Poverty? Generosity? Are they so terribly different?

Today I have been dwelling on my Dad's American dream. and just on my Dad. The man that I miss immeasurably. My dad was a generous man. Money sort of just sifted through his fingers, whether he was helping others or financing something he thought he "needed." Or a biggie of late, something he felt would help him on the farm. But money management was never his strong suit. If he had it, he spent it. If he didn't have it, he would find a way to get it, so he also spent it. Well, this is a habit that is deeply ingrained in me. Sometimes the one I am being generous to is myself. Right out of my bill paying income. Ugh. This is a curse. But it was a gift from a man who I found to be extremely gifted and generous. And I do not think his generous spirit was or is in any way, shape or form, a curse. It was a gift. But sometimes it cost him more than financially savvy people would have spent (emotionally, physically or fiscally). So my head really knows that I would be better off if I could learn a more responsible management of money. But money, in my book, is a means. And therefore has no value in and of itself. So it doesn't stay. Ever. It just sifts through my fingers like sand. But what I never knew until about five years ago, when I started really listening to my friend and pOVERty expert, Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz, is that this is a fairly common trait among those of us in poverty. Because we live with a poverty mindset. "Spend it before it's gone." Or... "we will be without again soon enough, enjoy it while it lasts." So you can see how this works against the very idea of getting out of poverty. Because when you spend it before it is gone, it is gone sooner than if you would have waited. And then the cycle of living without is perpetuated. But let me say this, myself, and people like me, we stimulated the economy with out stimulus checks. People in poverty know how to spend money! We ain't puttin' that away for if we need it! We need it! And we need it now. So in recapping: people like myself, who have lived any length of time below certain income levels (or who have been raised with this certain train of thought about money), we are the spenders, the givers, the crazy-generous people. We give gifts, we buy dinners, we have too many pets and we have toys that our kids don't play with (like the trampoline in my backyard). We are also the behinders. Behind on the gas bill, behind on the rent, behind on payment plans, behind our more progressive neighbors who have nicer lawns, more curb appeal, more middle-class-looking homesteads. And we are, at some point, the desperate. Desperate for a loan, a few bucks, for help getting out of the muck of our financial destitution. And truly: need breeds scarcity. Which perpetuates the ole cycle. Because now that I am in desperate times, I can feel the pressure building as I don't have the cash-flow or the freedom to be generous, to spend lavishly, to reward myself for being a relatively good human. And *BOOM*! Money comes in and I explode all my best laid plans in order to fill the need to give, to get, to spend. And just like that. It's gone again. And begins the cycle again.

So what I want you to know is this....

We (I) can change this. But it is not a simple choice. It IS a choice. But there is nothing simple or easy about it. It isn't likely that one day I'll wake up and say, "today is the day I am financially responsible" and it magically happens. One way I know how difficult this is, is because I say this to myself about once a month and I get really serious about it at least twice a year. So far, it's a no-go. I know that in order to change my chemical dependency and SO (significant other) dependency, I had to get really, really, REALLY miserable. I think this is the same. But so far, I can only be "good" and refrain from my spending habits for about so long and then I just say "chuck it" (and if you believe that is my phrasing, you should probably read yesterday's post which held a different level of transparency and honesty and will bring you up to speed) and I reward myself for being so good for so long. All my hard work is just chucked.

Why tell you all this? Well, because it is part of my story for one. And it is part of something bigger, some part of the whole class/hidden-rules/poverty/trauma cycle. I will connect more dots tomorrow. Today just know, that I appreciate you all for your love and generosity, and I will happily give you gifts of money or time or both or either.  When I have those commodities, they are for sharing. Can I get an Amen?

When you save the world, maybe you could start closer to home....

I like to browse facebook in the mornings and read blogs about teaching. But lately, a lot of what I am finding seems to me to be about piety and tooting ones own horn. There is a certain allure of heroism to teaching. But lately a lot of times I read what people are tooting about and I think.... rich kid problems. I have long been aware that I don't fit in with my peers. And there are a number of reasons for this. One of them is my lack of finances. And a lack of knowledge to change the way I spend money. Don't get me wrong. I've heard people talk and I have seen the books, some of which I have on my shelf. But what I know is that to build credibility with me, you really have to do more than blow smoke. And you probably aren't going to be some author making money off the backs of us poor folk telling us how to gain financial freedom. It really just makes me want to flip you off and say.... "take that!" What I mean when I say that I lack knowledge is that my parents are horrible at money management. And when I was a kid, they were constantly getting bailed out by their parents. A pattern I still hold to today. Ha. I have not had to do this for a while, but yeah, working for $12/hour, paying bills and buying groceries for a kid with food allergies.... I just couldn't make it work. So don't chastise me for not having enough money in savings to pay (what is the proper amount?) six months of bills in case of emergency. Ha. Every month is an emergency. Truth. Have circumstances improved? Most definitely. Do my children have clothes to wear? Yes. But even last year, I accepted (asked for) help clothing my elementary age kid. My parents were happy to oblige. Yay. But you know, they won't be around forever and I live in fear that I'll never get it together and I'll be stuck out here in the real world, not able to cope. "It's easy" you say. "Just do it" you say. Sounds simple enough. And I am pretty good at spotting faulty financial reasoning when it comes to other people, but for myself, well, IF I spot it, it is generally in hindsight. The other thing is that I can at times adhere to a rigid financial budget. But after awhile, I am going to go off the rails. For real. A few years ago, I blogged in a totally different blog in a different bloggyland hemisphere about just wanting to get to the place where I can take my kids out for an ice cream if I want to! I still can't really afford that, but sometimes we just do it. I also know the tricks.... Sonic has 1/2 price milkshakes at night, Braum's soft-serve yogurt cone/cup (gotta skip the cone for the allergic one) is less than $2, happy hour drinks at Sonic, and fountain drinks at the grocery store (about half as much as at the convenience store). Just to name a few. But I also know this.... a trip to DQ for ice cream will cost as much as eating a meal out and could buy groceries for several days unless I am a really careless shopper, and sometimes I am, but most of the time I am a penny-pinching grocery guru, able to squeeze more out of less, and creative in my use of meats which means fewer meats on the grocery list. Three years ago as a first year teacher, I made a scant $1000 a year less than I did last year and yet.... if we still ate the same as we did that year, with meat in the menu, we'd be paying 2 or3 times as much for groceries. And you thought meatless Monday was all about your health. The truth is that we eat hotdogs, mac-n-cheese and convenience foods because we can afford them. We can afford potato chips and hotdogs. We can't afford organic beef and/or organic fruits and vegetables. But as a general rule, I can afford a bag of pinto beans for meatless Monday. Also, grocery shopping wears me out. So after a grueling experience with figuring costs and endless mental chatter ("do we really NEED this? maybe I should put it back? Well, I have to put something back.... not the medicines, we need those. I guess it will be the bag of fresh fruit." *sigh*), and putting things back on the shelf and exceeding the budget and telling the clerk that I changed my mind, I didn't really need THIS item after all, well, I don't have the mental energy to figure out where I could have cut costs and how I could shop at the OTHER grocery store, the one that actually carries the good organic foods. I truly believe in my heart that if we ate more whole foods and less garbage (hotdogs, chips, chicken nuggets, etc.) that we'd all feel better and we'd overcome a fair amount of health issues. But I am exhausted after I leave the super center and they really don't carry the good stuff. They have made it easier to shop for the allergic one, but organics, not-so-much. So if I mentally survive this shopping experience, and trust me, it is almost always an experience, I have nothing left for healthful options from other stores. If I didn't already buy it, we don't need it. That's my motto by the time I leave the store.
So while you are posting on your social media about saving the world while looking down on me for not fitting into whatever mold you've tried to cram me and my family into, we are over here, on the other side of the tracks, trying to survive. And don't get all high-and-mighty about how shocked you are that a teacher in your district qualifies for food stamps. Teachers don't get paid all that much. Believe me, it's more than I've ever made before, but it still is not that much. And we lost our benefits because I couldn't produce a pay stub for my unemployed 18 year old. That's right. We lost benefits because she has no income and they asked for proof of her income. Seriously? The system is jacked up and don't even get me started on the new withdrawal restrictions designed to stop abuse of people withdrawing cash benefits. Yes, unfortunately, I live in Brownbackistan. I did vote and it wasn't for him. But someone did and I personally don't want to hear about how you are going to go out and change the world. It looks to me like you already did, just by your vote. And yet, you can't see the need right here. You cannot see that beneath your pious nose is a world that you pretend doesn't exist except to name-call and wonder why I can't take better care of my children, because it looks so easy from your two parent family home in white suburbia. Thank you for teaching us system-abusers a lesson.