So my mind is adrift and
spinning as of late…
I day dream of winning the lottery…Powerball something like
that, one of the big ones. I know full
well how unrealistic it is. I envision
the company I would start, I know who I would hire, how I would compensate
them, I can see the stuff we’d do, I know I would actually see money coming
back in other than the initial prize money.
True not as much as I would likely spend to get it up and running, but
enough that if something heinous happened and the prize money ran out, I could
continue to live and essentially do what I wanted while working within my
presently fictional enterprise.
Then I begin to think is there a way to make the vision in
my head plausible without randomly coming into unfathomable good fortune.
Then reality swims up…
I sit eating a frozen pizza.
My fridge is damn near empty, and my diet isn’t all that great. I am a fitness conscious person, I lift
weight regularly, I can run several miles without an issue. (I did three and a
half this morning) My waist is smaller
than my chest. I understand enough about
nutrition to know that I eat crap. I
love the people who say ‘eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive’. I listen to their reasons, how inexpensive
fresh fruit can be, they talk about having a garden and going to farmers
markets…It’s a great pitch and they have local roots, are often somewhat
political, appearing in ads around schools, at public offices, the appearance
is that your government is providing you with the information you need to be
healthy, so no one has an excuse not to be…As if saying ‘even our poor can
afford to eat healthy.’
Then I lay down a little
real reality…
A few dollars on produce?
A local farmer’s market to spend…??
How much, how much physical cash resource would it take to buy some
fresh food to augment someone’s diet?
When all is said and done, I can generally scrape together about 30
dollars to buy food. I don’t want to
make a distinction that this is NOT in some way my ‘food budget’ I don’t have
one of those…A food budget implies that every week out of my paycheck I set
aside 30 dollars with which to specifically procure food. What I mean is I begin to pay bills, I prioritize
depending on how late and how much each is.
I don’t have any bills that I pay early, or as soon as I get them, no my
bills have carefully watched expiration dates with varying weights of
importance. So I pay my bills, if one is
particularly late or close to being interrupted it might get paid even if it
cuts into my food money. I make sure
that I have enough money left to put gas in my car. I try to put around 30 in every 8 or 9
days. I get paid every other week…Then I
buy food. If I only have 30 or 35
dollars left, I try to hold onto 10 for gas or an emergency. So now I’m trying to buy enough food to get
me through the week with 25 or 30 dollars…total…if I spend too much I may have
to call into work because I need to save gas for pay day. (It hasn’t happened yet, I’m pretty diligent
for instance I have 3 one dollar bills and 3 dollars in change to get me to
Friday and today is Wednesday. I have a
quarter tank of gas and enough food to get through 2 days. I don’t have enough extra gas to even
consider a trip to a farmer’s market.
One of the bills that I will have to pay not from this check, because it’s
the rent and electric, but next check, because It’s important is the
registration on my vehicle…it’s expired.
So I have about 27 dollars for food, a bag of French fries is 2.00 and
with cheese thrown on them I can get 3-4 meals out of them. That cheese is 2.50. Next there’s a pound of ground beef at 3.50
and a 3.75 gallon of milk. I don’t drink
coffee, but require about 4 mountain dews a week at 1.15 each, we are up to
16.35. 2 boxes of pasta, 2.50 a brick of
ramen also 2.50 (12 pack) a jar of sauce for the pasta garden variety for
veggies, 1.50…A kielbasa 2.50, and 2 packages of red beans and rice, 2.00…right
around 27.00. I get 3 meals with lunches
the next day at work (so 6) out of the pasta and sauce, and probably have half
a box of pasta towards next week, so next week I’ll buy rice and chicken and
frozen peppers for stir fry. I add the
hamburger to the pasta, and possibly to mac and cheese if I have one from a
previous week lying around. The kielbasa
and rice will make 4 meals, 2 dinners, 2 lunches. In between there’s a frozen pizza at 1.35 or
ramen, or, fries…every few weeks I get a jar of peanut butter, and that with
milk is often my breakfast. Where does a
nadful of low calorie veggies come into play?
Do I sound like I have time or resources to swing by a farmer’s market
to support my local economy? The change
on my dashboard will sometimes get me a value menu Wendy’s burger, and that
thing has tomato! I count that tomato in
my veggie file. You will never see me
with a 3.00 coffee shop coffee, 3 dollars is a meal or 2 to me. I don’t have a top of the line smart phone, I
have a shitty month to month At&t go phone, that I can text unlimited
with. I get a few hundred minutes a
month that I never use, I don’t talk to people on the phone if I can help
it. I often have to pay my bills with my
work debit card because I don’t have a legit checking account.
I’m not complaining.
I am at peace with my situation and am not sliding further
into poverty. I am without a doubt
living in poverty…Are any of you reading this in a similar situation? Internet is quite simply worth more to me than
food. The 40 dollars I spend a month to
be online saves me from losing my mind, it is my portal, my entertainment, my
voice, my radio, and how I pass my days…trust me no one wants these hands idle. If you are struggling this hard will you
admit that you’re poor? A lot of you won’t,
but we are…what else would you call this?
I make decent money for what I do compared to some of my co-workers…I
work 40 hours a week for a large corporation that showed a net earning of over
1 billion dollars in 2011…I’m still not complaining. There are ways that I can minimize future
recurring debts, and there are non recurring debts that once gone, will add
money into my weekly allowance. I
recognize and know this. I will also
make more money as time goes on unless I somehow lose my job. The point that I am making is I am working
poor. I exist. I’m far from alone.
The real point is…
The general attitude in America is that there is almost
unlimited opportunity to advance and that EVERYONE can work their way up and
get somewhere. This isn’t true. I stand a pretty good chance of working my
way up. I have seen more prosperous
times, and have more tools at my disposal than a lot of my peers. I also have a few pretty rugged road blocks
and hinderances. I don’t fully expect to
make it back to a point where I have vehicle, food, and general security. I think I’ve got a decent chance, but if I
don’t make it I know I can survive with less, and get by…
Then I say fuck it…
I go back to dreaming about winning the lottery, nothing
left to do today except work, and I’ve already paid all the bills I can between
now and Friday. I have 3 one dollar
bills left and gas in my tank, maybe tomorrow when I know I’ll make it to pay
day I’ll buy a ticket…it’s only 2.00, I’ll have enough left to get Wendy’s if I
use a little change for the tax…
