There's an outstanding diary up at the moment, The unbearable burden of being poor, by BoiseBlue, that really resonated with me.
Because I'm still trying to learn how to be poor. And doing a damn bad job of it.
You know that old saying, "if it weren't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all?" That's me.
On Jan. 1, 2008, I was in a pretty good place. I'm well educated (a master's degree). I had a job - as a journalist - that I loved, where I'd won national awards for some of my work. I was pretty well paid. I was (and still am, to be sure) happily married. I lived in the country and commuted by train to work, so I had the best of both rural and city life. We owned a house. Our debts were completely manageable, and neither of us were spendthrifts. I had a healthy balance in my 401(k).
The only clouds that had appeared were the loss of family members - my baby sister, very suddenly; my father-in-law, also very suddenly; and my father, after a long, lingering illness.
By Sept. 15, 2008, I'd lost both my mother and my aunt. We were in danger of losing our house to a transmission line project. And I'd been laid off. Nothing has ever been the same.
I won't go through all the gyrations we've endured trying to find some stability. But I can't find a full-time job. The collapse of anything resembling journalism as an industry has been a huge part of it; the fact that I'm almost 60 is another part. (Why hire an experienced, talented journalist for $60K when you can hire a J-school grad for $30K?)
My husband's entertainment career collapsed around January 2011. Now he's over 50 and can't get bookers to call him back.
I've applied for dozens of jobs. I've had a handful of interviews, with no luck. He's applied for even more jobs, most of them menial since he's been out of the "traditional" workforce since the early '90s. Also no luck.
When I lost my job in 2008, I immediately signed up for COBRA, even though it was wildly expensive. When it expired, we went without health insurance. We were both fortunate enough to not have a health crisis, but I saw first-hand the way the uninsured are fucked by the healthcare profession, just going for an office visit.
I rejoiced when Obamacare started last year - I signed us up immediately. As it turned out, just in time - I developed tendinitis in both ankles and couldn't walk at all, came down with my very first case of strep throat, then developed a blood clot in my groin and went to the hospital for a night. My husband started having problems with his kidneys, then his gall bladder; discovered he had both a cyst and kidney stones in the same kidney, and he's on prescription-strength Prilosec to help the gall bladder. But now we've got more than $7,000 in medical debt that we just can't pay.
In 2014, every crisis had major dollars attached to it - a well pump that blew up in January, a washing machine that died in February, the heat pump for our second floor crashed in July (and needed a new air exchange, because there aren't any heat pumps manufactured today that would work with the existing one), my health problems in July and August, the refrigerator that died in September, the car engine that blew its gasket in October. With the exception of the washing machine and the medical debt, every single one of those required a fix, cash on delivery or completion, of between $1,000 and $4,000. And less than two weeks ago, I totaled my beloved Saturn in the snow - the first disaster of the new year - so we're down to the car that we put a used engine in back in October.
Because of my husband's health problems, we've had to overhaul our dietary habits. I know that lots of fresh fruit and vegetables are good for us, but they're a whole lot more expensive than the mac-and-cheese we'd have when money is tight.
I've been working, sort of. Freelancing as a journalist and writer-for-hire. When I have work, it pays well (though many companies now are paying net 45, even though bills are still due every 30 days come hell or high water). But one publication I wrote for regularly kept cutting and cutting and cutting its budget for freelancers, and now has shut down altogether. Another has capped its budget at $1500/month for my contributions - why I say it pays well when I have it, but with a $1200 mortgage payment, you can see the shortfall.
I've had to hit the 401(k) pretty hard, sometimes just to cover the most basic of expenses, sometimes to deal with the unavoidable personal disaster costs. For which I incur a 10% penalty, on top of owing income taxes. So I make payments to the IRS every month, and will be paying off back taxes 'til I die (when my heirs will get the pleasure of trying to pay them off).
I'm in the process of refinancing my house, fortunately through my existing mortgage company. Should it go through - and my fingers have been crossed so long they're permanently cramped! - it'll save just about enough money to cover the increased premium for the health insurance. Great, so my one semi-steady job will cover two major bills. But not the electric bill, the phone/Internet (the only way I can get Internet), the cell phone, the propane for heat. Not the groceries. Not the gas for the one car. Not the car insurance, or the HOA road fee, or the credit card debts (which, of course, have been creeping inexorably higher, despite everything we do to avoid using them). And, of course, not the back taxes.
Because of how much I had to take out of the 401(k) to cover things like the well pump, the car engine, the heat pump, the refrigerator, I'm petrified that the Obamacare premium subsidy will be deemed to have been too generous, and I'll owe on that, too.
I get my hair cut once every 9 or 10 months, even though it looks like crap for the last four months I put it off. I've bought new clothes exactly once - for a job interview that I was very excited about (but of course didn't ace, since I never got an offer). Eating out is a fantasy. We go to a discount movie theater once every six months. (We do still have satellite TV, so when any of the premium channels run promotional weekends, we record as many movies as our DVR will hold.) Vacations are a thing of the past.
We have pets - our "children." Our lives would seem dreary indeed without their unconditional love. But they've had their own health issues, including our beloved pootie Lexy, who crossed the rainbow bridge after we spent almost $4,000 trying to save her from a surgery gone wrong.
We "make" far too much money to qualify for any kind of assistance. We've talked hundreds of hours about selling our house and moving, but any profit we make might clear us out of debt and leave us nowhere to live. Our credit ratings have been destroyed, so I'm not sure anyone would even rent to us (though our mortgage company knows, and has acknowledged, that we're not credit risks - through all of this we've managed to stay current on the mortage, my #1 priority).
We try, in a bizarre way, to take turns in the Slough of Despond. When my husband is down, I clamp down on my own depression and support him. When he's feeling better, I get my turn to wallow, just a little, in sadness and desperation.
I continue to hope that 2015 will be the turnaround year. I've got a new employer, still freelance but with signs of being both prolific and well-paid. In the spring, I'll hit the magic 59-1/2 year-old milestone, which means I can draw on the 401(k) without incurring the 10% penalty. (Though what we'll do when it's finally empty is beyond my imagination right now.)
If you've slogged your way through to this point, thank you. I've been thinking about writing this for a long time, but just couldn't face the idea of actually putting down in writing what we've been going through. (Believe it or not, these are just the lowlights - plenty of crises and disasters that didn't get mentioned. 2014 was just the worst of the worst.)
And if you've got some constructive suggestions, please share! While I feel I've tried everything, I know that can't actually be the case.