I am sick of it!!

The BBQ Pit
1

I am so fucking sick of being broke. I’m sick of my bank account being overdrawn before every payday, only to look and see that the only things I’ve spent money on are bills, food and daycare. I am sick of my friends being laid off or fired from their jobs. I’m mad that my boyfriend might have to take a lame-ass second job because his company is about to go under. I’m sick of passing up small things I want because I can’t afford $7 for a new lipstick or $5 for a beanie baby for my kid.

Fuck. It would just be nice to break even for a change and not feel like I’m working for nothing.:mad:

2

:frowning:

Any possibility of a more lucrative job? A lottery winfall? A rich, remote, elderly relative that discovers you’re their only niece?

3

I hear ya’, sistah.

Yesterday I felt like I was going butt-wild because I actually bought something at the Dollar store that I [sub]didn’t NEED[/sub].

I don’t dream of being rich. I dream of going to the grocery store and buying anything I want.

4

Fuckin’ A, Indygrrl. I know exactly where you’re coming from.

My wife just finished she Masters’ degree in Education Technology, but to do so meant that she had to take a few months without working, so she could focus on her capstone project, a major effort. Not finishing her Masters’ when she did would have meant two extra semesters of work, thanks to a fucked-up way the university has of handling graduate-level credits from her undergrad coursework.

Doing that meant that we were without her income for that time, and as we quickly learned, we need her income to pay all the bills. We managed to struggle along for several months, but we came within a razor’s edge of losing our house, and our bank account often looked just like you’ve described yours – overdrawn or close to zero by the time we got paid, at least once a month. Hell, it still looks like that.

And don’t even get me started on childcare expenses… I can’t tell you how much it hurts to see our babysitter and nanny (two separate people) living high on the horse while we’re struggling. I’m not even happy with my kids being in childcare all day anyway, and I have to pay an arm and a leg for the privilege. Shit.

We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, though. Thanks to my wife working two jobs over the summer and a decent Homeowner’s Assistance program, we were able to keep our home, and she has a steady job now. Our bank account is still showing the massive fluctuations of paycheck-to-paycheck existence until we catch up on everything, but it looks like the worst is over.

I can’t tell you how much I hate living like this… barely being able to afford school supplies or new clothes for our kids because we’re desperately trying to wrangle some sort of deal with a mortgage company, or wondering how we’ll get food in the fridge for the next week. We always do, but it’s never pretty.

Unfortuantely, living paycheck to paycheck is a fact of life for many of us, especially in such a shit economy. I just do my best to know that it will get better, and I try to do my part to make it so. I’m lucky to have a job that’s fairly steady and gets decent pay, though the last few months really had me wishing that I had just a bit more.

It will get better, Indygrrl… believe that it will, and do what you can in the meantime. Best of luck…

5

Yeah, exactly. It’s not like I want to have a mansion and servants. I just want to be able to pay for my house without worrying about whether we’ll be able to eat until I get paid again, to be able to finish the home improvement work that we’ve already started, and to go to the grocery store without a budget that’s too low to buy anything but macaroni and cheese.

6

I can sympathize. I have a good job, but childcare here is very expensive, and I’m trying to pay off student loans.

You might go look into overdraft protection. The type I have is available even if you don’t have a big fat savings account attached to your checking account. It’s a credit card account. There is still a fee if they have to “dip into” the credit card account, but it’s much smaller than the usual overdraft.

7

Man, I’ve been living from paycheck to paycheck basically since I got out of college (which, hell, I paid for mostly and worked all during, too). The only exception was a 14-month stint as assistant music editor at a local indie news-art weekly. I made good money, relatively speaking, but the downside is I got so sick of the job - a position I’d been working toward since junior high - that I quit music journalism all together and spent a year with massive writer’s block. Plus, I was going through some serious relationship problems and bipolar issues, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now, I work at a restaurant and make around $200 a week. I play in a rock & roll band that barely makes enough money to get to the next gig and keep our equipment in decent repair. We’re also about to record a record, drop a load of cash on merchandeise and (hopefully) travel to England for a week’s worth of shows, so hello massive debt. I’m also writing again - working on a book, as a matter of fact. I’m in much better shape mentally because I work when I want and play when I want, no longer a slave to the deadline demon. I’m also broker than hell, but I don’t care much.

I do realize how lucky I am. I don’t have kids and my college debt has been paid off for a couple years. My only bills are rent, power, telephone, car insurance and DSL. I do wish I could buy a car I could depend on (mine requires something fixed at least every six months) and I wish I could buy books and CD’s whenever I wanted. I wish I could afford health insurance. But still and all, I’m extremely lucky to have a fairly secure job and a relatively inexpensive lifestyle at a time when the economy’s in the crapper and The Powers That Be could seemingly care less.

Here’s to y’all.

8

I feel your pain. The other day I went to the store to buy food for the weekend. I came out with a potato and an onion.

Even with a pantry full of dried beans and lentils, a potato and an onion are one hell of a poor excuse for a shopping trip. I so fucking sick of not being able to fulfill my basic needs. I live in fear of running out of things like dish soap because I can’t afford to replace them.

9

Wow…

Y’know, I was right where you guys are, and to a different degree, I still am. Even though I’ve got a house, two cars and a kitchen full of food and take two fairly nice vacations a year (St. Maarten in the winter and Europe in the spring) that doesn’t mean I’m rolling in cash. I’m mortgaged out the ass, every body but me owns the things I drive and the place I live. I work 16 hour days better than 4 days a week, the other three it’s usually only 10 hour days. I’ve got two jobs, (well three, actually) and never get to see Missus Jockey or my Pooch. Glad not to have kids, because THAT would be a nightmare, not seeing them.

It’s fine to sing the blues every once in a while, but don’t forget, there’s as much power in NOT having, as there is in having. The grass is always greener and all that. Hell, 10 years ago, all I worried about was myself, my car payment, rent, and where I was going to eat. I could go as I pleased, I had zero responsibility to anyone but myself, and as I look back on it, there was such a power in that time, such a freedom. I don’t regret its’ loss, but I do have an affection for it that will not soon wane.

Once you get bogged down in everything you want, your power, your freedom is lost to the companies and people who make that happen. It’s true what they say, the person who wants nothing, is invincible. There are plenty of things in the world that are free, and the reality is, that those free things don’t hold a candle to the ones you can buy…

…The free things are FAR superior.

You can buy a postcard, but not a sunset. You can buy some perfume, but not the smell of rain. It’s hard to fathom in the middle of the struggle, but things’ll get better, if you make it so, and along the way, don’t forget what you’ve got, even while you lament what you don’t. And yeah, even if those things are dish soap and beanie babies.

Peace.

–R