I don’t care what people say, it is HARD to pull yourself out of being poor, and the American system makes sure of it.
Here is a great example: we spent almost 2 years with zero extra income. We made enough to pay our bills, but minimal food (until we went on food stamps for three month), and have gas most of the time. When you have to collect all the lose change in the house to be able to pay for enough gas to get to work so you can try and bum $5 off a coworker to get you home and back in time for payday, that’s when you know you are poor. I am still dealing with crap from my divorce which won’t be resolved until we are much more financially stable. C, on the other hand, only had $3500 in student loans. We tried to work out a deal with them to get on a payment plan but the jerk he talked to last year told him that even with financial hardships he had to pay $200 a month. Well we didn’t have $200 a month so we just continued to let it go. As soon as C got a new job we went on a payment plan (which was somehow down to $76 a month, but we wet with the $200 that we were expecting) and then paid them off with the rest of our tax refund.
Then the jeep broke. We have no car. C has to have a truck or he will lose his job. He makes $40,000 a year now with no debt and we have more than enough extra income after this next paycheck to make a decent car payment but because of his student loan history nobody will give us a loan, not even with a co-signer. So now our only option is to buy whatever $300 junker we can find or beg family members to help us. I hate this. We are trying so hard to do this ourselves. I am so tired of everything being hard. The system is set up to keep people down, and if you think it isn’t then you have never been poor.
I agree with you. It’s been hard for us as well. We’re in a strange financial gray zone where even if you get a raise or make extra money, it’s immediately taken away. Our income improved last year significantly and we brought home no extra money because we were bumped into a high tax bracket. We make “too much” to get food stamps, yet we can’t afford food and now we have to buy mandatory healthcare because we bumped into another bracket. So even though we are netting an extra $500 a month, it’s all gone plus some. We’re worse off at $30k a year than we were at $20k a year.