I’m a pragmatist. I always said the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

We live in a neighborhood where there have been a lot of tear-downs.  On both sides of the house my grandparents lived in before I moved here are two McMansions.  Huge, ridiculous houses, block the light in the mornings.  But what are you gonna do?  Well, funny how both those places are for sale.  I think the one family is in foreclosure and wouldn’t doubt if the people on the other side are too. That green BMW seems to have disappeared from the driveway.

I’ve never made a lot of money, but I also live within my means.  But even I run into a shortfall sometimes, like this winter when the fuel bills have been terrible, and then I needed a car repair that would be $1200.  I can’t borrow against equity in my house because, for better or worse, it’s really owned by my mother.  But I can borrow against the title of my car. It’s paid for, and why not use the money from the car to fix the car?

So that’s what I did — found a car title loan through Palos Hills Title Loans.  It’s all online now.  Car title loans don’t mean you have to go stand in line in some store with bullet proof glass (eek).  I got the money in a day, enough to get the repair done and keep me working.  I really don’t know what the neighbors are going to do without their big houses and foreign cars.

If you didnt know, Palos Hills is near Oak Lawn, Burbank, Bridgeview, Orland Park, and Tinley Park.

I heard my brother and his friends arguing the other day over this question: How much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.

What do you expect from guys in their 20s who regular watch Sponge Bob Square Pants, then Green Acres, every Thursday night over beers. I think this is why we’re in an economic recession.

Strangely, I did pick up an idea from one of his friends. This guy has a decent job in Evergreen Park, but otherwise is as stupid as my brother.  Anyway, he’s always spending money on stupid stuff and then short of cash to pay his rent, for food, insurance, and other things.  So when he gets in a scrape, he gets a car title loan to help him catch up. He goes on an austerity budget, pays the loan back, then the next thing he does is buy a playstation or something.

Well I needed some money a few weeks ago, so I asked him where people go for car title loans.  Turns out, they’re all online now.  So I went to Oak Lawn Title Loans, filled out the application, and I got the money in a day.  Could not have been easier.

Then he asked me for a date. I told him no, I didn’t want to deprive him of time with Sponge Bob and his friends.

Oak Lawn is also near, Evergreen Park, Washington Heights, Englewood, Chicago Ridge, and Alsip.

Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with. I learned that the hard way with a group of serious players I met in Blue Island a few months back. Turns out they decided they didn’t like me and teamed up to take me to the cleaners. I lost more than $550 last time I played with them.

Which made me do some fancy footwork with my wife when I got home. Of course I couldn’t tell her about it because she got me to quit going to the Ho Chunk casino four years ago. Instead, she thought I was playing basketball again (ha!).

So getting back to my problem with the lost $550, I scratched around the Internet to find ways to get a loan. In this economy, even with a job and so-so credit that is not always possible. But I found a car title loan company, Hickory Hills Title Loans, where they honored my outright ownership of my car and were willing to loan me as much as $3000. I only took the $550, but it’s nice to know that car title loans are there when you need them.

For now, no more fancy card tricks, no more card games, no more casinos. I’ll stick to the horses — KIDDING.

By the way Hickory HIlls is near Palos Park, Chicago Ridge, Oak Lawn, Burbank, and Justice.

You gotta love the politics in this country. First, we had Clinton, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Next we got Bush, no Cash and no Hope. What will Obama bring?

Things are looking grim at the moment, but let’s give the guy time. You wanna think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, but you know they could. My personal approach is to shore up everything from the income side, cut back as much as possible on the outflow side, and develop your backups for emergencies. Here in the Chicago area we might have job options in case our companies close or cut back, but there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything in this part of Cook County.

It’s nearly impossible to save money these days, so your backup might be in an asset. For me, it’s my car. I actually found a way for the car to finance it’s own repair bill. The mechanic said I needed $1400 to fix a bunch of things, and I just hated to add that to my credit card bills (in fact, it might have pushed me over my limit). So I did my research on the Internet and found Evergreen Park Title Loans, a great resource for car repair cash. A car title loan is based on the car’s value, as long as it’s paid for. You get your money electronically sent to your checking account, so if you need fast cash, this is the place to go for it.

By the way Evergreen Park is near Oak Lawn, Bridgeview, Burbank, Hometown, and Worth.

I lost my job as an IT specialist in my company late last year.  There was a downsizing, but I think I know why I was the first one cut in the department. One of the VPs called one day because he was experiencing a malfunction, which was clearly a result of his failure to follow instructions we provided.  The e-mail we sent a week earlier said “high importance, must do” in the subject line.  So what I told him was those words, “high importance” really means “delete this because you’re too busy.”

That guy never had a sense of humor anyway.  Plus, the job was in Niles and I live in Calumet.  Killer commute in this Chicago traffic.

However, unemployment in this economy pretty much sucks.  So when I ran up against some unexpected expenses, I had to scratch around to find some fast cash.  That’s when I stumbled upon Cook County Title Loans.  This is a car title loans company that operates in the Internet era – no going to some scary store, waiting in line, talking to some lady through a plate glass window.  You sign on, fill out the forms, get approved, and get your money the next day.  All you need for a car title loan is to own your car (no payments remaining).

From now on, I keep the snide remarks inside my head.  Things are safer there.

By the way Cook County is near Oak Lawn, Worth, Palos Hieghts, Crestwood, and Riverdale.

Q. Did you hear about the new “divorced” Barbie doll that they’re selling in stores now?
A. It comes with all of Ken’s stuff.

That’s the joke a friend just sent me. I’d laugh a little more if it wasn’t a little close to home — or, I should say apartment. Because I just lost my home to my ex-wife. She kept most my stuff, too. I kept my clothes, golf clubs and my car. “Barbie” even gets about 25% of my income for the next three years. Oh yeah, laughing at that one.

In a divorce situation, it boils down to the lawyers. Sure, I was cheating with someone she knew from the Chicago Ridge Mall (which I didn’t know at first; I met her on the Metra one fine summer day). She had her own things going on too. But that’s all water under the bridge now.

Despite my diminished circumstances, I had to buy all new furniture for my new bachelor pad. Given the economic conditions, I had to get creative and went online to find Chicago Ridge Title Loans, a car title loans store. It was easy, fast, didn’t require going anywhere, and I got my money in a day. A guy needs his high-def TV, a sofa, ottoman, and of course the bedroom furniture. Glad I worked that one out. Could Ken be so smart?

By the way Chicago Ridge is near Oak Lawn, Burbank, Evergeen Park, Bridgeview, and Worth.

I’m Polish and I married an Irish girl here in Burbank. We’ve had our cultural differences, but lemme tell ya, she and her six sisters have the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing down to a tee.

Just after she give birth to our first child, I asked what she should avoid. Three of her sisters said in unison, “getting pregnant.” OK. That worked for a year. I also asked if there was a reason why I had to be in the delivery room. She said yeah, one word: alimony. Her mother came to me during her second pregnancy and said she was being moody and irrational. I said “what’s your question?”

So when Colleen announced we were having another baby, our fourth, just around the time I had to go on disability because of my shoulder injury (I’m a bricklayer), things looked a little bleak. She wasn’t working at all anymore, and these days your health care insurance doesn’t cover as much. With two kids already at the Catholic high school, we had big bills to pay. So I looked at my truck and realized this might be a time for car title loan from Burbank Title Loans, where title loans are available online and in about a day. It was just enough to patch us through until I could start working again, which in this economy is an uncertainty too. But it’s just one of the ways a guy survives these days.

By the way Burbank is near Hickory Hills, Mc Cook, Bridgeview, Oak Lawn, and Worth.

My girlfriend told me I should be more affectionate. So I got two girlfriends.

And that didn’t go over too well with either of them. I thought having one here in Alsip and another in Wrigleyville in Chicago would keep them both off the trail (Alsip girl figured out that since I was a Sox fan it didn’t make sense I was going to Cubs games so much).

So at this point I have no steady girlfriends. Which is a darn shame because I have a little more time on my hands since losing my job in November. And here’s the kicker: I was carrying a Visa bill from our last trip together in October when we (Alsip honey) went to the Cayman Islands. Great trip, terrific memories, neat pictures on the computer, tan long gone. But I still owe about $1200 on that one, and my credit card company is charging me this crazy 28% interest, so I know it doesn’t make sense to carry it forward. So I got a car title loan on my Jeep, a $1200 cash advance at a lower rate from Alsip Title Loans. One of my better decisions lately.

By the way Alsip is near Midlothian, Markham, Crestwood, Blue Island, and Oak Lawn.