Misc The Results of being Poor.

[kyrsyan]

For the past two years my son and I have lived on $900 dollars a month with $200 in food stamps. We were very lucky that I already had a large, large pantry and had been canning and dehydrating for years because I don't think we would have made it otherwise. And we had good friends and family who helped.

I really, really have a lot of heartfelt compassion for those who don't have any type of support system. I know of one woman, with a special needs child, whose husband left. She was from out of country and had only moved here to be with her husband. She couldn't speak english well, had no job, nowhere to go and he left her with the child. She was definitely in a worse situation than I was. And whenever I started to fold I thought about her and realized just how much better we had it.

Having said that, being that poor has apparently made some serious inroads on my thought patterns. I have money this month! It's about $500 more than we've had before. And I feel rich. Yet I have no urge to splurge on "normal" things.

I got two good used tires put on the front of the van to replace the "maypops" that were on it. Next check will be heavy duty brakes and a thermostat. The one after that - a coolant tank expansion. There is something planned for each paycheck. Or every other paycheck depending on the expense. Hopefully when I'm done my vehicle will be as prepped as I can make it for the new job. And there will be a stash of maintenance parts in the garage.

I'm buying food plants and seeds. Good ones from Baker's Creek and Fedco. Heirlooms that I can save seeds on rather than the hybrids that are that is typically available in the stores around here. And every single bloody pot/container that I can find and fill will have some type of food plant in it. And the extras from the seeds will be sold to friends. I'm picking up even more small fruit plants to fill in gaps. And I may even pick up another couple of fruit trees at the big flea market coming up in May. I want my pantry refilled and expanded. And I want to be able to do it repeatedly without spending more money. This coming week I'm going to the Botanical Garden sale to pick up some of the harder to come by herbs for the herb bed. All of this is new because before the extra, I would have been lucky to have $10 to spend in this area. Now I can do a one time splurge of around $100 and most likely get everything I want for this year. (I already did one "splurge" of that amount two months ago to get new seeds. Once I knew the job was solid.)

I already picked up 60 lbs of chicken breast for canning. And next week I'll get thighs b/c they are on sale. And I'll have enough canned chicken to get us through 9 months to a year. And then I'll do beans again. And get my stock of dried beans back where it needs to be. It galled me to have to pay almost $3/lb for some beans because I couldn't do a bulk order. I tried growing enough beans and I'd have to do beans only, all year, to get enough. There just isn't enough room on my lot. But once the gardens are where I want them I will refocus on chickens, ducks, and rabbits.

I started homeschooling my son right before everything went downhill. This year is the first year I won't be having panic attacks trying to save up the money to pay the fees I have to. Especially the HSLDA fee since the school system would really like to get back at me for suing them (and them losing).

But the true eye opener for me today was paying the bills. I'm overpaying them all, every month, until I have enough of a barrier to cover the worst month's bill. Just in case. And I'm not even wincing at it. In fact my brain automatically went to the thought of "how much can I overpay before they object?" with 3 - 6 months as the ultimate goal. I know all but one of my bill companies won't have an issue with it. That one won't accept any overpayment. Another one may object after it reaches a certain amount.

The thing is I can remember back to when things were much better and what I thought was necessary. Some of it was. Some of it I am so grateful for (the canning equipment, the water filter, the steam juicer, the pressure canner and a good dehydrator). But I can remember not being able to replace a good hose last year because of the expense. (My Dad ran over the original with the riding mower.) I can remember not being able to do oil changes. I can remember not being able to get seed anywhere but the dollar store and having horrible germination rates. Then having to spend money on what few plants I could afford because the seeds didn't germinate. And so many other "little" things that most folks don't even blink at.

Yesterday I splurged on my son and let him get a super soft blanket for when he sleeps in the car. He loves textures and this one just hit the top of the scale for him. It was $10. Two months ago I wouldn't have even let him see the display because $10 was likely all we had in the account for at least two weeks. I won't be splurging much more and then the money will get stashed somehow.

I don't ever want to live on that edge again if I can do anything about it. And I will do everything I can to make sure that, if it happens, we have as much as I can provide to keep us going. But there is also the soul deep acknowledgement of a few things from that time, one of which is that we can make it. And I can be an absolutely vicious person when it is needed. And that even in the depths, I can, and will, be generous and helpful to those around me to the extent that I can.

I don't want to repeat that lesson though. I really don't. So I think I will try to actively be careful about sliding back into any old thought/spending patterns.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Hey K ... You haven't updated your blog in a couple of months. Can understand that ... busy, busy, busy. But do want to ask a question. I forget when but last year you posted a recipe for lamb on your blog. Could you post it here? Thanks.

 

[kyrsyan]

I'll go dig it up and post it. I keep thinking about posting there but then life jumps in. I'm finally getting adapted enough to the job that I don't have to be in bed by 9 every single night. Just the ones I work on.

 

[Kathy in FL]

I'll go dig it up and post it. I keep thinking about posting there but then life jumps in. I'm finally getting adapted enough to the job that I don't have to be in bed by 9 every single night. Just the ones I work on.

Thanks. I know about the busy, busy. Never enough hours in the day ... and when there are there just doesn't seem to be the energy to use them. (grin)

 

[Hfcomms]

Several years ago the IRS put a levy on me for back taxes that were already beyond the 10 year statute of limitations. That was back in 2005 I think. They left me with the statutory rate of $631 a month to live on and took every other cent I made. This went on for 18 months. It was a blessing in disguise and a wake up call for me and God used it to prepare me for the days in our immediate future. It was a learning experience for me and a good one at that. Although I have compassion for the poor and will help when I can, I don't have a lot of time for the 'woe is me the world and everything is against me' and feel sorry for myself meme that we see even on this board. That is precisely why we prep.

I never held out my hand to anyone or looked for a handout either by spamming messages or dropping hints that I was in dire need. That being said if I had children to feed and had no other alternative I wouldn't be above doing that if I needed to. But I didn't need to. I learned to live on cash only. If I couldn't pay for it out of my pocket I couldn't afford it. I didn't need satellite TV, cell phones and all the extras that people feel are essential now days. The only thing that I kept was the internet and that was it. And of course the preps certainly helped out too. I was just thinking about that the other day. Back then only 9 years ago I put myself on a budget of $35 a week at the grocery store and that included everything you buy at the store. Can't do that hardly for $100 a week now. Sure....no inflation, eh??

So compassion for the poor and downtrodden a definite yes. But I can curse the government, the banks, the IRS and everything else all day long and it won't change my situation. Like it or not we have to play the cards in our hand and quite often we find God in the midst of the waves and the roaring sea and not in the quiet green meadows we would rather walk in. Nobody promised us it's going to be easy.

 

[kyrsyan]

We are definitely living on cash. I learned the lesson about credit cards well before things went belly up. And every time I was tempted to change that I reminded myself that I didn't have the money to make the payments. Just that thought would stop it cold in the tracks.

This was definitely a wake up call.

$631 would most likely have buried us. You definitely have my respect for managing to survive on that.

 

[Hfcomms]

Not quite as bad as it would be today. $631 was more 8 years ago than it is today. Couldn't really live on $35 a week for groceries today unless you were living on pasta, sauce and a can of spam now and then. Of course that meant that the credit cards I had didn't get paid and that is another story. But today I do have a few cards and buy everything with them but they are paid off every month. I was using my debit card for a long time but if that card number gets compromised you may or may not be reimbursed by the bank but it will take awhile. With a credit card that issuing company is fully responsible if the account is hacked. So they do have their place if you can control your spending.

 

[kyrsyan]

I'm lucky with the credit union we use. Their stance on debit/credit cards is that their customer is right until they see proof otherwise. So the most they might do is freeze the amount while they investigate. And they investigate fast. I had the card number stolen a few years ago. It was more than obvious that it was a theft and they had everything fixed with minutes. Including a new checking account and card in the mail.

I had one through a bank years ago and had a problem with that one. Their stance was the exact opposite.

Having been through what we have, I doubt I would go splurging with credit cards. But I'm not will to take the risk. It was difficult to get out from under the credit card debt that my ex and I ran up in the first few years of marriage and I don't want to do it again. My only outstanding "credit" debt now is student loans.

 

[fuzzy]

K,

Along the lines of paying ahead on your bills, something worries me. If the SHTF and these companies go belly-up, where does that leave you? If you, only you, run into hard times, then prepaid bills would be a blessing. But if the whole country flops (SHTF,) and the services that you prepaid were no longer available, how could you get your money back? I have been lucky and the Old Man Upstairs has smiled on me & wife and we're secure, but I would never prepay anybody for anything, whether to roof my house, bulldoze out a new pond, or anything. Life happens to everybody some times, even the people (companies) you've prepaid. They may find themselves unable to hold up their end of the bargain when the time comes.

K, let me tell you - I admire and appreciate you so much. The way you have tackled your problems is fantastic in this day & age. I could tell you horror stories about my poverty-stricken youth for hours on end. Those days were years ago when none of the modern programs were available. It was "root hog or die," and "every man for himself." I had to do some things back then that I'm ashamed of today. You keep plugging away and my hat is off to you.

 

[kyrsyan]

I've been through enough personal SHTF situations in the past decade that I'll take the gamble. And my bills are actually relatively low compared to most folks. So 3 months on the electric bills, at the worst month, would be around $1000. It's a lot less for the car insurance, internet and water bill. Those, all told, would be about another $1000. Now rent, well I won't pay ahead on that, but once the rest of the bills are at least one month ahead, I'll start setting some aside for that. And I'm only adding $25 to $50 a month right now. So by the time the electric bill gets so high again I should have at least that one month's worth in there just in case.

My childhood was pretty good. But my grandparents had live through some really hard times and it was evident by the way they lived. A lot of what got me through was remembering how they had done some things.

But I have to admit that I was beginning to get worried. Despite everything I could do we were sliding under. I was having to chose between gas/food/plants/whatever on a regular basis. (ok, plants lost almost automatically.) We were only going out from the house about once every two weeks and I crammed every single stop we needed to make into those trips. We live in a really small town in the middle of nowhere so if I didn't want to see the budget triple we had to go to the larger towns for most shopping. And we can only walk through half of our small town unless we want to risk an extremely narrow passage under the train bridge. Not something to do with someone who has autism.

I can't say that those habits have changed too much. The new job has me going into the big town 4 days a week now. Although only one of those days is during normal business hours. I plan most errands for that day. But if I need to, I can go by my folks after I finish and sleep for a couple of hours until businesses open up on the other days. I haven't had to do it yet but the option is there.

One of the things I'll be looking at after the car is up to snuff is a side by side two seater trike with a cargo compartment. We could use that to get around both sides of town here easily. And we could avoid the train bridge. That would mean that we could get to the library, post office, farmer's market, hardware store, and better grocery store without using the car. And it would help me to get back in shape. Once I got used to it I could even use it further out to do fruit picking from the folks that let me harvest from their trees. It would have been an amazing thing to have had when my one van had the transmission die. Or when the current one had issues b/c of flood waters. So it's on the list for when there is the money saved up. Of course my family will just roll their eyes at me. But then the other thing I've realized is that while we all live in the same physical world, it is drastically different from person to person depending on how they've lived. My folks used to have a pantry as large as mine and be just as cautious about some things. As they earned more they "forgot" a lot. Or decided it wasn't important. So I actually worry about them as much as they worry about me.

 

[Amazed]

k, if you continue to watch your pennies as you are doing, I predict good things in your future. Security feels a whole lot better than "stuff". My hot's off to you. You done good.

 

[kyrsyan]

I'm going to try. In the past my luck has been such that as soon as I had extra some crisis came up to eat it. But I've had a long vicious talk with Murphy and his helpers and booted them from my life. So here's hoping. But I'm going to do this in such a way that the bills are handled so that I don't have to panic over them if something comes up.