Working full-time, at nearly twice minimum wage. After debt service ($400 to credit cards, $100 to student loans) and utilities ($200), my super-duper job pays me about $10 a day for food, clothing, fuel, gluten-free work lunches, prescriptions, haircuts, dentists, veterinarians, coffee, TV, cat food, and entertainment ( Read more... )

It's like one of those dreams that break your heart when you wake up and your long-dead mom is no longer in the room... I told myself to get up and get ready and go to the City Market and Chinatown Market and the smoke shop and was up at 5:23 ( Read more... )

Got paid today, and was excited to think that I wouldn't have to make a mortgage payment! But with the closing papers to sign (yay!) I had to send a cashier's check for $1508. I can only hope that at least half of that comes back ( Read more... )

I just got home from the Social Welfare Board, the oldest free clinic in the US. I applied for medical assistance. This is not how I pictured my life in St. Joe.

Yum. Kevin made subtle, crisp-tender zucchini cakes and served each of us two with fried eggs on top. With the girls and the garden giving us food, who needs a paycheck in August?

it's disconcerting to project one's finances, only to find that one is currently in the hole and digging deeper by the day.

I was thinking about how shocked and angry that_dang_otter was at the idea of someone making $12,000.00 a year. then curiosity drove me to The Salary Calculator, where I learned that $12K in Tucson is the equivalent of $14,777 a year in San Jose ( Read more... )

it is a special torture to be starving, to have the food you want wafting its aromas in your mind, and not have the money to buy the materials.

We had a guest in Asian class today, an African-American Taoist priest and chef and acupuncturist and herbalist and a bunch of other things, Nam Singh. He came to talk about food and herbs and give us the barest minimum Herbalism 101. Quite a presence, tall, dark, Ho Chi Minh beard and mustache, and beautiful black silk Taoist robes and skullcap ( Read more... )

SIX THIRTY ON A SATURDAY MORNING Graham calls and wakes me, saying he's not sure if I have to get up because of working today or not. I did have to -- a full two hours later. So I awoke grumpy, to a day with no coffee, no money, no smoking, and $83 in the bank and no income. Looking pretty bleak just now.