 | Blogs > JackXsup > Notes on a Writer's Life > Living on a Penney When You Were Used to a Dime |
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Not Yet a Total Bum, I'm a Lot Worse Off Than I Was There are many worse off than I am; I know, I spent some time with a number of them recently. At least I'm not penniless, not yet; so I'm not a societal outcast, a derelict. Well, not yet. That could come. I've lived on social security that is so little, it couldn't pay the mortgage on my little mountain house. At the time SoSec. calculated it and sent my first check, I was grateful that it was anything at all. I hadn't worked at a job that deducted it out for me in over 17 years, making what little living I did from from freelance writing. I'd been lucky that I had parents who believed in me and in the work I was doing, writing a novel. They provided for me in their wills. The work went well until my mother died. Then my writing dried up and so did I. It took seven years to realize some things and begin the book again. Unfortunately, while I only lived at all lavishly on my father's quarter, most of it invested in a home where my mother spent her last days with us, I was on dimes by the time social security came, and it was pennies. You can't tell me that a single person can live as well as a couple can. It takes two today to make ends meet to have more than two pennies to rub together. I'm beginning to appreciate more than ever these unwed, and/or abandoned mothers and how they cope. I found this out painfully when I found myself more-or-less suddenly alone. When I didn't have even the pennies that were enough that my social check afforded, I borrowed. Getting bills paid, the mortgage, medical insurance and nearly a thousand dollars a month to climb out of the Medicare "do-nut hole," I borrowed against excellent credit. This way, I still had some dimes left to get new printers when mine broke down, and other items to provide start-up for a business venture, a long-held dream that at the time seemed just right to proceed with. And still keep my head above water for awhile. Waiting for a reverse mortgage to finalize and keep the mortage paid was a challenge. When it was closed, there wasn't much in my drawing account. I'll empty soon to pay back credit card companies and continue to live. It seemed banks were going to make up their exorbitant "stimulus" pay the government was asking for with my hide. Not yet living on pennies, but I am having to think more and more that way. I bought a pair of reading glasses, and as usual thought that if I broke them, as I do, I could just buy another pair. But not so fast, Bub, those were dime days, think in pennies now. Don't break the glasses, there might not be money to replace them. My thinking is having to change, and that's not easy. I understand now the sacrifice my parents made living on pennies themselves at times to provide me the quarters and dimes that they did later. So, as a priviledged man, my way has to change. I've layed out things to sell off and am looking for other opportunities to make some quarters to pay debts. Many say to me, you've got to give up your home; and, if needed, throw yourself on the mercy of the state to take care of you. Get a place where you can have help when you need it, so you don't fall and break another bone. Maybe that sounds good to some, but I guess I'm just too proud. It's not the first time I've been deep in debt, and paid every penney of it back, though not when they wanted it. I was without credit for seven years; then slowly built it up to the top of the ladder. You need good, if not excellent, credit to maintain a business. Knowing what it's like to be down, I also knew the risk I took, when I took the banks' money, but jumped off the precipice anyway. I couldn't loose my little house in the woods so close to getting a solution. Giving up my home and how it's arranged for my various endeavors now, to be shunted into a small space, doesn't seem to me the way I want to live. So, I have to trust Providence and my own work to dig me out of the hole I've put myself in financialy, and in other ways; such as the anxiety of living like this. If pennies aren't enough, I'll have to count out ten at a time and make do, until I can get back to shinny dimes. c-Copyright 2009 KHE by the author of this blog You can bring the light to the darkness; you cannot bring the darkness to the light |
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11/8/2009 5:46 pm |
Hate to be the voice of doom, but it may take more time this time to bounce back. I have been where you are and it isn't any fun.
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