Welcome to the Middle Class

My job gave me another day to teach, so I picked up three new students and actual office hours. The extra hours also qualified me for health insurance. Yes! This is why I went to Grad School and gave up three years of my life (and my family's life). All I wanted was health insurance, a little retirement and a steady paycheck. I wanted to be middle class.

When that first paycheck arrived back in September, I was ecstatic. At last, I am officially middle class. My husband and I together earn enough to pay ALL our bills and have a little left over for savings. We can even afford to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant on occasion, the kind of restaurant with cloth napkins and a wine list as long as the menu. We can go to the movies now and not have to sneak in our own drinks. And we can afford a tank of gas and groceries on the same day.

It seems that all of my middle class dreams have come true.

For the majority of my life, I've lived on some kind of government assistance. I grew up on government cheese and dental care from the free clinic. My parents worked, but they didn't earn enough to support two kids and not need Food Stamps. When I left home, I became a starving student, working my way through college with the help of Student Aid and two jobs. Then I became a mom, and when my daughter was diagnosed with disabilities, she received the support of Social Security, MediCal, and California Children's Services. We received In Home Support Services for her daily care, and I myself qualified for MediCal. Even when I married Rick, who has always worked two or three jobs, we didn't earn enough for health insurance. We did buy a house in an expensive area, but we needed to live in that expensive area so Queen Teen could go to the excellent schools there. Just making the mortgage every month was a financial juggling act.

I started my life as a kid on welfare, eventually worked my way up to "working class," and after more hard work, have reached "middle class."

I have no idea what middle class means.

On the day I calculated my yearly salary and then started leaping around the living room, yelling, "Oh my god, I'm rich," my husband sat me down and explained that after taxes and paying the bills, I would be broke again.

"But it's more money than I've ever made in my life," I argued.

"I know. But we're no where near rich."

A few days later, I bought a Motley Fool book determined to learn what "middle class" meant. I wanted to know why the middle class people I knew complained about being broke? Please! I'll bet not one of them has had to chose between groceries or medicine. Not one has had their power turned off. Oh boo-hooh, they can't afford cable. Whatever! Try not being able to afford gasoline.

I'm still reading the book, and I realize I don't have a clue how to be middle class. What is a 401(k)? Retirement? Do people still believe they'll actually be able to stop working someday? How the hell do you buy stock, and why would anyone in their right mind want to? Wait, you mean budgeting is more than just tallying your expenses at the end of the month while deciding which bill you can skip? Who knew?

I now realize that every social class has its own set of problems. Sure, many of the middle class have no concept of what real poverty is. However, they don't get much help sending their kids to college or paying their electric bill when money is tight. There are no programs to help middle class families pay medical bills that insurance doesn't cover (but I still want to kick a person if they bitch about the price of portabella mushrooms ).

I picked up the health insurance forms from work yesterday and I'm trying to figure them out. I'm also asking myself if I can actually afford health insurance. At 45, can I afford not to? But it's a big chunk of change out of my check every month. There goes any hope of buying a newer car  next year.

Hah! There I go. Sounding like a middle class person.

Oh boo-hoo, you can't afford to buy a newer car? Well at least you have a car! A car that runs! That doesn't break down all the time. And at least you can afford to take it to the shop to keep it running.


Getting used to being middle class will take time.

Article - 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor

I just read this hysterical article by John Cheese on Cracked.com about the hard truths about poverty, and I laughed so hard I almost spilled my coffee all over my laptop. Everything he writes is true. The only reason this is on Cracked is because the authors uses the word "fuck" a lot and there are plenty of "bend over and be screwed." So if you're offended by things like that, skip this article. If not, read on.


Being poor is like a game of poker where if you lose, the other players get to fuck you. And if you win, the dealer fucks you.
(read more)


For example, Queen Teen receives support from Social Security because she is disabled. I am required to keep her money in a separate checking account from my own. Unfortunately, she doesn't get enough money from SSI to avoid bank fees, so our bank charges Queen Teen $10.00 every month to have an account. Those wankers are taking $10.00 from a disabled child every month!


I am looking for a new bank, but so far it seems that ALL the banks charge poor people extra money. Ass-Holes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite blogs just wrote an excellent post about money

This is too good not to share. One of my favorite bloggers, Mother of Chaos, just wrote a fantastic post about our relationship with money on her blog, Den of Chaos. Click the link, read her post, then come back here and tell me what you think.

What is your relationship with money? Are you the hoarder or the spender, or something in between? I seem to be more of the hoarding type, although I do enjoy a good spending spree at Goodwill from time to time. I've never had money, not in any stable way. My family didn't have money, so I didn't have a college fund or a savings account when I was a kid. We lived day to day, sometimes with enough cash for the four us of to go to the movies, and other times my mom stood in line at the Food Bank to keep us fed. When I grew up, I paid my way through college by working any job I could find, living on bean burritos and apples. And then I became the mom of a child with disabilities, which created it's own unique set of financial challenges. My husband and I work hard, and we managed to buy our own home just before the housing market went crazy in California and all the houses tripled in price (unlike now, where you can buy a place three times less than the owner paid). It's a tiny house in a nice neighborhood, not our dream home, but we make do.

Which is the heart of my relationship with money: I make do. I never believe there will be enough tomorrow, because there never has been. This is irregardless of the fact that my husband's business is growing and we are now able to save a little each month, and irregardless that I will soon be working and helping to support this family. Spending money on something brand new and shiny feels strange to me. I don't see the point of paying full price for a new dress when I can go to the consignment store and pay 50% less. I don't need to buy a new car when my old Mini-Van is perfectly fine (yes, she's got 230,000 miles on her and the air conditioner doesn't work, but she still runs). Even the iPad we bought Queen Teen was second hand; the first generation iPad that dropped in price because people wanted the iPad 2.

Money has always been this elusive, fickle creature in my life, one that appears for a time, then vanishes over night, leaving a path of ruin and anger. Perhaps if it sticks around long enough, I'll be able to trust this thing called "money." Maybe I'll trust it enough in a year or two to buy Mutual Funds or stock and save it for retirement. I'm afraid to lock up my money for the future because we so desperately need it now. Or do we? Are we financially stable? What does that even look like?

I hope to find out.

Turned down by the bank

Well, I figured it was a long shot. After four months, the bank finally made their decision about modifying our mortgage. No. It appears that we, A) technically don't make enough money to pay our mortgage, therefor they won't lower our payments (please explain that one), and B) despite the fact we "don't earn enough" have managed to make the mortgage payment every month, which means we don't qualify for assistance because we're not behind on our payments.

So if we stopped paying our mortgage, would they modify our loan?

I keep hearing so-called industry experts saying things like "talk to your bank before you get in trouble with your mortgage." Yeah, did that. Now what? They aren't interested in talking to anyone, and the programs that exist only help people with jobs, not people who are unemployed, or people who have those crazy, ballooning mortgages who can't afford the current payment. We were smart enough to stay clear of those, instead buying a house we could afford and locking in a good mortgage rate. It's always been a tight budget, but if we were working, we could afford our house. And we can't sell. The prevailing rent around here is the same as our mortgage, so why lose our investment and sell the house?

A friend said we should try again because banks are probably like Social Security: they always turn you down for benefits the first time. I supposed there's no harm in trying, but I won't hold my breath.

The Integrity Test

Queen Teen and I popped into the market yesterday for eggs and cooking oil. At the checkout I handed the cashier $10.00 for the $5.20 bill. She started to count my change. "That's $90..."

I said, "Wait. I gave you a ten, not a hundred."

The woman's eyes widened. "You did?"

"Yes. You're giving me too much change." I laughed. "I mean I'll take it if you're giving it away..."

"I can't believe I did that. Thank you!"

The man standing behind me in line said, "You just passed the integrity test."

"Pardon?" I said.

"You passed the integrity test by not taking that money. You will be showered with blessings now."

The cashier handed me the right change (four ones and some change, which looked a lot smaller after a handful of twenties) and nodded in agreement with the man. The woman behind him in line smiled and said, "You are blessed."

"Showered in blessings," the man reiterated.

I thanked them and left the store, but as I we walked home I pondered that. It hadn't occurred to me that I could keep the money. I told the cashier her mistake before that thought got a chance to whisper because I knew the cashier would get in a lot of trouble if her drawer was missing $94.00. And I didn't do it out of any desire for "blessings." That whole concept that if you do something good something good happens to you bothers me. Shouldn't you just do good because it's the right thing to do? And besides, if I believed in the theory that good works create good things for the person doing them I would have quit doing any good a long time ago. I have yet to see a single blessing from my sense of honor.

I told my husband what happened and he only half jokingly said, "I would have kept the money."

"Really?"

His tone changed and he said seriously, "We could really use that cash for groceries."

He's right. Now that he's unemployed we can barely make our mortgage and we are now frequent users of the food bank. $90.00 bucks would have payed a bill and would have lessened some of the fear in this house. No. I refuse to start stealing to make ends meet, which is what keeping that money would have been. Theft. The money wasn't ours, period.

But who knows... if things get bad enough maybe next time I'll keep the money. I imagine that we all have our tipping point, when things get so bad you get desperate and stupid.

Luckily for the cashier, I haven't reached that line yet.