As some of you know, Danny and I are in a bit of a financial pickle. A lot of circumstances and personal choices have led us to where we are. I am not writing this to place blame on others because I am aware of the choices that I/we have made to get us to where we are. But at the same time, I feel much of it could have been avoided if some of the systems that I/we have fought against hadn't been so rigid and uncaring.
Currently, Danny and I have very little income of our own. I am only working part-time, as I've not been able to find anything more and Danny is in school full-time thanks to a lovely federal Pell Grant that covers the whole of tuition plus enough left over for books and transportation. I am also still receiving unemployment benefits and Danny is receiving Social Security Supplemental Income (SSI). All of us are on State funded health-care, and we receive EBT benefits for food. The majority of our income comes from tax-payer funded sources. Now, I am beyond grateful that these things exist and I am more and more understanding of people who need them. Which, I think has taught me much compassion and tolerance that I have severely been lacking in my life. I honestly feel like God has been using this experience to not only teach me/us to be better stewards of our money but also to expose us to people outside of our comfort zone and to teach us to love them in a new way.
That being said, with funds nearing the end and benefits being cut left and right due to budget demands and lack of funds on the other end to finance as many people who are out of work and are left to rely on them, I am wondering if perhaps we'd not be in this predicament if just somewhere along the way, there had been more flexibility back when I was trying to get funding to go to college. I fought for years to try and gain in-state status when I was in school and was constantly denied even though I haven't lived with my parents since I went off to college at 17 and then got my own apartment at 18. I also tried getting loans and grants and scholarships to help me pay for college and I was nearly always denied. I had excellent credit for my age but since I was a single female under 24, they wouldn't let me file FAFSA or anything else alone. And with my father being a business owner, they considered the equity of his business as income and denied me anything. Then I moved back to CT, and thought surely I'd be able to afford college here. I was able to get in-state status just fine, but the cost of living was so much higher that I couldn't ever seem to save up enough to get me started because I still couldn't get grants or loans.
Finally someone said to me that unless I was 24 years old or married, I'd not be able to apply without my parents being attached. So, I decided to wait. Then, I met Danny and we got married when I was 24, had our beautiful daughter when I was 25 and now I'm 28 and expecting our 2nd little one. I wonder where time went to. I still have intentions to go back but now, I'm at the point where when I do go back to school, my income is at the point where it'll surely be paid by grants and loans. But I can't help but feel tax-payers (myself included) would have been saved so much money if only I'd not been denied the grants and the student-loans the first time around.
It makes me wonder how many other people are in similar situations and wonder if the unemployment rate wouldn't be as high right now if people had the chance at more education. It makes me wonder if we would perhaps not have the governmental deficit that we have it weren't such a battle to make something better of yourself.
Then on the other side of it all. After being on assistance from many sides for so long and then finding some work even though it's only part-time. My un-employment benefits get slashed, my food stamps benefits get slashed and then Danny's SSI goes down all because I'm trying to get out of the situation that I'm in. But it's not at all tied together. I've gained approx. $50/month working over what I was making on unemployment alone, yet because of it. We lose $250 dollars in SSI and $150 dollars in food stamps. I wonder sometimes what they're thinking. How to they think that gaining $50 = losing $400 and that somehow I'm supposed to just be ok with it. They've got the system set up so that people are penalized tremendously for trying to get out of their situation. Which just lends them to being in a bigger whole than where they started. There needs to be reform and there needs to be awareness and people need to know that there is a chance to start over not just a chance to squeak by for the rest of their lives.
I don't know what to do other than try and get things to change but how does one implement change from the bottom? How does one get their story heard? How does one balance fighting to make it better while still trying to fight to make it through the day? How can one plan for the future when today seems uncertain itself.
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