Starting the New Year Broke

[Guest]

I'm just trying to figure out when we have the right to spend our money on books, instead of what others spend their money on, if we want to.

 

That's about where I am right now. I appreciate your honesty, Hunter, and wish I could share more details of my own story but I'm a relative newcomer to the board and I'd rather be a polite visitor than a controversial character right now.

 

Suffice it to say that the wealthy can be very cruel to relatives they disagree with. My Gran's parents took her in during the '30s, but the plates were always empty by the time they reached her place at the table and she wouldn't have been eligible to stand in the soup line so she was always hungry and weighed 97 pounds.

 

I've always been hungry and lived in the smallest possible rental  in the worst possible neighbourhood. I have heating assistance now so I'm not cold any more. I could have paid off the car repair, dental, and vision care charges on my credit card in a few months if I'd gone back to the old Christmas power dynamic with my parents instead of buying them expensive-to-me presents they'll probably throw or give away or writing them off as toxic narcissists but I didn't.

 

ds2 was an insanely easy baby. I went back to work with him in the sling when he was 2 weeks old. He's not an easy 5 year old and he doesn't have to be. I don't want more money coming in, I want less going out.

 

Hunter, ds1's old public high school has an annual pottery sale that's coming up. There are usually plates and they're cheaper than the mass produced ones at Grocery Outlet. I'll grab some for you if you'd enjoy using them and have an address you're comfortable having me send them to.

[madteaparty]

  :)

 

This may sound weird from a non-religious person, but I've always believed there would be just enough to get through. And there has.

 

 

My grandma from the old country, who just passed this week, and had her share of wars, death, adversity in her life, always stated the above in a different manner, roughly translated "We don't have any and neither do we run out". It is of comfort to me.

 

 

[Hunter]

Hunter, I know this is off topic but I hope you don't mind if I link this thread in. It's the "Boardies Helping Boardies Year 2" thread - if some family has a specific need this holiday season you can consider this:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/494938-boadies-helping-boardies-year-2/

Thanks for posting that link. It might be helpful to someone here. A lot of us don't read the chat forum.

[Hunter]

Hunter, thank you for being real. I love it!

 

I live in an affluent area and people (family included) don't get me. I drive a twenty year old Dodge Caravan, don't wear make-up, and get my hair cut maybe once a year. But, I have a house full of books and probably own 20 bottles of fingernail polish. Lol! I need to quit complaining about my old van and accept the fact that I chose books instead of a newer vehicle. Nobody did this to me.

One of my neighbors asked me if she can cut my hair this morning. :lol:

 

I have just been reaching behind my back and trimming it off at about hip level the best I can. It must be more crooked than I realized. :lol:

[Hunter]

That's about where I am right now. I appreciate your honesty, Hunter, and wish I could share more details of my own story but I'm a relative newcomer to the board and I'd rather be a polite visitor than a controversial character right now.

 

Suffice it to say that the wealthy can be very cruel to relatives they disagree with. My Gran's parents took her in during the '30s, but the plates were always empty by the time they reached her place at the table and she wouldn't have been eligible to stand in the soup line so she was always hungry and weighed 97 pounds.

 

I've always been hungry and lived in the smallest possible rental in the worst possible neighbourhood. I have heating assistance now so I'm not cold any more. I could have paid off the car repair, dental, and vision care charges on my credit card in a few months if I'd gone back to the old Christmas power dynamic with my parents instead of buying them expensive-to-me presents they'll probably throw or give away or writing them off as toxic narcissists but I didn't.

 

ds2 was an insanely easy baby. I went back to work with him in the sling when he was 2 weeks old. He's not an easy 5 year old and he doesn't have to be. I don't want more money coming in, I want less going out.

 

Hunter, ds1's old public high school has an annual pottery sale that's coming up. There are usually plates and they're cheaper than the mass produced ones at Grocery Outlet. I'll grab some for you if you'd enjoy using them and have an address you're comfortable having me send them to.

Gifts are hard. That is all I have to say on a public forum. REAAAAALLLLLLLY hard. Okay, I risked saying a bit more. Now I'm done.

 

Thank you so much for the plate offer. I'm going to hit the dollar store. That's really what I want. Just some plastic. I like plastic. I developed a liking for plastic and some synthetics while in the Amish-Mennonite church, and further developed my love when I was homeless. Plastic is durable and light and colorful.

 

I'm sorry your gran went hungry and couldn't even get the help that others got. I know that feeling. I've had to learn that the world is an abundant place. It's just that others sometimes separate me from the abundance. Sometimes I have to stop and look at why I'm doing without something and truly see what my options are. Sometimes another person is cutting me off from all that is there just waiting for me.

 

I look forward to getting to know you better.

[Rosie_0801]

but I'm a relative newcomer to the board 

 

 

Are you?

[Hunter]

I need a hip operation and I'm still deciding whether to go private or bribe a state hospital doctor to do it — oh, the joys of living in a corrupt country! I've got plenty of time to think about it because I need to save up for it first. So yeah, broke here too. I'm NOT going to let that affect curriculum choices though. The kids deserve a good education. I'm going to cut into our grocery budget and will quit donating to charity for now :(.

Hip. Ouch. Please be careful. A botched hip operation is BAD news, because it can lead to so many complications. I have osteoporosis and I fear a hip fracture. The fatality rates for hip fractures are no joke. Most of those fatalities are preventible, but they happen nevertheless, like clockwork in most hospitals.

[Hunter]

My grandma from the old country, who just passed this week, and had her share of wars, death, adversity in her life, always stated the above in a different manner, roughly translated "We don't have any and neither do we run out". It is of comfort to me.

 

 

I like that!

[Hunter]

I am losing my mind dealing with people's reactions to my loss of income! They all feel like they have the right to demand I explain every detail of what happened and demand that I listen while they tell me what I should do, getting more and more frustrated when I won't retry things I already did. It's like they want to assign blame to me, so that they don't have to believe things are so unfair. I'm starting to get really mad. People are yelling at me! That's wrong!

 

I met with the social worker and I think she is having a hard time realizing that everything we have worked on since last summer has not done me any good, and some of it has put me further behind than if we had done nothing. She's a good social worker so she isn't trying to find a way to blame me, or crazymake that I am mistaken that things are worse.

 

But she is still wanting to fight, and fighting weakens me and I don't have anymore energy to waste on useless fights. I just ended the last visit telling her to call and do whatever she wanted, but I was not doing anything more this week. And she can't do anything without me, because most of the people we just dealt with are already gone. We cannot even find out the names of the new people, so I cannot sign releases for her to talk to them, and they won't talk to her without me, when she FINALLY does get through to them. I left her looking very defeated. It's hard on social workers who work with me, because they get so little sense of accomplishment.

 

And I just realized that I better not use the last money on my food stamp card, as they might demand it back in cash. I'm not sure of what date they are going to decide I didn't qualify for the food stamps anymore. They are notorious for giving food stamps and then demanding it back in cash.

 

I lost my food stamps because I had a major DECREASE in income, because of a $10 overpayment from another agency. No one can wrap their head around the fact that I lost my food stamp because I had a DECREASE in income. They keep telling me I'm wrong. I tell them the computer is broken and the state refuses to fix it. It's not supposed to make sense, but it's true. I'm tired of people just shaking their heads and saying that is impossible. UGH!

 

And everyone is just freaking out about this, because of my anorexia history. But all this outrage and lectures and asking what my plans are is NOT helping. But some of them are not trying to help. I'm not sure what some of them ARE trying to do.

 

One person just wants to get on the phone and yell, and I won't let him. The last time I lost my stamps a doctor called and said I was malnutritioned and that didn't do any good. All they said is, "The computer is broken. All we can do is hope it figures that out by itself and fixes itself". Yelling doesn't change something that stupid. Finding out another way to trick the computer into fixing itself might help, but yelling won't.

 

I've had plenty to eat today, though. After they are done yelling, they all feed me. :D

[Melissa in Australia]

:grouphug:

[Guest]

:grouphug:

 

Nobody understands why I don't qualify for Lifeline either, but I have to pay $50 a month for my phone until I get a job that pays enough for me to owe $6.95 a month.

 

Sometimes the judgement is worse than the actual hardships. I don't have the heart to thank people on the board for telling me what their doctors have to say about night blindness and midlife vision changes because my own doctor told me to STFU, close my etsy store (my only source of income at the time), and throw away my books because I would never be able to do THAT again and nobody likes old ladies who complain about being old.

 

I didn't expect people to treat me the same way they did when I had a full set of teeth, but I find it appalling that anyone thinks a random stranger deserves to spend the rest of their life unable to see well enough to read or thread a needle just because they look poor.

 

I don't want dentures. Of course I don't have $30,000 lying around in a "petty cash" drawer (or more likely $100,000 because they always charge you more if you pay cash than if you have insurance) but it's kind of nice to have an "excuse" that's more or less socially acceptable instead of having to explain my deeper, more philosophical reasons and have to defend myself against condescending comments and quick, dismissive judgements of "You must be depressed or you wouldn't let yourself go like that. You used to be pretty."

 

I do want a pair of glasses with anti-glare coating when I can afford them now that I know they exist and will make me a safer driver, but I can't regret all the trial and error experimenting and self-education I had to do to figure out prescriptions that let me live as a mildly myopic literate sighted person.

 

Yes, I'm new; I lurked a bit before joining a few months ago but not on the chat board, so I don't know the different personalities or much about the culture here yet. My post count is high because I talk too much. I have a longstanding problem with oversharing and flooding boards that I'm working on. I'm proud of how much better I'm doing here than I have on other boards in the past.

 

Maybe that's because everybody here has been kind to me so far.

 

 

[Guest]

 

I look forward to getting to know you better.

 

Thank you. The feeling is very mutual.

[awisha.]

Rosie: It's by Nadia Wheatley and it's called Australians All: A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology. It's a lovely looking book, very read-aloud and narration friendly. It's only out in hardback atm and selling for  $50.

 

It's aimed at primary school age - maybe ask your library to get it in so you can borrow it and work out whether it's something you'd like, and then wait till it comes out in paperback, or the initial price drops. Or just buy it :)

 

I'd offer to buy it for you at discount, but the postage would probably cancel the savings. It's heavy. I don't think Book Depository carries it :(

 

ETA: Booktopia has it for $42 atm

 

Thankyou!!

[mom2bee]

I'll be broke! I'm always broke!

 

I have never tried to think of my poor-ness as an adventure, so this will be an exciting and refreshing way to look at it instead of being grumbly and depressed like usual! Thank you Hunter, what a great suggestion.

[TeaCookiesBears]

This has been a helpful topic to read as it lets me know that I will not be the only one starting the year broke. Everyone has giving me some things to look at differently. It also let me know that sometimes hardtimes are going to come but it is thoes uplifting words that make hardship just a little easier. It has only been through the grace of God that we have gotten this far but I am thankful. Prayers and hugs to everyone.

[Hunter]

If one more person yells at me I don't know what I'm going to do.

 

The food stamps are all gone. I hit 3 food pantries in the past 2 days, trying to stock up on food before they all close down for the holidays. I think I pulled a couple muscles on one trip. I'm too old to be running across 4 lane highways with 40 pounds of canned goods and root vegetable in my backpack. It's hard to bounce enough to run with that much weight. It's like there are magnets on my feet. But I got lots of good stuff, and didn't get hit by any cars, so it's all good.

 

Why someone would give me 5 day expired yogurt, I don't understand though. Sigh! I guess it's safe to bake with, but just really sour? I threw it away AFTER having to lug it all the way home.

 

What is everyone planning for school/teaching/self-educating in January? Are you using things you already have? Are you using free stuff? Or scraping your last pennies for something you really want/need?

 

Who has been making soup? I made good chicken soup last night. One of the pantries gave me some month expired egg noodles. They looked a little dark, but they seemed fine when I cooked them.

 

I think I might have everything to make American Chop Suey. I can't find my old recipe, though. I know it used tomato soup and American cheese. I don't know if I'm going to use my precious ground beef or the much more plentiful mechanically separated turkey that is called "turkey roll" by the pantries. I just don't seem to be able to digest mechanically separated turkey. I burp it up for hours even when I add sausage herbs and spices. But if I'm going to use generic tomato soup and generic cheese food, why waste good hamburger on it, though. :lol:

 

I scored two whole chickens, eggs and milk, AND the mechanically separated stuff, so I'm not complaining.

 

It is FRIGID here and at one train station, I ripped off my jacket to air out and my shirt was drenched with sweat. Everyone else was all bundled up and I was down to a wet t-shirt. :lol: And I couldn't get my pack on and off without putting it on a bench and squatting under it. I don't try to make a spectacle of myself, but I seem to do that on a regular basis. My friend who bought the jacket for me is proud that I could sweat in that cold, no matter how hard I was running with any amount of weight.

[regentrude]

Why someone would give me 5 day expired yogurt, I don't understand though. Sigh! I guess it's safe to bake with, but just really sour? I threw it away AFTER having to lug it all the way home.

 

Can you still retrieve it? 5 days don't matter one little bit - after all, yoghurt  is already fermented. You can use it way past the sell-by-date - the date is not an expiration date for almost all groceries.

[Hunter]

No, it's gone. In the past I have found old yogurt to be VERY sour. I've used it in baking, but don't like the sour taste for regular eating, and it gets more sour each day. Usually they restrict yogurt that old to having frozen it, which again decreases the taste, because it separates.

 

Much of the food is old, but each type of food has it's own rules about how old it can be. I usually wouldn't have worried about month old pasta at all, but because it was egg noodles and was dark, I was a bit worried.

 

The pantries are better about safety than quality. They froze some chopped celery and onion that hadn't been blanched, so it froze to mush, but I threw some of the mush into the soup and was thankful for it. I guess the celery and onion was supposed to be used for stuffing, and then was leftover after thanksgiving. If was safe when it was frozen at least, just mushy when it's defrosted.

 

I'm not a good cook, but I'm okay at turning the oddest leftovers into something safe and filling.

 

And sometime the odd is fun. They gave me sweet potato and black pepper chips and those are interesting in a good way.

 

Being poor is an adventure! :D

[Hunter]

It isn't just that a botched hip operation could make your hip worse. It's that the decreased mobility causes a domino effect of other more serious problems, all again all treated in a botched way.

 

People outside the US think that the US has wonderful medical care. Yes, we do have wonderful medical care for SOME, but NOT all, and I have seen the awful things that happen to the expendable.

 

My desire is not to add more stress to your life by scaring you. But hip stuff needs the absolute utmost of careful planning. It's safer to lose your leg above the knee, than to have a botched hip. If you get stuck after a surgery, not even able to bend the hip enough to sit up, in a lousy hospital, you are in bad trouble.

 

It's not about the hip. It's about what happens to the REST of the body, when you cannot use the hip properly. This is nothing like a knee, if it gets botched.

 

I'm sorry, Dialectica, that you are in so much pain and even sorrier that you have this worry to deal with. Take good care of yourself. Whatever you do, use all your resources to get the best care possible. This is not an area to bargain, or make do, or put others first.

 

:grouphug:

[Jean in Newcastle]

What is everyone planning for school/teaching/self-educating in January? Are you using things you already have? Are you using free stuff? Or scraping your last pennies for something you really want/need?

I'm looking for free days at museums and events (but will have to factor in transportation costs).  I am using what I already have.  I am using the library extensively and YouTube and Khan Academy and. . .  For the library I am being diligent to not get any fines because that has been an issue.  

[elegantlion]

I've been looking through free sites again. Learner.org has a lot on there if you poke around. We're using some of their American Lit this year and will use their Government next year. 

 

As for soup, I bought bullion cubes added those to water, threw in egg noodles and some chicken. Ds asked for more, which is a rarity around here. 

[Hunter]

I'm looking for free days at museums and events (but will have to factor in transportation costs). I am using what I already have. I am using the library extensively and YouTube and Khan Academy and. . . For the library I am being diligent to not get any fines because that has been an issue.

When I have a clear moment, I need to make a calendar of free events and free days, and just stick it on the wall. These days are so much more likely to get taken advantage of, on an unexpected calm day, if I have all the information displayed in eye sight.

[Hunter]

I've been looking through free sites again. Learner.org has a lot on there if you poke around. We're using some of their American Lit this year and will use their Government next year.

 

As for soup, I bought bullion cubes added those to water, threw in egg noodles and some chicken. Ds asked for more, which is a rarity around here.

I haven't been on that website in awhile. Thanks for the reminder.

 

Yes, I need to buy some bullion. That is quicker, and I can throw in ANYTHING I have. Thanks for that reminder too.

[Hunter]

Thanks for your thoughts and hugs.

 

Just to clarify, I certainly do not believe that the US has a wonderful healthcare situation for working class/poor people. I have lived in Western Europe before and I do believe the healthcare situation in those countries was better compared to here, at least it was when I lived in those places. A lot seems to have changed over the last few decades.

 

You gave me a lot to think about. I am the only living parent to two young-ish kids and I'd prefer being in a wheelchair most of the time to not being able to sit up. Not that that's on the cards yet — I can still manage semi-OK right now, but I know this condition will progress.

Just take care of YOU. If you decide to get surgery, be extravagant, be selfish. Don't do the convenient and don't bargain shop. If you don't know what to do, I recommend waiting. I'm not saying waiting is the best choice, but just that waiting is preferable to botched.

 

The only thing at all comparable to bargain shopping for a hip, is bargain shopping for plastic surgery. I want to cry for some people. WHATEVER they looked like before, it could NOT have been worse than they look now.

 

I think healthcare is changing in a lot of countries. Some get better and some get worse. Some get more equal, some get less equal. Most people say there is not enough resources for all to keep up with technology. I don't know if that is true or not. It's just so sad to see people suffer.

 

Pain is so draining. I'm coming down with something today and ache all over. But it's not the same as it is for people who hurt this much all the time without a break. I'm coming into it fresh, and know it will pass.

 

:grouphug: