My Finances Give Me Anxiety Attacks

   Payday: a day that everyone should look forward to. Money in the bank and all that jazz. But here I am, looking at payment schedules for my student loans, looking at the cable bill, electric, and rent, looking at credit card payments (yeah, yeah, I know), looking at the grocery bill; basically, I am looking at all the money that I do not have anymore. Oh, money, you slip through my fingers so damn fast. I hate you money, but at the same time, I have to have you: I need you. I feel like I'm talking to my drugs or something, but it is what it is. If I were richer, perhaps I wouldn't have this love/hate relationship with money, or perhaps I would just have more bills.
   Every payday I go through that wonderful anxiety attack induced by paying my bills. I'm not entirely sure why I have these anxiety attacks; I always manage to pay all the bills. I've never been short. Sometimes we have to get a little skimpy on the grocery bill and have some mac n cheese nights, but really, who doesn't ever have to do that? Most people have experienced the wonder of a mac n cheese payday. So I'm not really sure why I feel the anxiety that I feel. Maybe because all of my adult life, I've been poor. I'm doing a lot better now. I guess I still fall even with that good-old poverty line, but for all of the years but the last one, I was under that line, so breaking even with that line is a step up.
   But the point is this: I've always paid my bills and I don't pay them late. I don't get cable termination warnings. I don't get the power company stalking me and threatening to turn my power off. No nasty notes from the landlords on my front door when I get home from work; even my credit card company never has to call me all like, "Marie, pay your bills, please." The only calls that I used to get were from those people who stole my information and then would attempt to try to get me to pay for fake loans that I never took out, and since I changed my number, the only time the bastards can call me now is at work. Which is annoying, to be sure, but most of the times, I don't even get those calls because as a lowly cashier (joking here, folks) personal calls are not allowed, thank God. They do attempt to e-mail me, but e-mail has that lovely little spam button... it's awesome. I wish we could spam phone calls.
   Back to the anxiety though, I really am not sure what causes this feeling. Maybe it's because I'm still getting phone calls for Tara, even though I've had this number for a year and a half now, and Tara's bill collectors have all been notified that this is Marie's number now, but they don't believe me. Bill collectors are like blood hounds when it comes to money, so around every payday, I start getting calls about Tara. Her rent check didn't clear. She owes someone money in Las Vegas. She's being taken to court by so-and-so. Tara, my friends, is in big financial trouble, and because her effing bill collectors won't stop leaving messages on my machine, I am privy to all of Tara's financial woes. Because bill collectors are stupid assholes, I also know Tara's address, the last four digits of her social, and her last name, but I won't put that here. In fact, if you know a Tara, and if you are thinking, "Shit, is she talking about Tara, so-and-so!" then the answer is no, because I changed Tara's first name. Tara is not actually her name, but I believe in protecting my fellow debtor's information. But that's off track, and to get back on that track, maybe what I am feeling is sympathy anxiety??? Maybe I am worried about Tara??? I don't know.
   I really don't know. Maybe my anxiety is leftover stress from my days of extreme poverty, maybe I am feeling this anxiety because I'm worried about Tara, or maybe I just don't like giving other people the effing money that I worked my ass off for, even if I do legitimately owe those people that money. Or maybe it's just the fact that the kiddo is growing like a weed, she's fixing to be out of school for the summer, which means no more school meals, and my grocery bill is gonna triple. Who knows? Not me. All I know is that payday is the day where I add up all the money that I no longer have and consequently have anxiety attacks. A lot of you, I believe, are probably familiar with this feeling, so let us ban together now and have moment of silence for money that is forever gone from our lives. Solidarity and all that good crap. Or misery loves company. Something.

Goodbye, sweet money. I'll miss you. 

Living Wage

   I am thankful for many things in my life, and one of the things that I am (I won't say most, but really, near the top of the list) thankful for is my job. Sure, a checker job is not that glamorous, nor does my job require an abundance of intellect. But the one thing that sets my job apart from other cashier's jobs is that I make a wage that I can survive off of, without the aid of government assistance. To be clear, my job did start me out at minimum wage, and during those times I had to live with my mom and my sister to make ends meet, but my job has a pretty good raise system, and if you don't run afoul of the rules, you eventually come to a point when people are going, "You make how much money??? For being a cashier???" Granted, none of us are rich, but we can survive if we budget right and don't buy things that we don't need.
   But there are a lot of people who are not in that position. They make minimum wage and they have been for years because their jobs don't give raises more then the 10 cent raise every two years, or some similar nonsense, and that makes it hard. Especially because minimum wage is so low compared to our country's cost-of-living. And the first argument to that statement that I usually hear is, "Well, try living in a third world country." Well, I thank God that I don't, but how do you think that this is a reasonable argument? You are comparing one of the richest countries in the world to the poorest? To me, that is like comparing apples and oranges. Yeah, they are both fruit, but other than that, they don't have a lot in common. To me, comparing the United States to other wealthy countries would be more realistic, because all I can say is that I pay over $600 for my built before the 1960's, 700 square foot, one bedroom apartment, and somehow, I doubt that this is the rent in a third world country. If it is, then I have full sympathy for those people, but we still have poor here. Their suffering does not negate our fellow countryman's suffering.
   A second argument is that all poor here have microwaves and the poor in other countries do not. Well, a lot of us do. Microwavable food, in the United States, is often cheaper by far then food that you need to prepare and cook. But not all of the poor have microwaves. Not all of the poor are walking around with Ipods and laptops and other gadgetry. Ever seen a homeless person with a microwave strapped to his/her back? I haven't.
   There is a lot of entitlement in this country, and while I think that government programs need to be in place for people who have hit hard times or are disabled, be it physical or mental, I also understand that there are quite a few people who 'work' the system, and that needs to stop. But barring those people, we have a whole class of the working poor; these are people who work full time jobs, sometimes two, and they still have to utilize these programs because they are not paid a wage that they can live off of. 
   I have heard the arguments that not all jobs deserve a wage that you can live off of, which to me is elitist bullshit. Of course, if you are thinking that, then you are thinking that of course I think that, I am just a lazy cashier, and my job was meant for a teenager. Well, I am not gonna argue what age you need to be to do my job. I have, at a former job, trained a fourteen year old to be a cashier. They couldn't keep him on the register because he couldn't get the hang of counting back change, but  I don't think that this is the norm for most teenage kids. My daughter could do it, I believe. She couldn't deal with the asshat customers that come through my line from time to time. We have had grown cashiers in tears because some giant-walking-turd came through with a chip on their shoulder and decided to take it out on someone just trying to do their job, but really, I digress. The low minimum wage affects more than cashiers and fast food workers and servers, and they do deserve a decent wage, regardless of elitist opinions.
   Would you job snobs say that early childhood education is worthy of earning a living wage? Because a lot of them do NOT (just to provide a different field of work here). My sister is in this field, and she makes maybe a dollar above minimum wage. She is not alone; all of her coworkers are in the position of working a full time, sometimes high-stress job, and needing government assistance to survive. I would say that anyone working with children, teaching them letters, numbers, helping them potty train, and nurturing them deserves a wage that they can live off of without government assistance. They don't get this, at least not in my neck of the woods. And it is not because the company can't afford it, and it's not because prices would raise. This is due to corporate greed, in my opinion. Yes, companies have a right to make a profit, but if you cannot afford to pay your employees properly, then your company has not grown to the point where you should have employees. Or at least not so many of them.
   I am going to go back to my company. I don't have permission to affiliate myself with the company that I work for (not that I have asked, but this is MY blog, and I don't want to place myself in the position where I am having to ask permission for what I write, so try to leave names out of it), but my company is one of the lowest priced stores in the area. Our prices often beat Walmart. From my own inquiries, I believe we are one of the best paid, and we get good benefits. Of course there are flaws and issues, but name a place that doesn't have them. I get paid above what I have seen suggested as a living wage, which is $11 an hour. I make a good amount more than that. People fight raising minimum wage because they say that it will cause inflation, that companies can't afford it, that prices will rise, YET I have just told you that my store pays a good amount of their employees above $11 an hour, due to the raise system that they have in place. Probably over half, because once people get in with my company, they try their best to stay with them, and the raise system in place rewards longevity. I have TWO COLLEGE DEGREES, and I don't want to leave. Because my company pays me well, provides my with affordable insurance and works with me on hours scheduled so that I have plenty of time for my other, more important job: being a mom.
   Federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25( of course we know that this varies from state to state, and here in Washington, where I live, it's $9.19 an hour); that's not enough for the cost-of-living in the United States. Poverty exists in the United States. Need proof, here's two links: Seattle One Night Count and National Center For Children In Poverty. These are links to one organization that is close to my home and one that is the United States in it's entirety. I chose these links because they outline the amount of children in poverty, and in a country as wealthy as this one, I find the amount of children living in poverty appalling. A living wage would reduce that amount drastically. No; this wouldn't get rid of the people who abuse the system, but this would get those who are working and who work hard, out of the welfare system, relieving some of that burden, and the reduction of numbers could ease an overtaxed system with overtaxed workers, which in turn might provide time for said workers to start weeding out the abusers. Make sense? Does to me. Plus, a living wage is the right thing to do. 

Reminiscing

   Today, I have been thinking about the past. Of course, if you have all been reading, you know that my daughter got her shots. The final count of shots was five, by the way. They just kept adding up. But she is doing well, and we got through the first visit with her doctor, and I think that I am really going to like him. I didn't like the last one, which was one that I kinda had to go with, because when we first came up here, I had no job, no GED, and was starting my life over, so I needed state help, which meant state medical for my daughter, and you don't get a choice of doctors. At least, not like you do with regular insurance, which is what I have now thanks to a good job.
    And that has been what I have been thinking about: how different things are now for me and my daughter. Once we were really, really poor. We lived in a one room shack with a tin roof and rotted floors, filled with eight people, on land that had been used to bury trailers. Why did people bury trailers? I don't know, but when I planted my vegetable garden, because I needed more food to feed everyone than my meager salary could buy, I kept digging up weird shit. It's kinda scary that we ate stuff that was planted in that, but you don't think of that kind of stuff when you are desperate.
  When my daughter was born, she didn't come home to a nursery full of new baby furniture or even cherished hand-me-downs. The crib that I had for her was a wreck, and it was missing screws and the wood was splintered so that new screws would just fall out, so I had it rigged together with a wire coat hanger, and this crib is the reason that my daughter shared a bed with me. I was grateful for a lot of the things that we were given, because many of them were good and we really needed them, but why someone gave us this crib, I don't know. I was scared to put her in that coat-hanger crib, so she slept with me. My bed was a busted futon that had the shape of a U, but was much safer than that crib. Eventually, when she was older, someone gave us a toddler bed, but by then she was used to sleeping with me, and that is a hard habit to break a kid out of. (Of course, at eleven, she does not sleep with me still.)
   Cooking was another thing that was hard. In college, when I actually went to a campus and not online, like I eventually switched to, I had someone tell me that people in America don't know what poor is, and that all poor people have microwaves and enough food, and while I do not dispute the fact that I would rather be poor in America than in a third-world country, I want to know how many of you have seen the homeless walking around with a microwave strapped to their backs? I fail to see that. I am not saying that I was that bad off, because I wasn't, but I am just pointing that out. There are plenty of people in America that don't get enough to eat and don't have things like microwaves and TVs and the like. I can take you down to Seattle and show you so many homeless people that the local homeless shelters can't take them all in, and I can also show you that quite a few of them are kids. But I digress...
   We did have a microwave, donated by a generous person, because we did not have a stove. We had a microwave and a two-burner hot plate, and while I was grateful for this, try cooking for eight people with nothing but a microwave and a hot plate on a daily basis. It sucks.
    I was thinking about all of this, because I am grateful that I have so much now. I have been off of all state programs for a year. Food stamps and medical I have been off of for several years, but until recently I did receive state help to pay for child care. But now  I don't get that, and the biggest feeling: relief. I feel like I can take a deep breath and not be ashamed. I never wanted to be on any of those programs, and being on those programs is so hard, because every one assumes that you are abusing the system. I'm really happy to be off of them! The stigma was really hard to deal with.
   I also have my own apartment. I lived with my mom for the longest time, and actually haven't even spent a whole year by myself yet. And my mom was really great, so don't think I am complaining.  I am really grateful for the help that she gave me and my daughter. Asking for that help was really hard though, because on top of the poverty, I was keeping partner abuse a secret too, and that is something that is really embarrassing and hard to admit to and ask for help with. You feel a deep shame, deep in your bones, that you let things get that bad. I had kept all of that a secret, and no one is ever going to know everything, because I just can't talk about it.
   But now we have our own apartment, and I felt really extravagant because I hooked up cable. But we can actually afford it, and  I can afford to do everything on my own, with no financial help from state or family (although I get a lot of other types of support from family, but I hope I supply my share of support to them as well.) And the best thing of all, if I hadn't liked this doctor, I can easily change my doctor. People don't understand a lot of things about state supplied insurance. A lot of providers just will not accept state insurance, finding a good provider can be really difficult, and a lot of time, there is just no choice about who you can see.
   My biggest example was when I was pregnant, in Florida, and I didn't even have a choice at all of where I could go. If I had been considered high risk, I would have gone to a hospital for my check-ups, but I was not, so I went through the Health Department. No choice, go there or go nowhere. And those doctors were not always nice, and you always saw a different one, so you were never sure what you were going to deal with. And one time, during a pap smear (I know, I know, but I won't go into complete detail) I felt really bad pain, and I told the doctor that I was in pain she snapped at me, "You need to learn the difference between pain and pressure. This does not hurt." It did though, and afterwords, I was bleeding: a lot. She had torn me during the examination. (<---- This is probably where my doctor phobia stems from.) Another doctor came in and was giving her a funny look after she verified that I had been torn, and the woman just shrugged. That was all my pain was worth to her.
   That is the type of health care that state insurance provides for people. Okay, to be fair, there are some really good doctors, and some people get really good care, but it's a toss up. So I am really, really glad that  I do not have to depend on state benefits. And that was what I was thinking about a lot today. I'm really grateful that I have been given the support from family and the opportunity to get myself back on my feet. Sometimes I just feel the need to sit back and be grateful for the fact that  I have managed to come so far from where I was. This is one of those days, so  I am sorry for the somewhat sappy, depressing post, but this is my past as well as the funny stories and zombies and games and books. People have a lot of aspects, and this is one of mine. Now go do something fun and be happy. Because I am going too; I feel the need to really reminisce and go play Final Fantasy VII. And after that, I am going to continue to improve my life. Ain't nothing stopping me now. Except maybe bad grammar.