Lazy Man and Money

  • Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • What I’m Doing Now
  • Consumer Protection
    • Is Le-vel Thrive a Scam?
    • Is Jusuru a Scam?
    • Is Beachbody’s Shakeology a Scam?
    • Is “It Works” a Scam?
    • Is Neora (Nerium) a Scam?
    • Youngevity Scam?
    • Are DoTERRA Essential Oils a Scam?
    • Is Plexus a Scam?
    • Is Jeunesse a Scam?
    • Is Kangen Water a Scam?
    • ViSalus Scam Exposed!
    • Is AdvoCare a Scam?
  • Contact
  • Archive

Mohu Leaf Antenna Delivers Free TV

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 45 Comments

A week and a half ago, I received what seemed to be an unremarkable marketing email from a company pushing its product. I say unremarkable, because I receive a couple dozen of these every week. Every company claims to have the best product and typically these emails go to 1,000 people in hopes that a few dozen will write about the product. However, this one was kind of different. Rather than suggest I write about the product, the representative asked if there some way to pass the message along. Is short, they put the ball in my court.

I suggested that they give me one to try and one to give away to readers. The product is the Mohu Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna. It effectively does the job of the old rabbit ears, grabbing over the air signals bringing you free television.

Cutting Cable Television

I’ve been writing about getting rid of cable television since February of 2007. I have had a follow-up article more recently: Cutting the Cable TV (Part 2). I also have reduced my cable bill and looked into buying a cable box.

Though I write a big game, I haven’t been able to follow it up with action. There have always been a couple stumbling blocks. I like football and baseball on ESPN. My wife likes the Travel channel on the weekends. However, watching these cable channels amount to just 1% of our television watching time. It seems terrible inefficient to pay $60 a month for 10 hours of television of a month.

Another piece of the puzzle is getting reception for free television. I bought an HDTV antenna in 2007 to see what channels I could get. Turns out we didn’t get much… just one of the major networks. I ended up returning the antenna and getting my money back. The experiment was a failure.

Enter the Mohu Leaf

The Mohu Leaf arrived in the mail yesterday. It might be the least breath taking piece of electronics I have ever come across. It looks a little like a laminated sheet of 8×11 paper with an cord coming from it. If it wasn’t for the cord, I would have thought it was kind of insert to protect the instruction booklet. I took it to the upstairs bedroom and plugged in it. The cord is just a standard coaxial cable. I simply unplugged my Comcast and plugged this in instead. I then taped it up wall, set the television to “air mode” and did a channel scan. Three minutes later the scan was done and I had ironically exactly 57 channels. There were all the major networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, etc. In addition there were a couple of home shopping networks, a weather channel, and a couple dozen channels that may drive Alexandra Wallace crazy if played in the library.

I was floored by the number of stations available. The HDTV signals were gorgeous – easily as good as the cable television version.

Matt, a reader who read this article, bought a Mohu Leaf had this to say:

“I bought a Mohu Leaf after reading this article. I bought it even though I already had an HDTV antenna….we cut our cable last year. We live about 15-20 miles from the bulk of the broadcasting stations and my previous antenna (bought at Best Buy for a pretty penny) only picked up about half of the channels. I’m happy to say that after installing the Mohu Leaf, we now get about 40% more channels….almost every channel available OTA. I think this is a great product, and I’m not easy to please.”

I can’t say whether that’s a typical result, but we are two satisfied owners.

Cutting the Cable Television (Take 2)

With a working HDTV antenna in place, we are significantly closer to cutting the cable. Streaming Netflix and Hulu as well as MLB.TV (which we need to pay to see the out of town Red Sox anyway), with over the air major networks fulfill just about everything we need. That includes ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars (on Hulu), which my wife got me addicted to.

There are still a couple of gotchas. Just because you can cut the cable, doesn’t mean you should. For my wife, having the option to watch cable is valuable. Just knowing that the Travel channel is there means something. She said she is not quite ready to move away from cable, but that maybe a trial wouldn’t be a bad thing.

The other gotcha is the use of our DVR. It seems like years since I’ve seen a commercial other than the truck and beer ones during sporting events. I’ve hooked up a computer to our television, but I’d need to investigate a replacement – possibly something from Hauppauge. That and it would be nice to not have a keyboard and mouse on the coffee table. Perhaps I need something like the Boxee remote.

So it’s still a work in progress, but at least one with great potential to save money.

Win a Mohu Leaf (or just get a discount)

Let’s get to the fun stuff. As much as I’d like to keep the second Mohu Leaf for our other television, I promised I’d give it away. So here’s how it’s going to work. Leave a comment between now and Sunday evening (March 20th) at 11:59PM PT if you are interested. Make sure you use a real email address, so I can contact you if you win. Those who give an interesting story on why they want a Mohu, impress me with their set up to cut the cable, or anything else interesting and related to getting free television legally, may get additional entries over the person who responds with, “I’d like to enter.”

For those of you aren’t feeling lucky Mohu has set you up with a $4 promotional code to use on buying on. On Amazon, buy the Mohu Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna with the promomotional code “lazyman1” for the discount.

Filed Under: Smart Purchases Tagged With: contest, Mohu Leaf Antenna

Need Money Epic Fail

April 23, 2009 by Lazy Man 12 Comments

I love Fail Blog When I discovered it, I lost about 4 straight hours of my life (so click through after you read this post). I just find the pictures hilarious. Earlier this week I was at Taco Bell. The receipt struck me as borderline funny enough to submit to Fail Blog. Rather than risk it getting rejected there, I’d use this venue for it.

Need Money Epic Fail
Need Money Epic Fail

The first words are “need money” and the next words are pretty much “enter our contest.” If you really need money, entering Taco Bell’s national contest isn’t the answer. That’s what I call “would be nice” money, not need money. I’m sure the odds of winnings are posted somewhere, but I couldn’t find them. I can’t imagine they give out a lot of $1000 prizes even though they could. It’s possible they give out one a week, which would make your odds of getting the money you need pretty low.

P.S. How frugal was that lunch, right? Taco Bell’s slogan is right, “Why Pay More?”

P.P.S. I would have highlighted the “Need Money” in the picture, but after looking how draw a box or circle in Gimp my head exploded. If any knows of an easy way to do that please let me know in the comments. I suspect the best answer is going to be… don’t use Gimp.

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: contest, need money, taco bell

Win $20 on Ebay or Amazon By Giving Your Best Frugal Valentine’s Day Tip (2 Prizes)

February 5, 2009 by Lazy Man 41 Comments

Frugal Valentine's Day Tips
Frugal Valentine's Day Tips
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. Guys, if you are as Lazy as I am, you haven’t come up with anything for that special someone in your life. Personally, I can’t get flowers (she has allergies) or chocolate (we are trying to be more healthy this year), so that knocks out the two traditional staples of Valentine’s gift.

Let’s all do some brainstorming. Since many minds are better one (especially if that one is mine), I’m asking you to leave your best frugal valentine tip in the comments. If helping out your fellow man isn’t enough incentive, I’m going to give out a $20 gift certificate to Ebay or Amazon (winner’s choice) to two winners.

In the interest of equality, let’s not leave the women out. We want to hear the frugal ideas you have planned for your guy. Though us men love to give, we don’t mind being on the receiving end every now and again.

And everyone, please remember this is a family-friendly website, not the Newlywed Show. I recognize that whoopie is frugal, so let’s just agree, and move on to other tips.

Content details:

  • How to enter
    • Leave a comment of your best Valentine’s Day tip – If it’s a tip that takes weeks to implement, you will get one entry. Unfortunately we don’t have weeks, but it’s good to get a head-start on next year. If it’s a tip that can be executed in the last 5 business days of Valentine’s Day, I’ll give you two entries. If I judge the idea to be of marginal help (see the “how not to enter” below), I may award no entries.
    • Write about this contest – If you write about this contest on your blog and link to this page, you get three entries. Make sure you contact me for credit.
  • How NOT to enter – Write about your plan to take your significant other to KFC because you saw their “KFC has chicken and corn” commercial. (Random Aside: Can we agree that the jingle might be one of the worst ever. Is there anyone who doesn’t know that KFC has chicken and corn? It doesn’t cover either of KFC’s two best sides – mashed potatoes and biscuits. It’s an epic fail.)
  • Winners will be picked at random – This is why you’ll want to earn all the entries you can get.
  • Three comments per person please – I don’t want to have one person take up all the good, easy ideas, but I want to encourage people to share multiple good ideas if they have them. (And I realize this goes against the concept of “Best” frugal Valentine’s Day Tip as you can’t have two bests.)
  • Leave a valid email address if you want a prize – I can’t give you an award, if I don’t know how to reach you.
  • Contest ends Monday, February 9th (11:59PM PT) – Everyone has to have time to implement the tips.
  • As usual, I forget things – I almost always forget some detail. I came very close to publishing this without a date of when the contest ends. I’m new at offering contests. Please bare with me if I while I learn, so I can get better at sharing money with readers

So hit me up with some good ideas.

Photo Credit: aussiegall

Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: contest, Frugal, tips, valentine's day

As Seen In…

Join and Follow

RSS Feed
RSS Feed

Follow Me on Pinterest

Search The Site

Recent Comments

  • Joe on The Cost of Summer Camp (2023 Edition)
  • Lazy Man on Odds and Ends Update
  • Joe on Odds and Ends Update
  • Lazy Man on Odds and Ends Update
  • Josh on Odds and Ends Update

Please note that we may have a financial relationship with the companies mentioned on this site. We frequently review products or services that we have been given access to for free. However, we do not accept compensation in any form in exchange for positive reviews, and the reviews found on this site represent the opinions of the author.


© Copyright 2006-2023 · Perfect Plan Publishing, Inc. · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · A Narrow Bridge Media Design