh who pulled out some great points on how convert that tube time into online revenue. The big thing that jumped out at me was the piece on commercials.

“A huge hidden cost of TV that people never consider are all the commercials they watch. The commercials are there to get you to buy products — and they are effective. Economist Juliet Schor estimated that for every hour of TV a person watches each week, he or she will increase his or her annual spending by about $200, according to a 1999 article in the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review. In 2005, Nielsen Media Research reported that the average person watched approximately 4.5 hours of TV a day, or 31.5 hours a week. At $200 in extra spending for each hour watched, that means that the average person spends an extra $6,300 a year due to TV commercials that they wouldn’t have spent if they didn’t watch TV.”

WOW…I knew that TV marketing was powerful, but $200 of additional spending per hour of TV watched per week. I am glad my wife and I scaled back on the number of hours in front of the TV. I am not sure how much it has affected my spending, but it sure has increased my availability for other much more important things. The article goes on in the Opportunity costs section to talk about how much your time is worth. I charge anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour for the work I do in my side business HOEI LLC. That means I miss out on anywhere between $6,750 and $13,500 (”$50 OR $100″ x 4.5 hrs x 30 days) per month by watching as much TV as the average American. It is not likely that I will ever fill each available hour of time with billable dollars, but these numbers should stop you in your tracks if you watch a lot of TV. There is money to be made on the Internet, but you won’t find it in front of the TV.  That is between $81,000 and $162,000 per year by working 4.5 hour per day in place of watching TV.

Since most of us will never be able to measure exactly how much money we save or could have made by not watching TV, let’s consider what else we might be able to do with that time. How about spending more quality time with family or friends, volunteering to help the needy, attend college classes, attend parenting classes, work a part-time job, or grow spiritually through participating in a church small group or Bible study? How about simply reading and studying the Bible? Can you imagine how much better of a witness you would be for the Kingdom of God if you spent 4.5 hours per day studying the Word of God? Many of the professing Christians I know will readily admit that they have never read all the way through the Bible even once. It only takes about 80 hours to read the entire Bible or listen to it on CD if that is your preferred method of consuming reading material. That is less than three weeks of TV time for the average American according to these statistics.

“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

I believe this scripture is often taken out of context in this day and age filled with “name it and claim it” preachers. I heard a pastor (not a name it and claim it dude) on the radio explain this passage this week in a way that rang so true to me. I don’t believe this scripture is saying that if you delight in the Lord he will give you what you are already wanting in your heart. I do believe the scripture is saying that if you delight in the Lord, He will put into your heart the desires you need in order to be in line with His will. Another way to say it might be, “delight in the Lord and He will give you desires for your heart.”

Making a boat load of money is a great thing for surviving and sharing in this life. How much greater it is to know that you are doing the right things and making the right decisions in your life.

Free up some time by turning off the TV and then use that time to seek and become closer to the Lord. You will be amazed at the results. He may even show you how to use some of that free time to make a few extra bucks. 

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 12:37 am and is filed under Bible Reading, Entertainment, Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.