The Army preaches it. The "experts" preach it. Your high school Life Management Skills or Economics teacher preached it. Every condescending jerk you know preaches it the loudest of all. It's the cliche financial advice we've all grown up on here in the good old USA.
"Live within your means. If you don't have enough money, you need to cut out extravagance."
"If you save, you'll be able to handle any emergency."
"Work hard and spend wisely. That'll get you where you want to be."
And the condescending jerk would say, "People who don't have enough money are that way because they were stupid. Stop blowing all your money on smokes, booze, and junk food, and you won't have these problems anymore."
We all grew up on this, or some version of this. Be smart, do well. Then it's usually followed up with some story about how your grandfather stepped off the boat from whatever country with absolutely nothing, and started a business that is now a Fortune 500 company because he worked hard, and was smart with his money. It's a simple yet iconic principle, and the absolute foundation of our lives here in the US. I don't care who you are, you have internalized this concept to some degree, in some form. It's the American dream, life in the land of opportunity. The world is our oyster. Every American kid grew up knowing that, and if you ever forgot, someone would remind you.
What happens when it all crashes down, though, even though you did everything right? Plenty of people will assume it's because you were stupid, or did something wrong. The group consensus will be that you definitely deserved what you got. What if you didn't, though? What if you did everything right, and it all still fell? What if you had a bigger savings balance than most people you knew, invested wisely in precious metals (way more secure than stocks these days), and had cut out all but the very basics (no TV, eating beans and rice 7 days a week) and it still wasn't enough? What if your husband worked 60 hours a week (although the way his job paid, he'd see pay for maybe 30 of those hours), and still didn't bring in enough to pay but 1/3 of the bills? What if he did everything he could to get a better job, even if it was in the oil fields, or a copper mine, or Afghanistan, and none of that stuff panned out right away? What if you sold everything of value except family heirlooms and your ring that he just wouldn't let you part with, and while it tided you over for a while, it didn't take long for things to get right back to as bad as they were? Are you still a stupid, irresponsible person, who deserved what they got?
Thak and I, and our three babies, have been through a lot in the past year, and I just think it's time to say something about some of the popular misconceptions. First of all, beliefs-wise, we are mostly Libertarian. We believe in personal responsibility, and individual liberty, and don't want the government in our lives if at all possible. That's why we never got things like food stamps, medicaid, or public housing. We believed, and still believe, very strongly, that we absolutely need(ed) to fix our situation ourselves. We are not a drain on society any more than anyone else, and I am not, in any way, shape, or form, defending welfare mentality.
The offense that landed us where we were, was Thak deciding that three tours in a bullshit war our government should never have waged, was more than enough, and getting out of the Army. In retrospect, I should have told him how stupid I thought that decision was all along, but I didn't, and he, who had been military affiliated all his life (and a soldier for over half of it), stepped out into the civilian world totally unprepared for what it had in store. Yes, the Army has classes for that, but no amount of preparation will truly do the job for someone who has literally never been fully civilian a day in his 36 years on the planet. The job he had when he got out, which was actually a very good job compared to most in our city (and many other cities) only paid 1/3 of our bills, and our savings kept us afloat for a while. When you're pulling 2/3 of your expenses each month out of savings, though, it really doesn't last long, no matter how much you had in there. We couldn't afford our house, and we couldn't afford to move, because on what he was making, there's no way anyone would lease to us, and we couldn't afford a deposit anyway. We could sell our cars, yes, but the public transit system in our city was so bad that we wouldn't have been able to effectively rely on it. Not to mention, the auto selling market there was horrible, with vehicles generally going for well below book value. We tried to sell the truck. It did not go well.
Instead, we cut out everything but the very basics. We didn't have TV, and for a long time, we only had internet because someone on our block left their WiFi unsecured. We didn't have phones for a while either, although we really tried to keep some form of phone on because Thak was looking for another job, and people had to be able to reach him. For a while, I was completely cut off from the outside world. I had no phone, no internet, no TV. It would be really easy to say, "Well, our grandparents lived like that and were fine!" but these days, if your friends can't get in touch with you via social network or text message, and you can't spare the gas to go visit anyone, it isn't long before people start to just forget about you. Our culture isn't conducive to having no way to reach the outside world. It was 100 years ago, but a lot has changed between now and then. Everyone loves to hold other people to old standards, but it's not really that simple.
We ate beans and rice, and whatever we could grow in that hard desert climate (squash and peppers mostly), and we survived minute to minute, always fearing a knock on the door, because it was never good news. Either the electricity was being turned off, the water was being turned off, we were losing our house, or the truck was being repossessed. I think that was the worst part, and it's one thing Thak will never truly understand. He was always at work when this stuff happened. I was on the front lines in that fight. The people who come to do those jobs treat you like the scum of the earth, and I always wanted to say, "I'm not scum. I'm the wife of a soldier who served three tours in Iraq, and I'm a veteran, too. We are just trying to survive out here. No, my husband isn't here, because he's working about 60 hours a week. We don't want to skip out on our bills, we're trying so hard to pay, and if you gave us just 3 more days, you'd have your money." (They always came right before payday.) Not that it would have mattered. I just couldn't stand the way they looked at me, like I wasn't quite human, like this was definitely my fault, that I was the enemy.
I think it's very uncomfortable for people to see, hear, or read this kind of thing. If you've made it this far, you're better than most people. I think people want to believe that these things only happen to people who are totally messed up and stupid because they don't want to believe it can happen to them. I'm not saying it will happen to anyone else. I hope it doesn't. I think it sucks that it happens to anyone. The idea is, though, it CAN happen to anybody, and that is an uncomfortable truth to live with.
I would also point out that it can happen anywhere. I read something recently about the so-called "hidden poor" in the suburbs of a lot of cities. Basically, it was people who live in nice neighborhoods, and everything looks good on the outside, but just below the surface, it's all falling apart. That's how it was for us. We had a nice house in a very popular neighborhood. We drove nice cars. We looked like anybody else on the outside, but if you looked a little closer, you'd see that the nice exterior was hiding a lot. I honestly think if more people saw the reality of this kind of thing, and realized that it's not the result of people buying stuff they can't afford, but by losing the ability to afford the stuff they already have, we'd see a very different attitude toward this whole thing. It would be seen as unfortunate when people fall on hard times, not the result of some lack of common sense like it is seen now. I think a lot of people don't want to really know how bad the economy has gotten, and by dismissing the things that have happened to people as a result of this economy, as the result of their own stupidity, they can probably sleep a little better at night. It is, indeed, an uncomfortable truth.
There is a happy ending for us. Thak got a job with a firm that is paying him very nicely, nowhere near what the Army did, but better than the average American worker. We moved to the middle of nowhere, and shoved our family of five people and three animals, plus all the stuff that comes with an 8 year marriage, into a 2 BR apartment. We sold the truck for more than we owed on it, because here, vehicles go for more than they did in our old city. We share my car, which is very fuel-efficient, and that's a good thing since we live about 30 miles from the airfield Thak works at. We are trying to catch up, and doing ok. There may not be any trips to Key West on the horizon, but we have enough to eat, and it's really good food; And these days if someone knocks on the door, it's always a neighbor either asking if Erin can come play, or for Thak's help fixing something.
We have found our way out. There are a lot of others who have not. I find it irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the reasons this is happening. A lot of people are struggling, not because they are stupid and irresponsible, but because this economy is ridiculous. We need to focus on fixing it, and helping those individuals when we have the opportunity to do that, instead of lecturing them on saving for a rainy day and living within their means. A lot of them already know that stuff. What they need, is their electric bill paid, internet to find a better job, or something filling to eat. Be aware. Help where you can. That's the only way it'll get better.
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