Monday, January 30, 2012

Learning To Be Poor: More statistics to boggle the mind

Yep I've got more like yesterdays weren't enough and really these are the same thing just a bit easier to understand.
The number of Americans living below the poverty line NOt by choice is at its highest in 52 years according to the Census bureau. If you have a conscience you WILL stop and ask yourself how that can be possible in a country known for it's abundance. We take care of everyone but your own it would seem.
Look I'm not here to debate politics but I am here as your average , every day citizen and it is a scary thing to know you do not have a reserve to fall back on, to know there is no one to give you a "hand up" not a "hand out "when you are down and feeling very much like the scum of the earth, because after all isn't that how this country see's the impoverished? They are trash, scum, unfit to associate with. Really? I don't think so! Really, stop and think about the movies, how do they portray the poor?  Filthy, toothless living in shacks. While to some degree there are indivduals out there like that, they are by no means the norm. My guess is today,  you could not really tell if someone is poor or not, not by simply looking at them. And why? Why should we stigmatize it so badly? Some are poor by their own bad choices, some are thrown below that invisible line through no fault of their own does it make a difference? I don't really think so.
Growing up,  I had a friend  her family would of been classified as "poor" did she fit some of the stereotypes I suppose if I look back she did, but you know what, she was the salt of the earth her entire family was. They would give what little they had to anyone that asked or was in need. To me that is not poor that is rich beyond measure in character and heart and those values matter far more to me than the balance in someone's checking account. 
I have said very little up to this point as to why I have made the choice I have. Mostly because I figure nobody really want's to wade through miles of reasons and they are personal each and everyone. I will say this, I want my children to know what it is to have to work for what they want like I have had to do. I want my children to develop the kind of heart and character I know they can and frankly, all I see of kids with  parents with a huge disposable income is a bunch of self entitled brats. That is NOT how I want my kid's to turn out. Make no mistakes though, they were and remain in the loop on each and every decision that is made, their opinions weigh heavily on me but ultimately as the parent the decisions are mine and mine alone. 
So okay down to business enough of my tangent eh?  Goals we must have goals in order to succeed or at least that is what I'm told. Eh I'm add so goals and I are not always buddies but we'll see how it goes.


GOALS:
1. to cut my living expenses as sharply as I possibly can
  a. Lower utilities
  b. lower food expenses
  c. lower unnecessary spending
2. Show my kid's that life is NOT about what you have but about how you live your life. That you can be rich in character, heart and soul and still not have more than a handful of change in your pocket and not really mind.
3. Show the world it can be done, you can live on a stark(to say the least) budget and not feel cheated or as if you have missed out. (Living on the budget we are does not mean we eat beans and rice 5 days a week  and shower every other week.)
For now those are the priorities there are subsets of goals that I will include as we go along but for now these are the priority for me at least.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Learning To Be Poor: The Beginning of the end?

So do you learn to be poor, are you born poor? Can you become poor? A myriad of questions ensue with each of these questions. In our case, we "chose" to live as if we were poor because quite frankly the stress of dealing with even having a little money was a bit more than I could handle. I feel no shame in saying that at all. I won't go into all the whys and where's but it was largely by choice before it became necessity. Enough said on that.
So, the bigger question is.. exactly how does one learn to be poor and still have a quality life? Can it be done? Should it be done willingly?  Let's face it with the economy the way it is more and more folks are being forced to learn how to live on far less than they are used to. They don't have a choice, if I'm going to I'd rather make that choice and how I approach things myself. Not be forced in to it kicking and screaming.
I won't tell you it is a pretty process nor is it easy. It is what it is and we are figuring things out as we go.
"     The nation's official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008 — the second statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004. There were 43.6 million people in poverty in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008 — the third consecutive annual increase." (US Census Bureau ,1/2012).  That's a hell of a lot of people scraping and scrambling and not even really making it by in this day in age.  Let's go one step further, let's define poverty shall we;

"pov·er·ty

[pov-er-tee] Show IPA
noun
1.
the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. privation, neediness, destitution, indigence, pauperism, penury. riches, wealth, plenty.
2.
deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc.: poverty of the soil. thinness, poorness, insufficiency.
3.
scantiness; insufficiency: Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies. meagerness, inadequacy, sparseness, shortage, paucity, dearth. abundance, surfeit, sufficiency, bounty, glut." this from reference.com.
I don't necessarily like this definition it brings a light of shame to being poor and really there is no or should not be any shame to it. It is a fact of life some people have some people do not. We all do the best we can.  I am a firm believer that a word's force largely comes from the user. It  may have a set "meaning" but how that meaning is taken or feels to other people depends largely on how we use it.. make sense? I hope so.
I started this as I said because I wanted to choose when I was in this position and if things had kept going we would of been forced here one way or the other.
 In future posts I'll go more in depth on the decisions we as a family had to make and some of the good and the bad. So stayed tuned it promises to be an interesting ride to say the least and hey..may be we will all learn a little something along the way...
 
Peace out.