All due respect-  not everybody’s financial woes include lobbying for BYOB at a restaurant.  I had a great high-tech training business that would have been 20 years old this year.  We had an amazing client base, and a terrific income.  Due to the mentally-ill husband I lost a business that we could have sold, and I had to start a new one. Life insurance, anyone?

He went off to live with his mommy and daddy at age 51, leaving me with a house that he had deliberately left unsaleable, and our two wonderful children to support.

Since I was left with all the debts of a formerly prosperous business, but none of the resources with which to pay them, my financial woes started 3 years ago. 

After two years, he has only now begun to work again, and provide child support, and that only because his parents forced him to do both.  I’m grateful not to eat rice and beans any more.  I’m grateful not to have to get Salvation Army food boxes any more in order to feed my children.

I was graduated from one of the Seven Sisters.  I’m tri-lingual.  Sometimes things *don’t* work out.  I assure you, when you are worried about keeping a roof over the head of your children, you will not care about the latest fashions in the slightest.

Constance

who understands that you want to be funny.  Do you understand that funny is relative?

"with everyone so hard up, nobody realized they were poor. Economizing is not yet a jolly team sport"

This statement and the context behind it reflects something i’ve been thinking all along for the past year. We keep reading about and having articles written on the economy and how it’s affecting us. And i keep reading between the lines of these things how freaking spoiled we’ve been as a country. Yes I know there are people out there going hungry. I worked for CPS for cryin out loud. But on the whole we don’t even know real poverty here. Not as a nation. We almost can’t even fathom it. So a lot of the articles come off as just flat out whining to me. whining about how things didn’t go the way we thought they would. About how our dreams of mass consumption somehow translated in our brains to "our right" as americans or alive people or something. I liked this piece because she recognizes that. And she does it with humor. she says "ya I know i wanted to much" but I wanted what I wanted and it isn’t easy to go back from that. And i expect that it isn’t. Although somehow I doubt that with more than one published book she’s actually debating selling a $5 yard sale purchase.

It’s almost humorous to hear the rich whine about having to come down to Earth amongst us lowly commoners. Oh my: she has to have her hair done at a "cheapo salon". She has to pay for a taxi cab. Welcome to the real world.

To James- I hear you, that we shouldn’t be so selfish as to think we are way above and now lowering ourselves to something less just to get by, but it’s the truth. In better days we would have never considered a lessor salon, eatery, dry cleaner, etc. As such I have been able to see first hand why we paid more for something better. Everytime I have to scale down to something less than what I was used to, I’m reminded of that movie from the ’80s, Arthur when Dudley Moore tells Liza that if he’s stripped of his wealth, they would have to eat cheap disgusting food.

Since (my own experience with pink slip) having to economize, I either have to cook at home or, subjected to eating cheap disgusting food. No longer able to afford nice meals at great restaurants. But hey, that’s just one compromise I’m mentioning. The story "Little Pink Slips" tells it real.

Wanting less or spending less, still takes some getting use to even after 3 1/2 yrs.

Cestlavie