The Decision I Never Wanted To Make

Hello Everyone

A few things have happened over the last few days and things have been a bit slow but eventful. A few good things happened but I also had to make a tough decision that I never wanted to make. So today I wanted to share what I have been up to the last few days and also talk about the decision I never wanted to make.

Let's get into it

Wealthy Affiliate Membership Renewal

I'm going to start with the good news which is that my Wealthy Affiliate membership renewed 3 days ago for another year at the Black Friday rate that I'm grandfathered to. So this means I'm here for another year which makes me very happy to know.

The Coolest Voice Assistant Ever

I have also been testing and using Alexa a lot over the last few days on my Amazon Fire TV stick on my TV. Alexa is actually really cool and I can ask just about anything as well as control everything on my TV with my voice.

But it gets even cooler than that. The other day I discovered Alexa can do even more and she can even sing songs including Happy Birthday and Waltzing Matilda. Today I discovered she can sing Christmas songs like Jingle Bells, Deck The Halls, Oh Christmas Tree and many more.

I also discovered Alexa can make animal sounds of any animal I say and I'm still discovering things I didn't know she could do. Alexa is also polite, has greetings and can also tell me the weather. But the coolest part for me is the singing as I have never heard a voice assistant sing before and having a talking and singing TV is the coolest thing ever.

I'm sure there is much more that Alexa can do that I haven't discovered yet and I'm going to look on Google later and see if I can find a list of all the songs she knows and other things she can do that I don't know about. So if you have an Amazon device or are thinking about getting one I highly recommend you try out Alexa. It's a lot better than the Google voice assistant and I promise you won't regret it.

The Decision I Never Wanted To Make

The cost of living has hit me hard this and I have been able to get by but as the year got closer to the end things got harder and come the beginning of December I found myself in a tight spot and I was having money issues.

December is the most expensive month of the year for me and this year it's even more expensive than ever due to the higher costs of everything. My bank account was starting to run low on money but I used some of my savings to pay for my WA membership and to pay for another year of hosting for my main business website on GoDaddy.

But I still had Christmas present shopping to do and I have an electricity bill due to arrive soon which will no doubt be expensive. On top of that I need money for the Christmas carnival in my town next week as I always go there every year with my mum and I still need to have money to buy food each week.

I knew this was probably going to happen and started thinking about it 2 to 3 months ago and started looking into personal loans. After some research I stopped looking because I didn't want to make this decision. There was no way I was going to leave WA or not pay my hosting on GoDaddy but I let things go until late November when I knew I had to do something.

So I began researching again and almost tried to get a personal loan but found the rates and fees were high and many loan companies wouldn't give loans to pensioners. Even the ones that did had fees that were a bit too high. I almost did it as I was desperate but at the last minute I cam across the option to get an advance payment on my pension.

I looked into it and saw that it was easy to get and there is no fees or interest. While this would not solve all my money issues it would give me enough money to get by and make things work until my next regular pension payment. So I went ahead and requested an advance payment and got approved instantly. I'll have the money by Wednesday so it looks like everything is going to be ok.

But believe me this was not an easy decision and I'm still a bit anxious that I have this small debt to Centrelink but it will be ok because they will automatically deduct the repayments from my pension each fortnight and in 6 months my debt will be paid back.

I'm still not happy I had to resort to something like this but I had do something and this is why I kept putting the decision off as part of me was hoping if I don't think about it my money issues would go away but deep down I knew that wouldn't happen.

But I'm just glad I sorted something out and just in time to because as of today my bank account is almost empty but I will have my advance payment through by Wednesday and then I will get my next regular pension payment which is due 9 days later.

At the end of the day it was a tough decision and one of the toughest decisions I have had to make in a long time but it was the right decision and I learned no matter how tough things get there is always a way forward and if you look hard enough you will find the way forward.

A Partly Cloudy & Hot Monday Turns Lucky

Today I'm in a good mood and feeling very happy after sorting out my money issues so I went into town to buy Christmas presents for my mum and grandma. I also bought some things for myself in Big W which is a department store here in Australia.

While I was in town shopping I was in the newsagent getting Christmas cards, gift bags and finding a couple of more Christmas gifts for my mum and I decided to buy some scratch it tickets. I had a good feeling and it was like a little voice was telling me to buy some scratch it tickets because I will win something.

So when I was paying for my items I asked for 3 $1 scratch it tickets and paid for them with the rest of my items. After that I went outside and scratched them and I was bit lucky. I won $2 on the first one, $2 on the second one and a free scratch it ticket on the third one.

I went back into the newsagent to claim my winnings and then I scratched my free ticket and won another $2. So my total winnings for the day was $6 and the free ticket. Although it was only a small win and I wished I had won more I was still happy that I won something and had extra small change in my wallet.

After that I continued and finished my Christmas present shopping. During this time I bought some technology items for myself as I mentioned earlier. I bought a big Bluetooth speaker system with a built in DVD player, a portable Bluetooth speaker with a tripod stand, another small pocket size portable Bluetooth speaker like the one I bought last fortnight and I also bought 2 medium sized Bluetooth soundbars.

These items will complete my home audio system that I'm designing and as an added bonus I discovered that I should be able to pair most of them with my TV through my Amazon Fire TV stick and control them with Alexa if I want to. After I finish writing and publishing this blog post I will be opening, setting up and trying out my new technology items.

After that my home audio system that I'm designing will be complete and will be perfect for listening to the radio, booming music, watching videos on WA through my TV and doing any audio and video related tasks that I want to do.

Overall it was a hot day today but my day was lucky and good. It's now Monday night here in Australia as I'm typing this and I'm sitting in my living room with the air conditioning turned on.

I was very happy and satisfied with how my day turned out today and that $6 I won actually came in handy for something. After I finished shopping I sat in the cafe and had something to eat. After that I went outside and called a taxi to go home.

When I got to my house I wanted to pay with my bank card like I usually do but the EFTPOS machine in the taxi wasn't working as it must have malfunctioned again. So I said it's ok I have cash and I used the money I won as well as a bit extra cash from my wallet to pay for my taxi fare meaning luck was definitely on my side today.

Conclusion

In Conclusion the last few days have been slow but eventful. I haven't got much done online as I had other things on my mind that were occupying me like I talked about in this blog post. But I plan to do some work online later this week.

I'm happy that my WA membership and GoDaddy hosting has been renewed for another year and I have been having a lot of fun with Alexa. But sometimes things get tough and we have to make decisions that we don't want to make.

As I have learned we shouldn't let our fears hold us back and if we look hard enough we can and will find the answers we are looking for as there is always a way forward through our problems.

I'm very happy and satisfied with how my day turned out today. I love my new technology items and I look forward to trying them out and completing my home audio system. Luck was definitely on my side today and it looks like we are all lucky sometimes even if we don't think we are.

That concludes this blog post about the decision I never wanted to make and the other things I have been up to. I hope you enjoyed this blog post even though it was a bit different from my usual blog posts. I wanted to share what I have been up to and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something from it.

I hope you all have had a great start to the week and I wish you all a great week ahead. I hope you have a Techtastic day. Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.