The center Will Not Hold

 

Yeats wrote, "The Center Will Not Hold" in The Second Coming and Joan Didion and other's coined it to describe the upheaval of the 1960's, I think it is as or more relevant today as in the 1960's Civil and Womans Rights Movement. Financial equity, fair living wages, the environment on a collision course to end us , humans, before we end it for all life on earth, social injustices still a huge problem, race relations, women's reproductive rights, right back where we started, immigration and whether to help with wars on foreign soil. All a repeat from the 1960's with a different clothing style. 

I saw it on some website news station, A Second Hand Mall, the entire Mall made up of Second Hand Stores. Brilliant Idea?

Resourcefulness is the answer to inflation right now, I think it always was the tool of the poor, it's just feeling more urgent these days. We're in "The Sky Is Falling" era. Our perceptions play out on Streaming Movies, the apocalyptic movies abound, humanity is losing its faith in one another, and movies tend to promote the current fears of Americans, right now, we're all afraid, at least a little, of losing something. 

Kids are going no contact with their parents; we went from disposable razors twenty years ago to disposable elderly. 

Prices at the market are obscene and gas for your transportation is sacrilegious. 

If you want to own your first home your chances are getting harder and harder to get the American dream.  In 1960, approximately 68 out of 100 Americans could afford a home, but now only around 43 out of 100 can afford one.

The cost of a wedding is, on average, $23,000 dollars, that is a down payment on a house. Gen Z or late stage Millennials are having a terrible time in the housing market and the cost of renting is just as gruesome, the average renter will pay $1,079 a month which equals about $12,948.00 a year, another down payment on a house, 47% of young adults are living at home with their parents to save for college, weddings and home ownership. That is about half compared to 1960. 

It is too expensive to live happily ever after and with the cost of everything that stresses people, even therapy and meds for mental health is skyrocketing. 

Something must give or as Yeats and Didion said, "The Center Will Not Hold"

Here is the good news, when things get downright dirty and unbearable, innovation comes to the rescue. We humans react to challenge, a lot of us, get creative. So, when I saw the Second Hand Mall in The Guardian, I thought oh, there go those crazy humans, shifting to adjust to changing times. Since it is not just about price gouging us at the pumps and checkout line, the environment is inspiring people to live more simply, a shift in attitude happens. We want to survive so we create ways to do that. 


My Blog, Ghetto Shoestring Budgets is all about that, how to offset costs, how to buy a house, how to keep it and tend to it for as little financial investment and bank draining as possible. I was reacting to the cost at the market when I started this blog of resources and resourceful ways of managing a life so you get to have a life. 

Funny, when my daughter was 14 she started telling me to get a life. I would fight back laughing at her because I was working full time, going to college full time and working a part time job on the weekends, was the president of a Homeless Council and an Executive Board Member of a Big Washington Non-Profit while hosting her Dram Club often at my house and feeding a ton of teen age boys and girls, practicing South Pacific, getting her to horseback riding lessons, beach trips often and carpooling her to drama club meetings, doing makeup back stage for the cast and making sure she got to visit with cousins, friends and fixing dinner every night so we could eat together as a family. On top of that I was raising her by myself. Get a life? I wanted and needed to shave off by half most of my activities. I also needed to find bargains at every turn. So, this blog was born so that you could find ways to afford to have a life, even if you're not enjoying some of your life. 

Here are some ideas to get you over the hurdle of "Big Get A Life Events." 

*Maybe someone should open a Second Hand Mall

*Elopement Packages, it is a small wedding often hosted by B&B's, or Ordained Ministers, it can be as elaborate or simple from Champagne, Ceremony and Wedding Cake to overnight stay for the wedded couple and dinner out at a swank restaurant. The cost between $1,200,00-$3,500.00 for the simple get wed package. 
*If you have some cash tucked away you can buy a house for under $50K, I have done that a few times. You need to be handy, so very handy and you need to not care where you live. Often these homes are in challenging areas and many foreclosed homes checkboard the areas. I promise, if you can bear it out a year or two, you can sell them at a profit and or stay put and help network with others to create a neighborhood that supports one another, especially those who were the original inhabitants of the neighborhood. Don't forget to check about jobs in these areas, often the job market is for the most grueling customer service jobs with the lowest wage ever. You're going to have to have a work from home job and or an inheritance and a lot of know-how and learn how to buy that house and live. Sorry, not easy way to get what you want. Gone are the days of parents handing over a down payment for their kids first home or the grand wedding to rival all weddings. No one can afford these extras, and most would rather choose one over the other, with one being a dp on a house over an extravagant wedding that will cost a fortune for a few precious hours. 

Get creative, a little less selfish and be prepared. 

Find food pantries if your poor enough to qualify to get free food, go to cheap stores, learn to cook with cheap items and make them taste good and be healthy. Skip the cookies and chips and get back to eating as a family over a tasty hearty casserole and or a frugal meal plan for the month. 

My friends and I did Potluck Sunday dinners, it was cheaper with us all chipping in, our kids and friends got to eat together, and we created a support system to help one another. One had a Big Box membership, so we went food shopping together and split up the spoils and saved $20-30% off our food budget. I continued to do this with friends after my daughter left home to go to college. Oh, I did not pay for her college, her boss did. He liked her work ethic enough and her he paid for her first two years of college as long as she maintained a certain GPA, she got scholarships and loans when she went for her four-year degree. She eventually dropped out and did not go back to school until she was 40. She is a nurse now. She commands a pretty good salary and career. With two kids and a husband she has a plan B in case anything happens to her mate and will be able to support her and her boy's life. I bought them their home so they would have a roof over their heads, my do over from a life of poverty during her youth. I had an inheritance and used half of it to make sure she had a break, a big break, of a home paid for in full. It was a fixer, and her mate is very handy and a carpenter. He has just about rebuilt the whole house from sill plate to roof. They have spent a lot to redo not just the structure but the practical stuff inside, plumbing, electrical and so on and so on. A house is always a life-long project, but worth the investment if you can pull it off. Do try. 

Habitat for Humanity is one great resource, not just to get a house built but reno work if your elderly and need a boost to cover those big repairs, roofing, etc.

US Urban Development has lots of programs for poor people to help with heating systems and safety repairs. Some loans and some grants you don't have to pay back Look into it. 

*Planning ahead is a vital tool and resource to help you prepare for things you don't want to think about or deal with. Financial planning, even on poverty level earnings is even more essential. Read through my older blog posts for lists of resources to get you through life so you get a chance to taste life and enjoy some of it. 

* Bartering is alive and well, develop bartering skills and assess what you have to offer to help a friend and or neighbor. 

* Yard Sales and Community Yard Sales especially draw a lot of traffic, I have made hundreds on group yard sales and always have a blast with my neighbors, it's a chance for us to sit in lawn chairs and chat while the world touches and judges our stuff. We don't care what you think of our former treasures. 


Gardening with intent, I call it Intentional Gardening, can feed some of your needs throughout the year. Planning and space are essential. Good soil and some skills or willingness to learn skill sets. There are master gardener clubs, and they will help you if you reach out to them, if there is a college in your town there is often a horticultural department, and some outreach and education can go a long way to learn about growing a lot of your own food. If that is not enough there are also Farmer's Markets and in some big and small cities, communal gardens. 
One cheap house I bought had a mini orchard in the backyard, four apple trees, 3 Pear and 3 Plum trees. I called the local College, and they had a group of people who would come and harvest the fruit and donate it to the Food Bank, I harvested what I wanted, made some jellies, baby food for my grandson and jarred a lot. I had plenty of pears, plums and apples for my small family's fruit needs along with a large harvest from the invasive blackberry bushes. I also had a family of deer, two adult females with four fawns and one injured buck hanging out in my backyard feasting on the fruit that landed on the ground. IT was wildfire season, and they were on the move looking for safe haven and food sources. We lost two of the fawns to a Cougar that was also on the run from fires and her main food source was deer. Nature is hard and cruel sometimes. My handy guy helped me remove the dead baby deer after a Cougar wound festered and took her out in a few minutes time. I sat with the little creature and stroked her head while her mother stood by trying to coax her back on her feet. 

Life is hard on everything, not just humans but the animals and plants, flora fauna and atmosphere. Climate change is real and with some devasting costs to an awful lot of species who won't survive, including animals, birds, some insects and foliage. Humans? Planet earth is better off without this invasive species. The Lockdowns proved that, remember the scenes of deer and wild coyotes, wild animals coming out to play after we were put aside and out of their way? Those news reports often made me gasp, we really are the problem, humans.  The Center Will Not Hold if we don't take the challenges to life on earth seriously and it definitely won't hold if we don't start cooperating with one another.