Struggling Family in Economy

[me&thegals]

Boohooing and playing victim is useless. But getting help, including meds, isn't freeloading, it isn't being a victim, it's getting some help to get through it. My kids were worth my getting help, even if it leads some people to look down on me.

Basically, there are a lot of choices out there. The biggest problem I see is that the recently well-off don't even *recognize* them as choices.

Well said, Anna Raven. And I think we just don't really know how we would handle something until we are actually in that position. It's easy to point fingers, but when it happens to us.... And even if it has happened to us, I guess I don't really get the attitude of "my life stinks, why shouldn't yours?"

OTOH, it is hard to be a hard worker and see other people not appearing to try as hard and feeling sorry for themselves.

Sorry--I'll stop thinking out loud

 

[yourbadd]

The only real reaction to the article was "why would Yahoo News pick this family for an article of this type?"

Maybe to paint a picture that the families struggling are in that position due to being lazy, undisciplined and financially irresponsible.

It will be easier on the elite and politicians to discount the poor if they can shift the blame off a government who consumed more than it produced, encouraged jobs to be sent overseas and bailed out banks instead of it's citizens. A little on the conspiracy theory side I know but nothing would surprise me with our twisted, corrupt government and the media which suckles at their poisonous teat.

 

[tortoise]

I didn't get to read replies yet, but the first thing I thought of was a nugget from Suze Orman. She was saying that in a divorce, women have emotional attachments to their houses and drown themselves financially.

It might be too late for this family to get out on the house, but I think they should have done it. I want to see a picture of their house. I bet it is huge and nicer than ours. They could bail and move to the midwest where property prices are lower?

I'm with you AnnaRaven. I've been there too - more than once.

 

[lwheelr]

One of the huge issues I see now is that people who are in this situation today CAN'T get the kind of help they really need. They need someone to sit down with them and give them some practical tips - stop whining, set your priorities on what matters, you AREN'T the center of the universe, you CAN survive this, there ARE ways to economize and you can actually ENJOY doing it and gain some serious self esteem if you do.

Nobody is teaching those survival skills. People get depressed and the doctor gives them a pill. The psychiatrist tells them to "fulfill their own needs", the email in the inbox promises easy wealth, the "coach" tells them they deserve whatever they want and if they just "visualize it" and "believe" in it hard enough that they'll get it. The daytime entertainment is filled with people who don't have this kind of problem AT ALL, and for whom money is easy.

So WE all know there is a different reality, and that it is a GOOD one. But how are they going to find the help they need when they need it, even if it is just someone to say "if you want your life to change, you are going to have to change"? The very fact that a reporter interviewed them and showcased them as a "struggling family" reinforces the "poor pitiful me" concept, and validates their helplessness.

The government is now telling everybody that things are getting BETTER, and they are fudging the numbers to try to prove it. So everyone in that situation is hoping to just hold out a little longer until it all comes back. They haven't realized that it is NOT coming back, and that what they have now is going to be long gone before even half of it comes back. This means many people are just hoping they'll never have to change - that they can just ride it out and then go back to the way things were.

It isn't coming back. The way things were is gone. The way things are now is drying up too.

And most of their daily information input is lying to them about it.

 

[MsPony]

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but two IMPORTANT things:

1) Their soil is crap. Hard, desert, poor soil, nothing grows unless you have the money to rework the soil and can provide shade.

2) The school systems suck, hard. Little resources, no money, poor education. That part of Nevada was never intended for families and children. Up north things are better, but the southern part was never intended for schools and children and everything that comes along with it.

 

[JRmom]

I keep going back to that $38,000/yr. - we could live very, very comfortably on that! And carrot sticks, peanut butter and applesauce are considered good eats in my house.

 

[FarmerChick]

don't go off that $38K per year cause WHERE someone lives and their existing bills...sure it could not be done lol

others it would mean foreclosure etc.

 

[me&thegals]

The only real reaction to the article was "why would Yahoo News pick this family for an article of this type?"

Maybe to paint a picture that the families struggling are in that position due to being lazy, undisciplined and financially irresponsible.

It will be easier on the elite and politicians to discount the poor if they can shift the blame off a government who consumed more than it produced, encouraged jobs to be sent overseas and bailed out banks instead of it's citizens.

Good point! If we are all too busy pointing fingers at each other (the general "we"), then maybe we'll forget where a lot of it started.

 

[Marianne]

Ya, that $38K sounds like a lot to me, too - the unemployment benefits in this area would be a lot lower than that.

Just another thought, and I'm sure NOT defending her, but it costs money to move, too, especially if you're aiming half way across the country - kids, meals, no job or friends or family to stay with at the end of the journey, etc, etc. If she can't figure out how to get by with what she's got, she sure can't figure out how to make the transition....'nuff said.

I bet at this point, she's just paralyzed with fear and depression. Been there, hated it, won't do it again for longer than 20 minutes. Then it's time to ACT.

Don't they have a free lunch and breakfast program at their schools?

 

[me&thegals]

I bet they have free lunch. I would have to be doing REALLY badly to put my kids on it.

It'd be nice if we could all acknowledge that their numbers don't mean very much in comparison to each of our own lives unless we know their property taxes, sales tax, cost of living, etc.