Resources: "Poor people aren't bad money managers , you have to have money to manage." Tracy Anne Alexandra Reid
Poor people are not bad money managers, you have to have money to manage.
I wrote that some time ago, it hit a nerve with a lot of people in Oregon, where I wrote a lot of opinion peices in the local newspaper. So, let me set you straight, if your cash flow assetts , what you have for cash and earnings are less than what you have to pay to keep a roof over your head and the basic utilities, food and water, your in trouble. The good news, your not alone, a lot of people are in this situation, even people who used to have cash flow, the wells are drying up for most Americans.
There are 3 things you need to do, now. It is not the time to develop Scarlette O'hara syndrom, "Ill think about that another day." The day is today.
1. Make a budget . Get a spreadsheet or use this free word type program if you cant afford Microsoft Word, Open Office is almost as good and it is free! Now open spreadsheets, text documents and fill in the blanks. Now open another spreadsheet and leave it be for now. In the first spreadsheet fill in every spot with what each montly bill you need to pay. Example: Utilities, Auto Insurance, House Insurance, Rent/Mortgage, People Food, Pet Food, Internet, water bill, etc.keep going till you fill in every spot with payouts. Next to each catagory, fill in the amount per month for everything in their alloted spot, now add all payments and put in a catagory called "Subtotal" This is what you need to make ends meet every month
Towards the bottom of the page put in a collumn catagory called "Assets" This is what you have to work with to make ends meet. Wages, alimony, child support, food stamps, social security, disability , stipends from volunteer work, any real monies you have to pay the budget off. Now what number is higher ? The payouts or the incoming monthly cash flow? If cash flow is less than output of bills, your gonna need to shave that budget, if possible. Cut what you can live without. Now after you shave off the fat, you have a mumber you need to have to make ends meet . Fill in the blank spreadsheet with the new shaved catagories.
What is your deficit? How much are you short to make ends meet ? Put that number on a sticky note. Put that on your laptop, desktop , refrigerator or bathroom mirror. It is reality time , you already knew you were short, now it is better to know by exactly how much to action plan to make that needed flow to make ends meet.
2. Have an Action Plan or get started on one.
What areas of your life are lacking economics? What sort of schedule do you have ? Do you have kids, littles, teens, what level of time do they need of you compared with what time you have to offer them? Is there a way to pool resources? I had friends during my daughter's formative years who shopped at big box stores, we went together and then diveed the goods. It was cheaper to buy a case of toilet paper and split it among the four of us, we saved lots of cash buying in bulk and splitting it among one another. We also split the cost of a butchered cow to save money on meet. We shared a babysitter for the occaisional night out with adults so we did not toss ourselves off a bridge or mountain top. We could have shared babysitters for our work schedules, we just didn't think of it , we were too busy trying not to need anti depressants or AA to get through a day in our lives. The working poor.
3. Find as many Resources as possible in your state, town and local non profits as well as Federal programs: Below I have listed resources for food insecurity , housing costs, and non profits who might be able to help. Their coffers are dwindeling as the state of finances in the world get tighter and tighter but many still have funds to offset rent/mortgage costs, utilities, heat , medical, etc.
4. Find a social worker to help you. You don;t have to be indigent to have a social worker, nor mentally ill, call your local Community Action agency and ask for an appointment. These social workers are usually masters at finding resources and helping you develop an action plan to cope with any crisis that may arise.
Resources:
1. Food Stamps, you might think you don't qualify but fill out an application anyway, you might be surprised, dont forget to mention the output of say medical co pays, medication co pays, insurance, property taxes, water bills, town taxes, auto expenses, ect....nit pick what you need to pay for , these things are taken into account. I would suggest you not just file an application but ask that agency to help you fill in the form, a lot of Food Stamp workers will help you fill in more expenditures than you might think of, so take their valuable time, it is their job to help you , so ask for help.
2. Get a list of Food Pantries in your area, sign up with them and go as often as is allowed and get what you can to offset your food and toiletries budget. The name of the game here is to cut down the expenses and fill in the gaps everywhere . If you have food stamps make a point of going to pantries first and bring your regular shopping list with you. Many pantries have things you can't buy on food stamps, like toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent, ect along with freezers that sometimes have chicken, turkey's, ground meats and ground poultry , fresh veggies, fruits and canned goods. Start your shopping at the pantry (s) and then go to the market. Get a shopper saver card to get discounts on sale items.
3. Call local churches, even those you do not belong to, they will let the general public use their pantries, they often have food pantries and community meals. Shave off the grocery expense with as many resources as your able.
4. Lunch and Breakfast for your kids at school, many programs were tanked from 2016-2020, but many of these programs are back in place, call your kids schools to get them enrolled, that is two meals , 5 days a week, you won't have to worry about shopping for. Some of these programs and many deliver meals in the summer months so look into it.
5. Get yourself a social worker. Get one to be your advocate, your big sister or brother who are paid to help you and advocate for your and your children's needs being met. Call United Way 211, they have enormous resources to help you find what you need to offset your budget. Call your local community action program, most states and counties have one, they administer, food stamps, fuel assistance , electric assistance, rent resources to stay current or help you get on waiting lists for subsidized housing and or Section 8's, they will help you find as many resources as you need if said resources exist. That is a third of their job.
6. Child Support, maybe your children's father or mother are not paying to help support your kids, there is The Child Support Enforcement task force, who align with the IRS to collect said resources from them. If they are working above board they will garnish their wages. If they have a drivers license, passport and pilots license, they will suspend those licenses and passports until they become current or a judge sets a time frame to do so. If it is unsafe to go after them for fear of retaliation, that is your call. Never do anything your not comfortable doing. Never. Your the expert on your ex, you and only you.
7. Crisis Hotlines, in case you don't have a support system or someone to confide your deepest fears, call them. They are trained volunteers able to listen, non judgementally, to your issues. Maybe your bestie is going through the same or worse than you, he/she might not be able to handle your crisis's on top of their own, these unbiased crisis workers are able to be objective and non judgemental , they are there to listen and some of them are also trained in finding you resources. Put that number in your cell phone. Everyone deserves to have one human on planet earth be there for you . You've got a heavy load your carrying on your shoulders, you need as much support as possible.
8. Utilities: There are tons of resources with each utility company and non profits, to help stave off and pay off those crazy utility costs.
9. Off the books work, yeah not cool but so cool if your kids are starving and your about to go live in your car with them , if you even have a car to live in. Housekeeping, personal assistant, many of these private wealthier sorts are not wanting to put you on the books, the liability is too scary for them. They are willing to write off your work as "general maintence"( they don't put your name or socil security # on their taxes) nor do you share that information. Is this illegal, yes, you decide if it is worth the risk of a fraud charge or the IRS going after your unpaid taxes on those wages. Also note, you can earn $800 a year doing this work without reporting it. So that is legal as of this date , every state has differing options on this so do your homework and research your states rules on Independent employees. Your considered a Private Countractor responsible for earnings over a certain amount annually and taxes.
10. Education: There are some great community and four year colleges where you can enroll for nothing. They sponsor lots of financial aid packages and resources to get a degree or certificate to get you to work at a job that is more likely to help you make ends meet. Without a degree, unless you have a paid off house and lots of skills like carpentry, service industries, etc. your not gonna make it without a lot of stress and a degree in juggling crazy amounts of situations. My daughter told me a few years ago when I nudged her to get a "normal" job, she was a bartender at a trendy NYC bar, earning $500-$800 a night tips, she said a job is a means to pay for your pleasures, hobbies and interests. Not everyone has a "calling", maybe our "calling" is being a mother, artist, world traveler, guru, gardener, so consider some jobs to get you across the finish line and with enough time to spend with your kids so they don't call the babysitter Mom or Dad. Single people only have their needs to juggle, parents have their kids needs to juggle and themselves last. If you have kids, you come last and you always will. It is time to put you first once you get the finances sorted out.
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11. Jobs I found over the years to work around my daughter's needs and our time together. I certainly couldn't take her to work, I worked at a clandestine battered woman's agency, so I could never put her in harms way, my work site was a target often times for disgruntled parents who abused their significant other and their kids. I did however take my daughter to school with me often, she attended my college math class, english classes, humanities , outward bound class, she needed to be with me more often than she was and she also needed, my opinion on my family situation, to see her mother trying very hard things to learn how to take care of herself and to possess some idea of how to navigate a world with little mercy .
So I cleaned yachts, I actually got a few gigs on the docks in Newport RI , word got out I was a super neat freak organizational wizard, so private yachts would come into doc and ask me to suprevise their crew to get the ship ready for the next destination. Mostly I supervised the crews and organized the interior cleaning , you don't wash 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheets just anywhere, I delivered those to a cleaner in the city I knew who would not only wash the bedding but not shrink it and iron it as it needed to be. These yachts had original Klimt paintings and teak interiors, every room had a secret cubby where the cleaning products for every surface was kept out of site and specifically for that room. I got paid a nifty cash payment and the ship chef prepared me anything I wanted from Prime rib sandwiches to shrimp scampi . He always sent me home with a case of fine wine too. Cushy deal and it paid for me keeping my car on the road and food in the cupboard.
I helped a wealthy woman clean a house she bought to rent out. It was a drug raid house she bought so no more drug cartels would land next door to her. The entire interior surface was covered in hash residue, enough to keep Newport RI stoned for ten years. She paid me $300 a day to help her and a few other people to don hasmat suits and steam clean the ceilings, walls, windows and floors. Then scrub and scrape hash off those surfaces. She had a giant dining table in her yard and catered every meal for us, that was Newport RI, the land of mansions and great wealth. On the last day of work the contractors she hired put me in the cup of the bulldozer and rode me around Newport RI , I was wearing my farmer jeans, a plastic tiara and I was covered in dirt and hash as I did the Princess Wave down Thames Street. Not all of poverty wasn't a bit fun and interesting, I made a lot of friends and good connections. If I ever needed work, everyone in Newport with $$ knew I was a whiz cleaner and a wizard of organinzation. I had an unending amount of connections. I also had cancer, two herniated discs so I could not do these jobs often, sometimes I was too ill to do anything.
A fellow social worker and I teamed up for several summers to clean rentals. She and I had mad cleaning and organizational skills and she was a financial wizard and our bookkeeper at the shelter. She figured out how many rentals we could turn over and if it was worth the driving expenses and pay to split the take on a few jobs. She had friends in real estate who desperatly needed housekeepers to turn over summer rentals. For several years she and i would race from house to house, after a full day of work and then turn over more rentals on Saturdays. We had a map and went from one place to the other, we brought our kids with us so we could spend time with them and they could help us , a teensy, with the work. One child walked around the house with a trash bag collecting our paper towels, the other girl had a box to put left behind personal items , people always forget something, the other child a teen boy, had a box we had him fill with the spoils, refrigerators with just opened condiments, canned goods, toilet paper, kleenex, etc... She and I would split the spoils and if there was ice cream in the freezer and or freeze pops , our kids got treats.
I mention these jobs because they are all legitimate and out there if your open minded and creative enough to seize or make opportunties for yourselves.
Serrendipty and coincidence are worth noting. Sometimes there are messages the universe sends us to help us, it conspires to find you what you need. Pay attention.
For three months I tossed and turned to find a job, I filled out applications everywhere, nothing was happening. But everywhere I went I notice this tiny add, "Companion for elderly lady needed" And finally I the phone number. I ignored that ad for three months. Finally I realized how often I was noticing this little 3 inch add on every bulletin board in town. I called. The Universe like me, knew I had a $2,500. deficit to make ends meet per month. The only jobs I was finding paid $7.25 an hour, no way I could support myself on that. So I called the number. The best phone call i made that year. The job was to set a routine for an elderly lady with end stage alzheimers. She was the sweetest kindest woman I had met in a long time. They say the true nature of a person emerges in Alzheimers, she was a little saint. Her family was crazy in a good way and the pay was astronomical. She was very wealthy and her family wanted the person caring for her to really feel compensated and attached to their mother and grandmother. It was easy with her temperment. The money was a bonus. I was with her the day she passed away. I held her hand, feed her ice shaving as she drifted away. I still have the calendar I made of her and the outings she enjoyed, the calendar was a gift for her family members to see her enjoyng her life, her memories immortalized in still shots of things that had meaning for her. Trust the universe, it will help you find what you need. Be open to being the co creator of your life. You have to learn to steer your ship, your not a passenger your the Captain. If you have kids they are depending on you to try your damndest to take care of them, they are the passengers on your ship.
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