It's an art, to be this poor, really. Dollars are like rubber bands, they only stretch too far. And when your resources are more pathetic than a swollen-bellied little Indian baby, well....you gotta make it work. There's no choice involved.
And trust me, I do.
Where do I start? Hmm, groceries.
Every week before I go grocery shopping, the first thing I do is look at a calendar. Monday through Friday all my kids are in daycare, and bundled neatly in that price are breakfast, two snacks, and lunch. Check check and check. So, I write up a list, that looks something like this:
Monday: Dinner - Blue cheese chicken, wild rice, green beans
Tuesday: Dinner - Macaroni and cheese, broccoli
Wednesday: Dinner- Beef stroganoff, egg noodles, glazed carrots
Thursday: Dinner - Chicken stir fry, rice
Friday: Dinner - English muffin pizzas, tossed salad
Saturday: Breakfast - Pancakes, sausage, fruit
A.M. Snack: Ants on a log
Lunch - Chicken salad on croissants, grapes, salad
P.M. Snack: Carrots and dip
Dinner: Roasted chicken, roasted vegetables, rice pilaf
Get the basic idea? Then I write out my list, based on my meal plan for the week. I cook only from scratch - believe it or not, it's cheaper that way. When I make, say, macaroni and cheese, I can buy enough for two batches, cook them both, and freeze one. Bam. One extra meal for the week.
We always have enough food. Hell, on any given day, I feed my family, a couple families down the hall, the family down the street. There's two things that are fundamental to my family: church and food.
As for bills, I have to be just as meticulous. I get a paycheck, I sit down with a pen and my handy-dandy notebook (get the reference?) And I plan out every single penny. I put cash into envelopes - I tend to stumble with a bank account because debit cards are my Nemesis. But hey, my rent is rarely late or delinquent. So it works for me.
And we don't do extravagant in my house. I have mostly boys, close together, so clothes go down the line until they are no longer wearable. Fashion, I tell my oldest daughter, is a flash in the pan. She wanted twinkle toes, these God-awful sneakers made by Sketchers that look like Michael's craft stores threw up all over them. Sorry, if I'm going to splurge, it's going to be on something more than a stupid preschool fad. "We," I told her, "Are far too fabulous for Twinkle Toes." Still, she persisted. So for her birthday, I decided to make her her own, and they are just as fabulously gaudy and personalized, for a fraction of the cost. That's right.
Being poor is exhausting. It adds more tasks to my already overwhelming life. But were we in a better financial situation, I would've just caved and bought the stupid Twinkle Toes. Then the world would be robbed of my personalized shoe project, as would my daughter. I can't say it enough, less is more.
Eff all those mean five year old girls. They're going to be so jealous.
I often think about my life if I had made different decisions. If, at seventeen years old, I had taken my dad's advice and gotten in the car with him, driven to the clinic, never had my daughter. I'd be home from my last year at a real school, leaving my dormitory behind, my childhood bedroom covered with pictures of parties, summer vacations, smiling young faces. I'd have closets full of shoes and clothes, a part time job that was not my livelihood, but beer money until I moved on to my meticulously planned career. In a few years, I'd meet another college-educated young man, probably with the same upper-middle class yuppie roots, we'd fall in love, have a beautiful wedding, live in our well-maintained Cape with our two point five kids and a golden retriever named Ronald. Beautiful, perfect, exactly what my dad saw for me the day he first held me in his arms and looked into my eyes, I'd bet. But I'd be missing so much.
I bet my hypothetical husband would've sprung for the Twinkle Toes. But what's regret?
I wasn't raised here, where I'm living. My cousins and uncles and parents don't live down the street. I don't even know what the High School here looks like. But this city and I, are soul-mates. I've found something so beautiful and real and fulfilling in this struggle. Something that's made me so much stronger and smarter and resourceful than the hypothetical Me could've ever been. My lights get turned off, yeah. I know a million and one ways to get them turned back on, quick. I can pass this on to other people struggling. The hypothetical me knows nothing of struggle, of heartache. The hypothetical me would be too responsible to procreate like a caged hamster. So she would never know the exhausting joy when kids A and B are fighting, and the baby's crying, and you've got beautiful, tiny chaos swirling around you and you still manage to end up with a household of "Best Buddies" who adamantly stick up for a sibling when they're being scolded. THAT's just as much accomplishment as a PHD. Believe it.
I wouldn't know that when you live in a crappy low-income apartment, your neighbors can become your family. You eat together, pick up the slack when someone falls short, know that the favor will be returned. An amazing give-and-take. A congregation, a Fellowship, all praying for better days and hanging in together until they arrive. The hallways here are always teeming with children, laughing and growing together, learning and changing and bonding. My door is always open, every door here is. We scold each other's children, we revolve babysitting, we help with homework and cook meals and collapse on each other's couches at the end of the day, tired as hell, with a glass of cheap White Zinfandel and a shitload of complaints and jokes. Your husband's an asshole, my husband's an asshole, our kids are too much, work sucks, we're broke, Let's Drink.
We're in this together. And to be honest, if I had a yard and a good man and a good job, a cute little dog and stability, I wouldn't know this. I wouldn't have to.
There's beauty in the breakdown. We all have albums of our children together, and we look at how they've changed, grown, who's going to marry who. I know each child in this apartment building as well as my own. My children love each one of my neighbors like the extended family we rarely see. They are family.
It's an art, a challenge, and I ROCK THIS.
My kids learn to cook with me from a young age. We make casseroles for sick friends, neighbors and members of our church. We bake pastries and cakes and cookies for birthdays and celebrations and sometimes, just because it's raining and there's nothing else to do. They learn the power of a home-cooked meal. They watch this profound give-and-take on which we survive, and they learn empathy and family values and what it means to be connected to the community around you. Tell me Muffy and Buffy and their perfect husbands and kids can say that? They don't have to worry about the things we do. They don't know. For those who truly have "It" together, giving is a hobby, an obligation, tax write off or occasional warm, fuzzy feeling. It's kept to Christmas or when Sally Struthers gets on your plasma and guilts you about starving children. When you struggle, it's a way to survive.
I don't hate the middle class or wealthy. When my lights go off or I pass a really cute handbag, I envy them. But, it definitely passes. I am proud of what I have. In a material world, in this crazy capitalist Rat Race, there are a lot of values that just sort of, fade away. I feel blessed every day that though I can't afford an Xbox or big TV, I can't take my kids to Disney every summer or buy the stupid fucking Twinkle Toes, I can give them these old-fashioned values and know that they will stick a lot longer than vacations or glitter-strewn shoes. That is a blessing.
Sorry to disappoint, dad.
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