This is my first diary. I've been thinking a lot today about my life and I wanted to share what being part of the working poor actually feels like. Some of our friends are fortunate to have good jobs and some of our friends are fortunate to have parents with good jobs. My husband and I have neither of these.
We both work in retail (in the same company) where pay rates can sometimes be less than what one would make at McDonald's. We've worked at this store for 12 years since it opened with only a short break for both of us at different times. We have two small children, one is five and just started kindergarten, the other is 18 months old and is at home with us or my elderly mother-in-law. Even cheap daycare is too cost prohibitive for us. We own our house and are current on our mortgage payments. We have very little debt because in 2005, we declared bankruptcy because we could not pay our bills on our salaries. We tried...but one credit card company refused to work with us on a payment plan or with the credit counselor we hired.
Over the summer, we decided that it would be best for us financially if we rented our house and moved in with my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law lives on a fixed income and we had been supplementing it with buying her groceries and paying her bills when she could not. We thought it was a win-win situation. Unfortunately, it did not work out. Without going into details, I will say that in some families money is more important than duty or loyalty or even love.
We exhausted our savings helping the mother-in-law try to live in a house that is too big for her to maintain. Since September, we have been living paycheck to paycheck hoping that we'll make it until the next payday when we might have some extra money to restock our pantry. I went shopping at our local grocery store and spent $160. That lasted a week. I love to cook and can make pretty much anything out of what is in my cupboards. But that week, I couldn't. Fortunately, we also shop at Aldi's where the price of food hasn't gone up as much as it has in other stores. Last week, I spent $150 at Aldi's and came away with twice as much food as I did the other store. But it's a drive to Aldi's.
We have good health insurance through work but when you don't have the money to pay the copay what good is it? Both of my daughters have had lingering coughs for the last month. I can't even take them to the doctor because I don't have the $20 for the copay and the money to pay for whatever prescription they might need.
Today, I took my mother-in-law to the grocery store and was forced to let her buy me $20 in necessities just for us to make it until payday. I currently have $4 in my checking account and $40 in my savings. This is what working poor feels like. I work five days a week at the mercy of a company who isn't doing so great either. I need to go get a new job but good ones are hard to find especially when you don't have a degree.
When you are part of the working poor, you are always worried, always afraid, always embarrassed, always sad, always living each day in despair. But Barack Obama gives me hope for the future. I pray every night that those who are just like me and my family will rise up and claim the future that was promised to us by those who came before.