hooked on stuff
Posted by deepali on March 10, 2008
I was at dinner the other night, and I happened to glance up at the television set. The show playing was “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. The premise goes - the makeover team determines that a certain family’s home needs a radical change. Often, there has been some change in the family. But sometimes, the home itself is just not as livable as it could be.
The episode that was on showed a house that was barely bigger than a doublewide. The family had 3 or 4 children, and 3 of them shared a room (one of them slept on a pull out). They clearly needed more space. But the kicker? There was a 50 inch plasma TV in the living room.
This is just something I will never understand about people. We complain about how we “need” this and that, and we “can’t afford” these important “needs”. And then we turn around and buy something we clearly do NOT need. It reminded me of the time a friend of mine told me she was poor. This, of course, after sending me links to various couches she was thinking of buying. The price tag on these couches? 2K or so. To go in her $1900/month apartment.
When I told a friend of mine that I was selling my car, he said he never understood how people could live in this city without one. I was confused - I maybe drove my car 1-2 times a month.
I guess this is what happens when you live in the land of plenty. You get used to having all these things around you that they seem like necessities. I remember when we didn’t have cell phones or internet, but now I would certainly put both on my list of must-haves.
The sadly ironic thing about shows like “Extreme Makeover” is that the reason why the house is in bad shape is often due to financial difficulties, whether self-imposed or unexpected. Unfortunately, the nice new home (or newly redone home) also increases in property value, which causes a rise in taxes. And the pre-existing financial difficulties means the recipients are often unable to maintain payments on the home. Some have been sold. Some have been lost to foreclosure. I guess this is what happens when we get hooked on stuff.
March 10, 2008 at 10:04 am
To date, no Extreme Makeover families have lost their house to foreclosure. In many cases, the builder or the community raise money to pay off the old mortgage, or at least create a housing fund to help.