All About Poor

Traipsing through the blogosphere today I came across this post about being poor. Often people think that they are poor, yet have no clue what poor really is. I can remember a woman I knew over a decade ago that often bemoaned how poor they were, and to her what meant they were poor was that they could not afford to take a fancy vacation each year. Yet she only bought brand-name everything (from food to clothes to baby items). At that time, poor for us was getting the phone shut off and living off of the cheapest kind of mac and cheese.

This is the year that my husband and I have really, really felt the pinch of me staying home with the kids, and the expense of homeschooling. We always feel it, but I think this year has felt like the one with the fewest options. For the first time since we've had kids, we have serious conversations about me possibly getting a full time job. Of course, once you add in the need for decent work clothes, additional gas expense, and child care costs for a 2 year old, a half-day preschooler, and 2 kids that are homeschooled....well, it's hard to figure how it would all work out to be profitable. I can barely get done what I need to get done right now--how would it happen if I was gone for 40+ hours a week?

My husband is also looking for a second job, but those are hard to find when they have to work around his every-third-day shift at the fire dept. (sigh)

Some of you may be wondering what I'm fussing about since I just bought a new blog design. My general disclaimer on that is that it was only $25, I have wanted one for a long time, and I had some Supermom sales and decided to cheer myself up with this one little splurge. There haven't been many lately, I assure you. ("Poor is feeling like you have to justify yourself for every non-essential thing you do.")

There is a list (added to by commenters and myself) of things that poor people go through. I was going to highlight the ones I've experienced, but you know what? It's too hard.

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you're being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

Being poor is also getting three years out of your eye glasses instead of just two.

Being poor is stuffing kleenex in the toes of your cousin's cleats so you can run track, and choosing your school clothes from that same cousin's out-grown clothing AFTER her mother's garage sale ends.

Being poor is making one pair of shoes 'do' for both dress and casual.

Being poor is racking your brain for a way to make a meal for your children out of bread, chocolate sprinkles, and assorted spices.

Being poor is buying Christmas presents for your children with a $50 gift certificate from a friend.

Being poor is HAVING to breastfeed since you can't afford formula (yet you make too much money to qualify for WIC *rolling eyes*).

Being poor is "Thanksgiving dinner" made with some chicken breasts that happened to be on sale.

Being poor is just not even going to church because you don't have any decent clothes to wear.

Being poor is thinking you have made a decision to dig yourself out of the hole only to realize that you're in quicksand and are now in even more debt because of that decision.

Being poor is putting on another layer of clothing rather than turning the heat up a degree.

Being poor is watering down Kool-Aid to make it last longer.

Being poor is thinking long and hard about whether or not you can afford to attend church or anything else, because of the cost of gas.

Being poor is trying to figure out how long you can put off getting some clothes, when you only have 2 pair of pants that fit.

Being poor is keeping the kids so busy that you hope they forget that they missed lunch, and you just feed them an early dinner to make up for it.

Being poor is knowing that you cannot get one single thing that is not on your grocery list, and knowing that you have to use each thing you bought very carefully.

Being poor is feeling angry because the kids made a Christmas Wish List and you know there is no way you can get them any of it.

Being poor is knowing which of your bills you can get away with paying late, which have late fees, and which must be paid first. You know all the tricks to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Being poor is having a strategy for how you will survive if the electricity gets shut off.

Being poor is not being able to pay your kid's room fee or snack fee at school for 3 months because that's how tight the money is right now.

Being poor is knowing that if one little thing goes wrong, you will be up a creek without a paddle until payday.

Being poor is having no margin.