Things I Can Live Without

This article covers 20 things American can’t live without and quite honestly I noticed most of the things on the list were items that I don’t use or can personally live without. Here are the ones that I was surprised made the list that I know I don’t need:

1.  Electric Garage Door Opener- Number one on their list, and could’ve been on my list of must haves, until the electricity went out one morning and my dad showed me how to manually open the garage door. I’m ashamed to admit that at first I really didn’t think I’d be able to get my car out of the garage until the electricity came back on. Thank God for dads.

2.  Credit – I don’t use credit anymore, thus I know I can live just fine without it.

3.  Remote Controls – I can’t even find my remote controls most of the time, so both me and my daughter know how to work the televisions and the DVD players without them. In fact, the remote control for the living room television has needed batteries for years and doesn’t even work.

4.  Air Conditioning – I use ceiling fans, and luckily since we live in an area of the country that only experiences deathly heat on special occasions we rarely need air conditioning. When I do turn it on, I literally feel my electric bill rising and to tell the truth, I feel like I’ve somehow wimped out. I am in a game of chicken with my AC and can’t stand when I lose.

5.  TV – not only can I live without remote controls, I can also manage just fine without television. We have officially been without cable or satellite for months now and I have only missed it a few times when my co-workers accidentally slip and ask me if I saw the latest contest on the Food Network. My daughter and I have figured out that we don’t need the televisions and sometimes don’t even turn them on, but I suspected this before we canceled the satellite service. Still not missing it enough to pay $60 or $70 a month for it.

There were a few things on the list that I could clearly not live without, one being my computer and internet service. Cable internet to be more specific. I can’t imagine going back to dial up. I also could never live without coffee and my iPhone, but believe it or not, all of these things (including the coffee) enable me to work and generate extra income and to me they are all worth keeping around.

What about you? Are  you the average American, or what’s on your list of things you can clearly live without?