Ennui Blog

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Friday night is a tough day to be without Comcast. No leisurely Friday night net surfing or pay per view movies.

No biggie. We opted to fire up the home theater and snuggle up to watch Christmas movies instead. It was very nice.

So, we lived without Comcast on a Friday night. Not too bad so far.

Today we’re gonna go for a car trip with my parents to the Christmas Homes in Kouts, Indiana. We made it very clear that we had no money and that they would have to bankroll the day. They said OK.

After Kouts we’re going on to Bailey’s Discount Center in North Judson, Indiana then to the famous Fingerhut Bakery and the fun that is Toto, Indiana. Should be a fun day. It’s snowing and it feels Christmasy.

We won’t need Comcast today. Tomorrow will be a whole other story…

Stay tuned for more of Adventures Without Comcast.

My Comcast TV and Internet has been shut off. Let me explain. Due to the way my pay cycles worked over the past few weeks, I had to choose to pay rent and buy groceries instead of pay the Comcast bill.

I had hoped it wouldn’t get shut off, it being the holidays and all. But sure enough, on Thursday night, while I was working, the Internet went out along with the TV. Great.

I don’t get paid until December 16th.

It’s going to be a long 12 days.

I tried to get a reprieve on Twitter by reaching out to @comcastcares. I explained that I’ve been a long time customer, love their service and don’t intend on going anywhere. I assured them the bill would be paid on the 16th. But to no avail @comcastcares doesn’t seem to care.

TV I can live without, I rarely watch it anyway. It’s the Internet that is the problem. I won’t be able to work on my web projects and build my blogs. My wife won’t be able to do her homework and it’s finals week coming up.

So, until the 16th, my only access to the Internet is via my trusty iPhone. I can blog lightly from it and I intend to write everyday until the 16th about our experience living without Comcast for so long.

Maybe we’ll find out we don’t need it after all.

My wife and I came across Rocio Romero’s LV home when we were watching the travel channel one day. We fell in love with the house and it’s modern aesthetic immediately. It quickly became our dream home.

Our plan is to rent for a few years, save our money, rebuild our credit and then build this house ourselves. It’s available in many different models which you can check out here on the LV Home Official Site. The LV home is innovative in that it is pre-made in a factory and shipped to the building site in pieces. There, your contractor puts it together like big adult sized Legos.

Right now, they have a National Open House Tour going on, where they open up a couple models around the country to tour and get more information. They next one is in Perryville, MO. We’d love to go, but won’t be able to make it.

Check out this awesome video from CurrentTV to get an idea of what the house is like. We want the three bedroom model.

The hit ABC show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed slightly absurd to tear down some poor people’s home and then build them a McMansion.

Well, it turns out that it was actually a bad idea.

Several people who were blessed to be visited by the show are having their sad realities continuing to plague them into their new lives.

One couple that had a massive house built is now having it foreclosed. Apparently, after their mortgage was paid off bye the show and they had a brand new valuable house, they decided to take out a mortgage and start a business; which quickly failed. They are now going through foreclosure.

In another instance, the family could no longer afford to maintain the massive horse complex that the show left them and were forced to beg to the community for donations again.

“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” exists to sell Sear Appliances and other sponsor’s crap. The show paints a picture of insane wealth that all Americans should aspire to, even if they don’t need it and can’t afford it. This show is everything that is wrong with America. All it does is perpetuate consumerism, which is destroying our society.

You can’t give a hand up to poor people who have no idea how to handle money and then give them a giant house without teaching them how to manage money and take care of a house that large. It’s asking for disaster. It makes for great TV drama, but it doesn’t make for such good real life drama.

Payday advance places get a pretty bad rap in the media these days. People accuse them of being loan sharks that latch onto the poor and vulnerable and never let go. And in some cases that’s entirely the case.

We mustn’t forget that people know what they’re signing up for. If you have half a brain, you can successfully use a Payday advance without facing the stiff penalties that seem to trap other people.

The purpose of a Payday loan is to provide money sooner than when you expect to get it. This can be caused by many factors. A major one is Rent being due between pay periods. You can go down to the Payday Loan place, write them a post dated check (plus their fee), they give you the money and cash the check on the agreed upon date. It’s simple, you got the money in anticipation of your payday, so the check should have no problem clearing.

This is where most people fail. They fall into the ‘ethereal money’ trap. Money becomes an abstract concept where they lose it’s true value and seem to think they now have a lot of money because they have a Payday loan. They forget that they got it for a purpose. They spend the loan then spend their paycheck, check bounces, fees build up. Some people get Payday loan after Payday loan and get in over their heads.

But I digress. People can use them responsibility. I have a friend who was way behind on his rent and some other bills because his wife has some medical problems and was out of work for a couple months. They got in over their heads. Slowly though, they are working their heads back above water. But they needed cash, quickly so they didn’t get evicted.

So, he did some research and got a short term loan. They loaned him the money he needed, they take a chunk of his paycheck for 8 pay periods. His pay is always the same, so he knew he could swing it. The interest rate isn’t even worth mentioning, a loan shark would be cheaper. However, if he simply pays it off completely when he gets ahead, he won’t have to pay any interest.

By no means did he just come into ‘free money.’ Managed properly, the loan will help them get back on their feet and start to get somewhere with their lives.

All it takes is drive. You have to not want to be controlled by banks and lenders. You have to want control over your life and have the intelligence to understand how to have control over your own life. Payday advances and short term loans can work and be useful tools, as long as you understand what you’re getting into.

The problem is that most people don’t. God help them.