newly poor (Page 5)

home cookingEating out and buying prepared foods are both expensive. It’s also easy to eat too much junk (processed, refined) food that way. Yesterday morning I was chopping up some stuff, moving things from the deep freezer to the freezer, and from the freezer to the ‘fridge. My 3.5 year old was listening to an audio book and playing with blocks (right where I needed to walk, between the stove and counter, but her contentment was very worth the inconvenience). I was reminded of the days when my first daughter was a baby. I devoted hours and hours preparing wonderful meals full of whole grains, organic fresh (locally grown, or from our gardens) vegetables, and even meat from animals raised and slaughtered right here in Maine. I froze foods, I fried seaweed, I embraced quinoa (10 years ago when it was relatively new on the American scene)… I was creative and quite frugal. Bulk purchasing and home preparation saved us a lot of money. But, it also cost a lot of time.
Buying ingredients and making our own foods costs a lot less in dollars than buying prepared foods (if the prepared foods are relatively nutritious). But the time it takes to prepare food at home—that’s what I do 90% of the time—shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s not even preparing the food, but managing it. What do we have on hand, what’s still frozen, what needs preparation, what makes a meal, what leftovers need to be used… all of these things take brain space. All of these things are also things I love to think about and do, when I have the time.
The choices aren’t easy. Take out, restaurants, and prepared foods from the grocery store are all too expensive. They are also much less likely to fit our values or our desire to eat foods that make our bodies strong. Spending the morning making stock from the freezer bag of chicken bones and vegetables, quinoa bean chili, fruit smoothies from the frozen fruit scraps, whole grain cookies, baked tofu with Bragg’s… there’s what I want to do (the cooking and planning) and there’s what I need to do (make money). There’s the bottom line (cash/bills to pay) and the bottom line (quality of life) to be considered, too.
Right now, I’m choosing to breathe in the present moment. Balance is my goal, though I certainly lean toward the quality of life side of the scales.
As many of you know, I have been writing a monthly column at The Bangor Daily News about being “newly poor.” Food choices are complicated when living with so little money. I fully understand the appeal of the McDonald’s drive-through. In fact, over the last few years I have used that option much more than feels comfortable to me. But, we’re all human and can only do the best we can. I just don’t judge harshly people who make “bad” food choices when it feels so much easier and even feels less expensive to get the quick fix food. In an ideal world, I could take it easy and buy, prepare, and share foods that feed our bodies and our values. In this world of necessary compromise, I can only do the best I can.

My health insurance company is forcing me to choose between no treatment or taking medication not chosen by my doctor. I should have the freedom to follow my doctor’s recommendations.
To treat this uncomfortable, chronic, and increasingly serious condition, I now have to take a medication that has the potential to be toxic that will require monthly blood tests to monitor the effect on my liver. Single parenting and a severely limited income makes going for “simple blood tests” not a simple thing. My health insurance company insists I try *that* medication (and possibly others) before they will cover the (more expensive) medication my doctor actually prescribed.
Doctors should be able to care for their patients based on their experience and knowledge and intuition. Pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies shouldn’t be controlling our healthcare. The insurance industry should be abolished.
My medical freedom should be protected by the government. The government should protect the medical freedom of citizens who are physicians, as well, to allow them to care for their patients as they see fit. Health care should happen between patients and doctors/care providers. Our medical freedoms shouldn’t be suffocated and crushed by private industries.

When I’m sad—especially the sadness that comes when my daughters aren’t with me—there are some things I like to do for comfort. I go to the Portland Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings. I go to Whole Foods to get a small (ha!) chocolate ganache cake and a container full of fancy quinoa/kale/beans/wheatberries kinds of salads. I might buy a few oil pastels that I’ve been doing without.
The meat I buy at the farmers’ market is from animals that have lived relatively happy lives and were butchered on the humane side of slaughtering. I don’t pretend that harvesting meat from animals is anything but brutal, but the farther away from a factory killing site the better. In other words, the meat I buy is expensive.
As I was going through some of these “soothe myself” activities today, I thought about living without enough money but choosing to spend the little I have on things like expensive meat and chocolate cake.
Expensive: meat from animals that lived happy lives and were killed in small, local slaughterhouses.
Costly: purchasing meat that feels like I’m eating death and feces; teaching my children that industrial farming is fine and dandy and harmless.
Expensive: chocolate ganache cake, gourmet salads, and oil pastels.
Costly: dismissing my sadness as something I should make go away; pretending everything is okay.
As I learn to live within my very limited means, I won’t put aside my personal values. Most of the time, I find inexpensive alternatives to those things I might’ve done in the past. I download my audiobooks from the library, for example. Or I brew my own coffee or make my own gourmet salads with stuff I have on hand or growing in the garden. At times, making the more expensive choice is an investment in my quality of life. If it’s my upper-class upbringing that makes me think this way, so be it. Small pleasures or purchases consistent with my values –> contentment –> emotional strength –> less stress –> better choices (more sleep, for example) –> living mindfully and in the present moment = not only surviving but really living, full of gratitude and joy. Sometimes I choose the more expensive option because the alternative costs too much.

When progressives* express our outrage about Ryan’s (or any politician’s) support of the wealthy over the rights of the rest of us, we’re missing something important.
Conservatives* believe if a person is wealthy, they have done something to deserve it. If a person is wealthy and is reaping the benefits of the power and prestige that wealth brings (tax breaks, influencing policy) that’s because they have earned it.
For progressives to say giving the rich tax breaks is a bad thing doesn’t do anything to convince anyone who isn’t already a progressive.
Conservatives can’t afford to believe that the wealthiest Americans may have achieved financial success through anything other than hard work (and that includes inheritances which, in the eyes of conservatives, are “benefits of hard work”). The American dream, the strict father model of morality, the idea that hard work pays off—despite all life experience to the contrary—must be maintained. Allowing for the fragility, frailty, and inaccuracy of such a model would require a crumbling of entire world views.
If the 1% are portrayed as greedy and gluttonous, we progressives are seen as “just jealous.”
If progressives imply the 1% have almost certainly used dirty tricks, slippery concepts of legality, and un-American activities to get where they are today we lose any possibility of sharing our values with conservative voters. If it’s legal, it’s fair (say the conservatives).
“Taxing the rich” doesn’t sound like an answer to people who believe “the rich” got there because they worked hard for it, because they earned it and deserve it.
Liberals and progressives need to back up a few steps and get to the point that we believe hard work should pay off. We believe working hard at one full-time job should earn a living wage. We believe the American Dream should be possible. We are the Patriots.
Patriotism means caring for our country. Patriotism also means knowing profit isn’t inherently evil. Patriotism means being so grateful for the opportunities we have, so appreciative that we get to live in this country, that we want to be sure all of our neighbors have a fair shot at achieving the American Dream.
Every time I see a meme floating around about how the Romney/Ryan ticket is doomed because they are out to crush the working poor, I cringe.  I happen to agree that the Romney/Ryan ticket will be devastating for poor people, working or otherwise. However, focusing on that in terms of how the Romney/Ryan ticket favors the rich only alienates any voter who might otherwise want to stand up for hard working Americans. We must stop focusing on how the “rich should be punished” (which is how our memes and bumperstickers and small speeches sound) and start focusing on how we believe working hard should pay off. Working hard should mean financial stability. Instead of demonizing the people conservatives consider success stories, we need to start communicating with the people whose backs carried the loads of money up to their doors.
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*Language is a barrier when discussing politics because of the many nuances and flavors of positions and values. I’m using “progressives” here simply because it’s a term I find most comfortable using (rather than “liberal” which, to me, implies and absence of responsibility). I’m using “conservatives” here to mean those people most in line with the radical right. The radical right are those Karl Rove-esque types who have most successfully dominated all political culture that isn’t liberal or progressive; they have infiltrated most of us, too. (See my post on “climate change.”) “Conservatives” means the Tea Party, the Republican Party, the right-wing Democrats, many Independents or Libertarians, and basically anyone who doesn’t identify themselves as liberal or progressive in any way.

When I started crying, it wasn’t to try and get out of the ticket. When I couldn’t keep the sobbing inside, I tried to quiet myself with tissues and breathing before the cop got back to my window.
“I’m gonna let you go with a warning,” he said. I think he said something about $150 and points (expired registration since March, not inspected). I’m not sure what else, though, because I didn’t hear anything after “warning;” my tears and laughter of relief were too loud. “I’m sure you can’t afford it,” he said. “No, I can’t,” I said, not trying to hide my crying anymore, “Thank you.”
That was Saturday. Today is Monday.
Today, I canceled plans with a friend who is here from out of state. This is our only afternoon to meet up and I haven’t yet explained why I decided I can’t go.
Being “newly poor” is teaching me more than I ever imagined. As a politically and socially progressive person, I’ve always understood poverty to be a challenging way of life. I’ve never believed that breaking free of the cycle of poverty is just a case of a great big tug on the ol’ bootstraps. I understood, intellectually, that trying to make ends meet with the regular expenses of living—let alone health care or transportation or childcare costs—would be a serious strain on anyone’s mental health and that it must feel hopeless at times.
Writing about being actually and truly poor leads me to want to be clear: my former husband is generous and supportive. He provides more than the minimum required to care for his children, and, because he believes my financial stability impacts the lives of our daughters, he supports me as well. It’s important to mention this because despite his generosity, I am living without enough money.
The other issue I feel compelled to mention at any time that I discuss living in “poverty” is that it’s nearly impossible to be open about how bad it is without feeling like I am, a) asking for someone to bail me out, or, b) making irresponsible and ridiculous choices that are putting me in this awful situation. Both “a” and “b” are not true.
Growing up, I thought we didn’t have much. My parents never showed what our financial status was in the same ways my peers’ families did. We didn’t have a housekeeper or housecleaners that kept things clean. We always had a many-years-old car (and, just one). My mother took us to (the horror!) second hand clothing stores. My friends had the hottest new clothes (Izod then Benetton, for example, at the time it started mattering to me), more than one car, and people came in to clean their homes.
Looking into the fridge now I always think, “What will our protein be for the next few days?” Protein and fresh vegetables are my top priorities for food. We’ve been without milk for several days because I haven’t had money for gas and I knew we could make do without milk for a little while so I didn’t want to “waste” the gas on a trip to the market.
On Friday, a friend and I were going to get together. I said Starbucks was my only option because I had money left on my Starbucks card. I said she’d have to pick me up (the car was on “E” and I had no cash at all and literally nothing available in the bank). She wasn’t into getting coffee, so she offered to pay my way. This is what it comes down to when finances are so tight: tell the truth (not enough money to go out) and friends offer to pay.
I get a sick feeling deep in my gut. I want to vomit or cry or lie and pretend I can do whatever I want. The option of telling the truth always leads to offers of paying my way. That isn’t what I want. That is what I don’t want. Lying, however, is worse.
Sometimes, I’ll take my friend up on the offer. I let my friend pay for our appetizers and drinks on Friday and I found loose singles in my desk and bedside table and purse so I chipped in $4 for the tip. I should have saved that $4 for gas.
How can I (a competent, intelligent, well-educated, talented woman) be in such a desperate situation? This is the question I assume people will ask, or, worse, I assume they will think it.
In an effort to help my friends who have no experience living in real poverty—several pages of thoughts about defining “real poverty” must be omitted here to stay focused—understand, let me explain.
There’s rent, childcare, phone, an Internet connection, food (I receive $380 in foodstamps each month which, of course, doesn’t cover all the food I need for me and my two daughters), car insurance, gas, some clothes (my daughter who is nine hasn’t grown a lot, thankfully), library fees (an example of where I hear voices protesting, “don’t be late and you won’t have the fee!”), postage, birthday gifts, electricity, coffee (a luxury I choose to continue to allow myself), sunblock, city-issued trash bags, prescription medications, bug spray, kitty litter, cat food, diapers, dishwasher and laundry soap, shampoo, tampons, highway tolls, business expenses (PO Box, paper, printer ink, web space), oil for the car, coolant for the car, washer fluid for the car, vacuum cleaner belts, Tylenol, parking, car inspection, car registration. This list is not exhaustive.
In addition to support from my former husband, I receive the foodstamps money, and I own my own business. I have only two active clients and sporadicly other clients with small jobs who, when I am busy and they pay quickly, make it possible for me to just make it each month.
This month, two checks I was expecting from my work didn’t arrive as quickly as I expected. There were a variety of other reasons for the temporary crisis, but, when the rent came due on the first, I found myself with around $700 in the bank (rent is $950). Thankfully, my landlord doesn’t deposit my check immediately (as of this writing, he still hasn’t) and I was able to deposit a check that came in so the rent check will clear. I have $957.12 in my personal bank account. Remember, rent is $950.
I have $57 left on my foodstamps card, so I’ll get milk and a few other items. I’ll be at my parents’ summer place where the garden is (finally!) exploding into usable food, so we’ll be able to eat well this week. My new foodstamps money comes in on the 10th.
I borrowed $50 from my former husband to get gas (so I can get up to be with my daughters at my parents’ summer place and get us back home again) and so I can get kitty litter. I was going to put off the kitty litter again, but on this last scooping it became clear we’ll all be happier if I just get some.
Last week was my birthday. I returned art supplies (that I probably shouldn’t’ve bought in the first place) so I could go out for brunch with my daughters. I got a gift card for my birthday so I bought back the supplies, but, it didn’t cover everything so I effectively paid for brunch plus some art supplies. Brunch and art supplies are two things that I can’t afford but I chose to spend money on anyway. I sometimes make mistakes like this. It’s very, very difficult to get into the proper mindset where I am fully connected with the reality that I simply can not afford these things.
Right now, there are two checks from grantwinners.net in my business account that should clear soon. Foodstamps comes in on the 10th. I was just told someone wants to buy one of my paintings. My daughters have clothing, childcare, good and healthy food, and are living happy and contented lives. I’m using the limits of not having acces to “just the right materials” as an artistic challenge again, where I’m painting based on what I have rather than on what I’d like to paint.
If my car doesn’t break down, if my temporary crown (the one that broke last week) holds a while longer (the tooth is shattered so the crown must stay put), if we have no unexpected emergencies, and if I get even more realistic about what I can’t do socially (gas and parking alone are expenses I need to cut back on) and artistically, we will be okay.
All of this was written because I needed to cancel plans to meet up with my old friend and I couldn’t find the words to explain why. I knew if I said “I can’t afford it” she would have said they’d pay. I knew we could’ve done something that “costed nothing” but parking costs and gas costs and it’s silly to think that we wouldn’t find ourselves wanting to stop “just for a cup of coffee” or something like that. I didn’t want anyone to pay my way. I try really hard to let people do that, but it’s one of the most horrible feelings in the world to me. It’s almost worse than the shame I feel when I realize I might not have money for food.
After the cop let me go, I drove just a bit until I came to a rest stop. I couldn’t keep driving because I was crying too hard. Most of the time, I know everything is going to be okay. Most of the time, I know that things are just as they are. I do my billable work. I find time for myself (painting and friends). I use most of my energy being with and caring for my daughters. I save wherever I can. I’ve learned pretty well the answer to the question, “Do I really need this?” is almost always “no.” I can’t let the knowledge of how close to the edge of financial devastation we are destroy my life today. I can’t pretend I can afford things, but I also need to live my life right now rather than in a frenzy of fear.
Writing about this, knowing I am about to hit “publish” and share the link with Facebook and friends has a loud chorus of voices demanding I explain how it could be so bad. Surely I’m doing something wrong, making bad choices. Surely there’s something I’m not doing that would make my situation more secure. Writing this and sharing it is my way of saying, “This is how it is. I won’t defend every bit of it against attacks. I’m not perfect, but I’m kicking a lot of ass and it’s pretty humiliating at times. I need to recognize that I am okay, my children are okay, and we are doing the best we can with the very little we have.” Thank all things holy, we have more than so many people when it comes to the intangibles. We have love and peace and joy in our lives and those things don’t cost us a single penny.
(We caught the moment when a caterpillar shed its skin for the last time, becoming a chrysalis:)