David and I revised our household budget last week.
Which was really helpful. It’s good to face these things head on. I’ll tell you why.
1) If we hadn’t worked out the new budget, we would have gone on being complete wastrels, burning zero dollars on cheap entertainment. Now we need to make our own entertainment, as we realize we have zero dollars to spend on entertainment.
2) No longer can we spend zero dollars on home improvements. We know now that we need to buckle down and spend zero dollars on home improvements.
3) We have to face facts and save for a rainy future. We have to save more than zero dollars each month. So we’ve decided to save zero times zero dollars each month, because our budget helped us realize that we can afford to. In fact, we can’t afford NOT to. This is our future we’re talking about.
Excuse me while I pry my tongue out of my cheek. My cheek doesn’t want to give it up because my tongue is a meat product that would cost good money at Stop ‘n’ Shop.
Budgets are another luxury item we can’t afford.
The other night, as David and I cleaned up the kitchen post-dinner, we were bemoaning our pitiful economic situation (although we work! respectable jobs! explain this!). This is our ongoing form of subtle tantric foreplay.
“We just have to be more careful,” he said, shaking his head. “We can’t eat turkey bacon like this every night.”
I emitted a sound new to myself, something like a cross between a guffaw and a snort and a pppffffttt, as I unloaded the broken dishwasher flatware holder.
“What?” he said.
“You just said, ‘We can’t eat turkey bacon like this every night.’”
He shrugged. “So?”
“As if feeding our daughters wilted lettuce and a pack of cheap turkey bacon is a splurge. Expired Jennie-O turkey bacon and lettuce from a bag. That’s funny. That’s funny stuff.”
He smiled sadly and painfully, then went back to scrubbing pots and pans. “Vegetables are expensive too. Fresh ones.”
I felt sorry for him then, this kind, good man who lives to teach papier-mache mask-making and direct wonderful plays and paint faraway landscapes in places he has never seen and cannot afford to visit. It was a dumb move on both of our parts, two debt-ridden artists with gloomy financial forecasts marrying each other. We need to keep telling ourselves that we are Special and our love was Meant to Be and no orthopedic surgeon or corporate attorney could satisfy either of our Burning Bohemian Souls. We need to repeat these things to each other frequently or we would go postal in the turkey bacon aisle. It is a dangerous union.
Because—just perhaps—a nice wealthy yet soulful and fulfilled orthopedic surgeon might have hit the spot nicely for each of us (in his case, a nice Canadian one, so he wouldn’t have had to spend additional beaucoup de bucks on green-card lawyers’ fees to marry this crazy neurotic American girl who drew a lot of naked ladies and spent a lot of money on headshots that only got her auditions for Law and Order extra parts, i.e. Juror #5 With a Bad Cold).
But we must never allow ourselves to come to this realization. We must cling like the no-name brand plastic wrap we buy only during the holidays. We must cleave to each other like cheap generic mac-and-cheese—once mixed, forever mixed. We must not indulge in daydreams of whipping up working budgets with no zeros, while reclined beside a crackling fire in a Vail lodge. A third home. Or a fourth. At least.
It is what it is, this humble, money-free union of ours. We will always have Sarah Lawrence (and the student debt incurred at Sarah Lawrence, that is clear). We will always have the shared, sacred shame of being turned away from a bank in New York City because our savings (of which we were so proud) were not enough to meet the minimum savings required to open an account. We will always have the bonding that comes when two people in love sit down time and time again to discuss the best way to word formal requests for economic assistance.
There is much to be said for this sort of closeness, of course. Instead of home improvements and ski trips and European cruises and 401k plans, we will speak of Commedia dell’Arte and Ibsen and burnt umber pigment and PS 122 and our hilariously failed theatrical ventures and our successful ones and of leather masks pulled from wood carvings. This is the language of our marriage. We will go on speaking at bedtime of lazzis and Scaramouche’s similarities to Groucho Marx, and the second zanni’s uncanny resemblance to all the roles played by John C. Reilly. We will speak of Viewpoints and Stanislavski in total animated earnestness, long after we shut off the light. When we are not trying to build a savings account that does not wish to be built, we will write. We will paint. We will sketch our present and hope the art supplies we need to create a future will come in soon enough. We will cringe as our girls start asking why mildewed tiles and bits of wet rotting wood fall on their heads only in our bathtub, and not in the homes of other people we visit. We will speak no more of turkey bacon.
What language do you speak as you unload the broken dishwasher, or wave goodbye through the busted screen door? What language do you speak in front of that crackling fire, in your vacation home? What language do you wish you could add to your repertoire? Which would you like to be less fluent in?
As usual, it is Thursday, and I am full of questions.
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I am you. But with a “good” job.
I sold my artistic soul to pay off the credit card debt I amassed as an “actor” and to build a 401K for us while my husband goes to school.
I wish I was less fluent in corporate “speak” and could remember more about my Masters program in Shakespeare. I wish I couldn’t tell you the guidelines for the Family Medical Leave Act, but could remember more than just the second Shakespearean sonnet and a monologue from Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Financial solvency has its merit. We don’t do home improvements or buy clothes or eat out or even eat much meat, but I have a teeny but growing 401K and the credit card statement is finally out of the 5 figure range. But with every hour I spend at my computer terminal, my body softens. My mind softens. I definitely feel trapped, and a little dead, and lot old.
For the artistic soul, it would seem, there is no answer.
We summer at the lake. Our second home is a Coleman tent, perched in the finest of Provincial (like State run) campgrounds for at least three days a year.
…and if that doesn’t make you jealous, you should see our second vehicle. It has two wheels AND a basket!
Two liberal arts kiddos over here and we speak the language of “One day…”
I am not an accomplished writer and never worked in that museum. My husband is a psychologist – not a psychiatrist … which means he doesn’t make enough to pay back all the student loans required to get him above the poverty level income.
I started and sold a couple of businesses and that money + my husband selling himself to Uncle Sam for 4 years = debt freedom.
So, we bought a 1230 sq. ft. home and finally breathe. Y’know, as long as we don’t buy turkey bacon and convince the kiddos that a night on the town is a packed dinner at the local highschool football game.
We’ve been doing home projects with my side money. We don’t have a savings account – but we are working at it.
HOWEVER … when I sit across the hand-me-down couch from him and he rubs my feet and we whisper sweet nothings about toenails needing to be clipped and DANG HOW DID YOUR HEELS BECOME LIKE CONCRETE! I know it is love.
I don’t really know what language I speak. I have to suppress whatever artistic inclinations I have since the corporate environment is neither conducive to nor accepting of them. Would that I could unleash at home, then, but it’s after 10 PM most nights by the time the boys are in bed and the dishes are put away and the pots are scrubbed.
I’ve been looking forward to June 2007 for the past five years since that means my truck will be paid off and I can finally start to apply that extra little bit of money to the five-figure line of credit. I don’t think about the mortgage.
It’s a rare balance that allows someone to do what they absolutely love and LIVE while doing it. Most of us seem either stuck or resigned to walk on the muddy banks of the river – either side – and gaze dolefully at the happy boaters enjoying the water, or sometimes over at the those “other” plodders on the far side, wondering if it’s any better over there.
I’ve never had turkey bacon.
Lovely, bittersweet article. Lovely replies.
Ahh yes, financial solvency. We chose to start not one, but TWO home businesses, so we have the ever-fun $ roller coaster (“I’ve got…A CHECK! YESSS”…”Ummm, I’ll be needing that check…plus $300 bucks.” or else: “Oohhh! We can go to dinner somewhere with actual napkins…if we don’t get drinks”)
Our budget: Thus far does not include any dough for doing the yard that is absolutely terrible. Or the re-plastering the bathroom, which I foolishly thought I could start by using an organic paint stripper and now appears to be…leprous.
Also does not include purchasing a washer/dryer, which means I will be hang-drying my laundry and hoping for sun and no wind to blow pollen all over my newly clean clothes.
Our budget? Has not included vacations for…oh….four years. Will likely never include money to have/raise kids. Yet I’m happy – because I don’t have to work at an office. Yesss!
I speak the language of an art-school drop-out who found Jesus when she ran out of money. Then she found a foreigner and married him b/c he knew how to balance the checkbook, and his accent was charming. The checks have now all been handed over to the INS (the only language they understand) in exchange for a greencard and the accent is now only charming to OTHER women. We still have Jesus though and in having been faithful to learn His language, He has kept the lights and heat on for us.
We are working hard to pay off debt and prepare as much as possible, financially and otherwise, for our impending parenthood. Our careers, which may eventually prove lucrative, are nowhere near it yet.
Our language these days has included the repeated phrase “I’m sorry,” spoken by my husband because he has had three doctor’s visits in three days, not to mention prescription needs, with regard to some kind of painful infection.
He apologizes for hurting, for needing medical attention, taking time off work, because we need to be saving more money, paying off debt, and those I’m sorrys break my heart.
I respond in a language that comforts me, which I hope calms him: “It’s only money.”
We could be doing a lot worse for ourselves. We own our condo, we can afford our mortgage every month and all utilities, even pay extra to debt, have a small and useful savings account, it’s not that bad. But we all worry.
I hope that your zeros turn into positive integers soon. Yours and everyone else’s.
Why just tell tales of PS122?
Two comps at the door to show of your choice – just send me a mail.
Vallejo
we, too, have no savings account (i’m always embarrased when i go to the bank and know that the teller is looking at my balances!)and only dream of 401K’s some day. i’m sure we’ll never retire. our mortgage won’t be paid off until we’re in our 70′s! i have one daughter in college, didn’t qualify for any financial aid, so i’ve had to take a part time job on the weekends (already work full time m-f) to pay 1/2 the tuition. (my ex pays the other half – court order…)
once she’s done, by teenage boy will be next. then i have a break until my 6 year old gets there. i’m actively trying to impress up on my teenager that plumbers don’t require college and most of them are richer than college grads. just hoping he’ll spar me the cost of his tuition. mean, i know, but i’m like that.
in the meantime, i have hubby who LOVES to grocery shop and prepare for the bird flu pandemic by stockpiling random things in our basement. i told him that if he buys one more can of tuna, bo of carnation instant breakfast or can of green beans while i can’t afford to get a new pair of jeans, i’m going to have to do something painful to him in his sleep.
So we’ve decided to save zero times zero dollars each month.
laughing through the tears as only you make me do.
the hubs and i dream of doing things like finishing the basement and buying some border trees and putting in built-in shelves for all of our books.
but then we look at each other and sigh, “first, the debt.”
must get to zero before one can spend. i learned that in econ 101.
oh, and we have an embarrassing tale to tell about being denied credit at a national jewelry store when we were trying to buy the plainest, cheapest gold wedding bands possible.
humiliating, it was.
My partner has a job that she loves and I have a job that keeps me from lying on the couch all day eating peanut butter cups and watching daytime TV. Our jobs pay well and I generally feel that we have enough. Yet, we wash the dishes in our ancient sink, we often talk about money and our belief that life would be easier if we just had a bit more.
I’m sure Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie don’t have conversations near as sweet as you and your hubby have.
It’s still true that you can’t take anything with you when you go, so if you are enjoying the relationships you have, even if that time is spent on peeling linoleum floors, eating take-out chinese food, watching one of the three free channels you have on your 13 inch television while your kids crawl around you laughing, I’d say you’ve got it pretty good!
As for me and mine, things are looking up right now, so we are going to try to be good stewards and stretch it out as long as we can. Our fondest memories, though, will always be of the times before our ship came in. I shouldn’t say “ship.” It was more like a large dinghy.
I’m a teller.
We don’t look at your balances. We don’t think badly of you because of the number that pops up on our screen. We like nice people and we don’t care how much money they have. We deal with buttheads with huge balances every day and much prefer the regular customer who’s overdrawn consistently to Ritchie Rich.
We know you’re real people with lives and more than likely we’re doing the same thing you are.
I think we put so much pressure on ourselves and our families because we have this ideal of what having a successful family is all about. Just getting by is okay. Being in debt isn’t a scarlet letter. Let bill collectors call, your being behind gives them job security. It’s not like there’s a Valedictorian of credit worthiness. Nobody is waiting at the end of your life to give out extra gold stars if you paid everything on time and in full.
Life comes at you fast and you have to do what you have to do regardless of the financial impact on your future. If you have to ask for help the worst that can be said is “no” and then you’re no worse off than before. Regardless of your worst fears and the worrying that keeps you up at night the truth is…they can’t eat you. Some things may have to be given up during hard times but they can’t really take away what matters.
In the end it’s true….you can’t go down the drain.
Just this past weekend my mother told me that when I was 5 or 6 years old I took a standardized test and ended up being in the 97th percentile. I would’ve done better, except that I didn’t know the difference between a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a quarter. I guess this proves that everything you need to know about a person, you can figure out in kindergarten! I’m still looking forward to the day when I don’t consider paper towels a luxury item. (But, to be honest, there are more frivolous things that make it into my budget. Priorities, you know.)
On the plus side, the math sure is easy when you’re dealing with all zeroes. But I’m hoping there’s lots of turkey bacon in your future!
Could be worse. That language you speak to each other could be Klingon.
Talk about only money. We relocated to another state last November for hubby’s job. He did not trust his gut, and we came despite the “no, don’t” his gut kept telling him. Now it’s April and guess what – we are relocating BACK to our old house, which, thanks to the down real estate market, did not sell. BUT, we have to sell the one we shouldn’t have bought here – the one that was bigger, but would have been with a smaller mortgage had we rolled the proceeds of the first house into it. Except that we fully financed it, there are no proceeds, and we will have to bring cash to the table to unload it.
BUT: It’s only a house. And it’s only money. We are lucky to have funds liquid enough to make it happen. They will take a severe hit that will take us years to recoup. But we don’t have to dip into retirement savings. We return to the most wonderful neighbors in the world (what made us think leaving was a good idea??), a fantastic school, proximity to a world-class city (we are in a small town in a mostly rural area now), and, most importantly, husband, kids and I will be HAPPY. And you just can’t put a price tag on that.
Poor Bossy and Her Poor Husband speak the language of Jersey Peaches — which have sweet beginnings but develop age spots and eventually end up down the drain. Oh how Bossy loves you, Breed ‘Em!
By the way, why turkey-bacon? Why not regular cheapo-schmeapo? If you’re trying to be healthy, all bacon has nitrates. Even the turkey kind. Bacon without nitrates, I hear, is awful. So there’s one thing you can afford again!
Unless it’s the whole pork thing. If so, I can’t help you there. I’m a pork lover through and through.
Hmmmmm….see, this is a really interesting post. Once again, the thinkingness happens. Because I feel guilty, but I suppose that is my own choice. I am barely literate, my writing definitely smacks of ESL, but I happen to have a rare talent that gets us by quite well. And here I come to BEAW very often, and Jenn gives, (gives !) these stories and gems and thought provoking essays. So whereas I contribute very little to society yet have relatively few worries, but Jenn gives freely and must needs consider turkey bacon a luxury, the dilemma is clear. What is my part in this? Should I subscribe? Should I hit the button more often? I have been below the poverty line and I know full well about the moldy bathroom, oh yes, how that part resonates with me. But I come from a very proud people. We could have had it so much easier if we had asked for help. I was as sheltered as my parents could have done, but I felt it, the sting of the poverty. I remember stealing a tin of smoked oysters, even though I knew full well it was wrong, but I was so resentful that I Had Not. And I so desperately wanted to Have. Yet my pride would have made me interpret any help as pity. And you know, I understand that it would have been wrongly so interpreted, but I didn’t know that then. So what do I do about this? Do I try to blunt the effects, or…or what? Because I truly do not know the answer.
I guess I don’t have room to talk now…being one of the very, very, VERY few geography majors in the world to actually get a job that allows me to save money. But there was a time…
I had to support myself on a paycheck that wouldn’t even cover my electric bill now. I lived in a wooden trailer with mice which was ok because the maintainance man told me that at least ment I didn’t have snakes…yet. I ate K-Mart brand macaroni and cheese 4 times a week until my insides glowed that bright orange color at night. And I loved it because it was the most wonderful job I ever had in my life. I worked at a place where I really and truly felt peace. It was my sanctuary.
And I traded it all for a good paying job. I know I did the right thing. I know that I can take care of myself now and I don’t have to worry about paying rent or eating crappy no-name boxed food. I like my job and I like feeling secure. And if I had to do it again I would make the same choice. But sometimes…I go to work and I sit in my cubicle and I think my soul hurts.
I often kick myself, especially while paying off huge college loans to a defunct school for a useless education, for not longing to be something concrete – like a teacher or a doctor. But no, I followed my penniless bliss.
Even when I am feeling blue I still prefer bliss.
Anyone else remember “The Walton’s Homecoming” T.V. special from the 70′s? It may sound hoaky, but one scene has always resonated with me. It is about a large family living in the mountains of Virginia during the Depression. The father is trying to get home for Christmas during a storm. He finally makes it home during the wee hours of Christmas morning with packages for all in hand. They all celebrate his safe homecoming. The mother turns to him and asks if he spent all of his paycheck. He responds affirmatively. She turns to him and asks,” But John, what will we survive on in the coming weeks?” He states, staring into her eyes, ” Love, woman. Love.” … Yup, love may not fill the bellies or pay the bills, but it sure does nourish the soul!
pamelotta – Applegate Farms makes a nitrate free bacon that is actually edible (but not cheap…which is why we usually just eat the nitrates and cross our fingers)
oh, the bacon weeks are the best! nitrites and all
as applegate farms are in the can’t afford aisle. sigh. right with you, as a corporate deserter-turned-coach married to an artist … we speak the someday language, at least on the good days. variable incomes, no budget (that forlorn piece of paper buried in a notebook and never looked at again) and two kids. we bit off more than we could chew in terms of nyc rent, sublet our front room to help pay the bills, and had to file the dreaded ch7 to survive last year so we’re branded as losers for the next 10. it IS just money, and if we made different choices it would be easier, but we won’t because it’s not worth it. i can’t be a corporate slave anymore, my heart withered when i tried it again a couple of years ago. i’d rather see my husband covered in paint and happy than miserable from a 9-5 job. except on the bad days when the blame hangs heavy in the air and we seem to bump into it at every turn. but ‘someday’ has a sweet ring to it, and it just might be …
Life is just too short not to enjoy turkey bacon.
The whole kosher thing … that is why they are eating turkey bacon. David still wants to keep kosher, even when it may be only kosher lite. Now he has me much more mindful and I buy turkey kielbasa (sausage) as well.
EVERYBODY, please go over to the new Blogger Award site and make Jenn a Hottie! She is also in a couple other categories too. You can vote for her in each category. Some interesting new blogs to check out also.
Go, do your BEAW duty. Be good little campers and help my daughter get on Oprah. Maybe then she can buy real food.
Shameless, I know.
He is not really trying to be kosher, he’s just awfully grossed out by ham.
Um, I made up the part about Oprah, Ma.
P.S. Mom, I’m totally nominating you as Hottest Mommy Blogger.
My husband is a full-time doctoral candidate in music education and I am a struggling freelance writer.
We speak your language.
TOTALLY can relate. My husband is a Probation Officer & I stay at home with the wee ones.
Not settin’ the world on fire here.
I’ll tell you though, you get crafty and resourceful…that’s for sure.
1. Honey, you live in New England. It will eat you alive. We finally had to crawl away, beaten. We’re still poor, but no longer destitute in that charming, shivering, Dickensian, anonymous-church-people-leaving-turkey-bacon-on-your-doorstep kind of way. Move South. No, not the Cape. Think warm. Think less than nine months of winter. It’s cheaper here, honest. Sure, you’ll miss the little things–people who speak in sentences, for instance–but after 15 years away, I can promise: You get used to it. Sort of.
2. You have the best commenters. In fact, today’s column, in conjunction with its downright poetic comments, would seed an interesting book. I’m sure you noticed. The Mater certainly did. Any agents out there paying attention? Meanwhile, I have definitely voted for you on Blogger Awards.
3. The Mater and I may well be Kindred Spirits. I love your mom.
4. There’s an up side to raising kids in relative poverty: They don’t have a chance of growing up spoiled, and they learn to be extremely resourceful, creative, and to work with whatever they have. They’re also pretty good with money when they grow up, should they manage to have any.
5. Now, put another zero in that savings account–you’ve earned it–and hold your head high. It may not have much of a bottom line, but it’s a noble life. Go for it!
oh my god, spot’s post made me choke on my coffee. that was hilarious.
jenn!!! oh, debt is brutal and money woes bite. i do hope you guys get breathe easier at some point. joan didion is loaded and has an incredible career–she wrote Year of Magical Thinking? I actually don’t like her writing, but I do have tremendous sympathy for this rich broad. She lost both her husband and daughter in one year. When NPR interviewed her about if she ever thought about her own mortality, she said no, b/c that concern is usually about those you leave behind and she had no one left, and then she had to take a break b/c she was becoming overclempt. People hurt everywhere, and I’m not saying can’t have both love AND money, but money without love is very cold. At least you have the warm part, for sure for sure.
I speak your language as well. For 12 years I’ve chosen to stay home with my children while my degree that came with a five figure debt langishes. I have guilt for that. not for staying home but for frivolously aquiring a degree when I had no intention of getting a job. I could have been working so my husband’s degree didnt’ also come with a five figure debt.
We’ve struggled to keep our heads above water our whole marriage. Some times we do better than others. Like how my husband recently got a huge raise and a promotion and then celebrated it by getting into a car accident and wrecking our one good car. We chose to go into debt for two more. It wasn’t a good choice. But my van is pretty now.
I feel your pain. I thought we had “good jobs” But it seems like endless student loans and life requires money and more of it than we have.
I hate a budget, I do one EVERY month and it only depresses me. We sold our house, paid off most of our bills and have been living with the in-laws so we can save up for a cheaper house. I currently work 2 jobs to help speed up the process! But it seems like a long time away before we get to the Comfortable savings…or our “What if fund” as I call it. Every little bit helps!
Struggling freelance writer here too. Husband is a beginning therapist/grant writer. Things are easier now than they’ve been –we can pay our bills except for that deferred and deferred and deferred student loan my husband took out to get that social work degree he’s not using. But vacations? New clothes?No–and the rest of my family and some of my friends are all name-brand clothes for the kids and $70 Halloween costumes and rafts of brand-new toys. I just hope someday Maggie understands we could have given her more material things, at the expense of time with her. I do sometimes wonder why I couldn’t have just fallen in love with a rich guy, but I was always too independent to be That Girl who let someone else pay her bills anyway.
We speak your language. Our budget is like yours – even with V working as a teacher and me as a bookkeeper. Things at home are a bit run down and could use some work, but most of the time I’m happy where we are. Yes, we squeak by each month, but we have fun at home and find cheap (read: free) things to do. One day our savings might have a number other than zero in it and we might get to take a fun trip somewhere.
We have no budget because everytime we try to make up one we end up with your results, zero for evrything but basic needs, yay! Recently we found a lovely place to rent and we have given up talk of buying a home (which is pretty much an impossible feat where we live with our income). I think this is the happiest I have been in the last year. I work at a thrift store two days a week and my husband does contract work that is not always full time. I am happy that we have all this time together while Jack’s young. There is something to be said for just saying, “Okay, this is what I have right now and I am going to love it as much as my little self can because, hey that’s what I gotta to do.” We had a lot of (and still do) pressure to buy a place, but when someone mentions it know we just say that we love where we are at right now and that is that.
I also like that my kid is excited to get a bag of popcorn downtown or a balloon animal hat from the strange homeless guy for a couple quarters. Being poor creates kids with character!
waiiiitttttttt-uh — what’s the link for the blogger award site?!
Recently I asked my husband when OUR ship was going to come in. He told me it had, it just had children on it instead of money. Thats why I’ll love him all the way to the poorhouse. I guess we’re all rich in that Its A Wonderful Life way. It would just me nice for a day to enjoy the luxury of worrying if we are spoiling the children.
/end pity party
You should be so proud of yourself for making that commitment to savings. My parents always told me “pay yourself first” – do it at the beginning of the month and you wont’ miss it.
Of course you miss it. But still, it sounds good.
At least your language includes some words, even if it is a “pppffffttt.” Our dishwasher loading language involves slamming plastic toddlerware into the slots, shoving leftovers into the fridge, and deja vu conversations that go like this:
ME: We need to go to the store tonight for more milk (or substitute eggs, bread, yogurt, cheese, etc.) because we won’t have any to give the girls tomorrow if we don’t. Can we afford it?
HIM: Can it wait until I get paid next week?
ME: (Sob)
To think, we sold a car and paid off our other one and we are still somewhere between a rock and hole. Nobody ever said life was going to be such a hard place. Still, each morning, I gotta thank my lucky stars about the two little beings in the next room smiling their faces off making me feel richer than anyone who lands on ACCESS TV.
Every day I wonder, when will we get above water? Both my husband and I are now “professionals” (me – sometimes a professional lunatic) but we still struggle financially. We live in a very modest house, drive cars from the mid-90′s, and don’t have cable and high-speed internet. Ours savings account has not had a deposit in years. Why? Two words: student loans. My student loan is just from grad school and you could buy two and 1/2 of my houses with it. Plus, my husband has his student loan. And then there are the surprise! expenses that rear their ugly head. I feel like I don’t know anyone anymore who doesn’t struggle with money. I remember growing up comfortably in a nice house in a small town in New England with no worries. My parents never carried debt, besides the mortgage that they paid off in two seconds. Meanwhile, we live in a crappy little house that has mildew on the walls in the bathroom, peeling paint, and a sunroom that could fall down any minute (or so it seems). I think our generation expects to own more material goods and shiny objects. I know that is what slammed me in my twenties. I always had pretty much what I wanted and when I entered the real world, I tried to keep up with that lifestyle. The result? No savings, no cushion, nada. It is definitely a lesson learned that now every time I want to click the purchase button on the internet, I think realize a new sweater will get me no where financially.
You are an amazing writer. You draw folks in and keep them coming back. That sounds weird but whatever. As others have said, hopefully a literary agent or publisher will come across your blog and realize how lucky they are that they found this hidden talent.
My parents speak that same language, I’m not sure what it’s called but it’s the closest thing I’ve heard to Love.
My dad’s a retired teacher, he could’ve gone on to do engineering or something in the business world – something more lucrative, but no. He decided to stick with educating other people’s kids. Who have in turn, over the 30 years he’s taught, become parents to other kids. My mum, she stayed at home, calls herself “just a housewife” (which irks me to death) but my dad says she attended the “School of Life”.
They still do the dishes together, he used to get to spend school hols with us, they’ve spent most of their savings on their kids’ education, my dad likes to save and hold tight to whatever $$ he has left (rainy day kinda guy), my mum is a quality kind of woman (but will you live to see the rainy day kinda gal) who’s had to compromise quite a bit. Sometimes, when I pummeled them with questions about money (or lack thereof) my mum would tell me, “Shh…let’s stop talking about money…that’s not a happy subject and it doesn’t make Daddy feel good.”
Growing up, we never had the bestest car on the market, nor the latest gadgets nor the branded must-have items. My siblings and I wore hand-me-downs from our cousins, pocket money was always earned, not given… but if anything at all, my parents have taught by example and given us some of the best survival skills ever. Today, I know how to recognise and appreciate luxury, yet at the same time, I know I’ll be able to live without them and be happy. The language that my parents spoke during my formative years, for me, translated into words that encouraged ingenuity, creativity, and a myriad ways to look at the flipside of things.
For all their toils and troubles, after twenty five years and still very little saved for their (hopefully) long future and old age ahead, my parents still keep the faith. They trust the fates, and the strength of the love between them is still strong. I can feel it.
Just last night, my dad joked that my mum was going to blow her EPF (the equivalent of Social Security?) that she was eligible to withdraw completely at the age of 55 within 5 years. My mum told him “Na-uh, I’m not going to spend a penny of it, we’re going to live off your pension until that rainy day comes.” should seen the look on my dad’s face, even though he knew better. priceless. And my Mum laughed. oh how she laughed in that way you couldn’t if you didn’t know what it’s like to live like they do.
My mum used to tell me “Good health is the most important…even if you have all the money in the world, you couldn’t enjoy it fully if you didn’t have the health to do so.”
On behalf of my parents, I wish the best for you, David, and your children.
Oh jenn,
It’s been a while since I commented. (I am a fellow puppeteer from Chicago)
Husband and I just went through the budget thing and we’ll have to do it again next month when his acting job ends. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to overspend your budget when your budget is 0. (Damn you UTI and the medicine you required!)
At least writing the numbers down makes you feel like you’re doing something.
I’m so glad you wrote this post. Just yesterday I was having serious thoughts about searching for another 9-5 corporate job and giving up the part-time ESL and freelance writer life. But reading about your ups and downs and all these comments has reaffirmed for me that some of us have “alternative ambition.” We want to succeed at quality of life, not at making more than everyone else at our high school reunions.
Finally, my parents are creative “large-dinghy to large-dinghy” types (love that description, pamelotta). Because of this, my brother and I grew up well-versed in money-saving tactics, and we respect people who follow their passions.
This has become one of your most revealing and inspiring comment sections. Thanks to all the noble souls who have shared their own hard-luck-but-still-pluckin’ stories.
Funny, I’m now working hard to motivate young people to go to college yet I know the pitfalls of student loans. College debt is eating a hole in many lives. Hopefully, love will help to fill the void left by insolvency.
Most of you sound happy in your choices. Keep pluckin’ away. I salute you all!
Jenn, could you forward a copy of that budget to us? I think it would fit (as you know) in to our lives just fine. As a grad student/archivist/freelance-whatever working combo, our kids too are living the joy of scrambled egg suppers (a treat! and with pancakes & syrup, that’s three food groups). So far, my daughter seems to think everyone shops for their clothes at the Savers. And I find comfort in the thought that while when I look at our house and see the toilet falling into the tile below it, and the mildew, and the cracking plaster, and the lack of doors on our bedroom and library (because we lack the time, inclination and chemical stripper to get them in shape to hang them) and think, my GOD, we’re one step away from the poor farm . . . . my kids see Home. It’s normal to them. And God help them, some day when they are looking at a house to buy (hey, it could happen), they’ll probably end up in a 19th century mouse trap as well.
I’m still counting on you for the summer of 2008. Shall we start buying some lottery tickets together?
Just to add to my above post: my husband and my language? Singing silly songs about everything from our kitties to Finnegan to toilet paper and beyond. We make up goofy stories about the secret worlds of our cats (yes, we are that cool). We talk about science and the environment and how we want to save the world. We talk about exploring the great outdoors. We exclaim: “there’s a buddy” when we see a ground hog pigging out in a field. Our language might not involve much art but it is full of our love of animals and the earth.
I’m rolling the memories of my own SLC education around in my mouth these days, like an eskimo with a fish eyeball. I have do do some pretty fancy maneuvering to convince myself that the money was well-spent in the face of my current poverty. I think that my degree in -GAK- poetry helps me to keep interested in the bizarre details of life. But that’s about it.
Coming in late to the poverty pity party, but of course I have a good story to add. Used to be in the high tech world making way over 6 figures. Got sick and am now living on SSDI. It’s a meagre existance and turkey bacon isn’t a part of our lives. We are so poor it’s amazing we’re all still alive and living in this tony Boston ‘burb. But during this time of extreme picunary angst I’ve paid off as of May, my entire back taxes owed to the IRS for a major error way back in 1993. Yeah, it’s taken that long, but it was 2 times the amount we’re living on now. At $250 a month, I’ve scrimped for years to get this damn debt off my back and one more month and it’s GONE.
I’ll feel positively rich until I start paying off my gas bill from this spring (choke choke) and my phone bill from last month in which my son talked to his friend’s cell phone for $25 worth of long distance calls, and oh, it’s time to go food shopping which I haven’t done since the beginning of the month.
I go to food pantries. There are 2 in my small city, and a third that is the Kosher one. Without them we would not eat. It’s that bad. My savings… one FULL year of ready cash, long gone. My 401K… long gone. All I want now is a car that has taillights and works reliably. Right now, I have a car I almost never drive because I can’t afford to register and insure it. Yes, you read that right.
It’s a hard-knock life but I’m trying hard to live it with grace and humility. I hate being so poor. Nobody in my family has ever been poor and we’ve been labeled an embarassment and virtually abandoned by our family because we’re on poverty’s doorstep. If there were debtors prison, I’d be a member in good standing… and I honestly don’t give a shit. I want to be healthy and for my children to be healthy, and that’s pretty much all I need. The rest is just icing on the cake.