Mo' Money! Mo' Money!

I have been reading for weeks about the death knell of CRT televisions or any kind of television without a high definition receiver. I was reading article after article to try and see how much the converter boxes were going to run and which converter box would work the best for me etc. etc. etc.

It didn't take long for me to realize that as long as you have cable you were good to go without a converter box.

Then my TV died. It was 10 years old and worked perfectly up until yesterday morning. It started fading. You could still see the picture but it looked like it had been out in the sun for a year. Then the flickering started and occasionally it would black out to a thin line and then go back to full screen. It would do this a few times and then go back to the faded picture again.

I have a really large living room so anything smaller than a 30 inch screen would look like a dollhouse TV. I started pricing out all of the televisions out there and although I knew that they were pricey, I didn't realize exactly how expensive they were. To get an HDTV with the same screen size was going to cost at least $559.00 and that was the super cheap ones.

I don't know about you, but I don't have $600 lying around to use willy nilly on anything that I want. I tend to budget things and even with my quarterly bonus and tax return, I had pretty much already allocated them to other things like paying the hospital bill, airline tickets to Seattle this summer and paying off a credit card.

I am not a techie. I don't have to have the latest and greatest and frankly, it pisses me off that the majority of stores no longer even carry the CRT style of television that is less than half the price of the Plasma, LCD, Projection styles for the same screen size.

Sears is one of the few stores that still sells them and they were pretty reasonably priced at $299.00 for a 32 inch model. I probably would have gone there to purchase a new TV, but instead started scouring Craigslist.

If my TV was going to go on the fritz, this is the perfect time. Lots of people upgraded to HD or Plasma for the SuperBowl and want to get rid of their old TV. I was able to find a 32 inch television that is only 2 years old for $150 and a 25 inch that is 4 years old for $70. Since the television in my bedroom is borrowed and REALLY old, I figured that since I could get two televisions for less than a new CRT one, that is what I would do.

I will be picking them both up on Friday. Then I won't go cross-eyed when I am trying to watch the Biggest Loser episode that is currently sitting on my TiVo.