Times of Extreme Frugality: Poor v. Poverty

I restarted blogging this summer after The Incident. 

Our only vehicle was totaled and replacing it, even with a low- priced, used vehicle, seriously ate into our savings. We instituted extreme frugality in an effort to replace those savings as soon as possible.

And I began posting about how poor we are, sometimes in laughter, sometimes seriously.

But are we really poor? Not by any reasonable standards.

We are on a fixed income and with careful budgeting, our income covers our expenses and usually can be stretched to build up some savings.

We own our own property, free and clear. We have a reliable car (again). We have no debts. We eat well, have health insurance, internet service, and a cat.

And even the federal government says for a family of two, we do not meet the poverty criteria.

Yes, our income is well below what most would consider is enough to get by in the United States today. But we have resources those in true poverty do not have. 

We both come from middle class families, we are college educated, we grew up with all of the advantages of being white, heterosexuals in safe neighborhoods in the boomer years when optimism for the future was not a pipe dream. 

In short, we were never marginalized or looked down on, we have had the opportunities denied many others. 

We have had many chances over the years to change our career paths and keep up with the Joneses.

But we have also had the luxury to develop our own lifestyle and our finances have mostly been by choice. 

We may well be considered poor compared to others, but we have never lived in poverty. 

I hope I can remember that and be grateful always.

Sproing!

When winter finally concedes defeat, it seems that everything needs to be done AT ONCE: the coop and barn need to be cleaned out, the yard is a disaster, the garden beds are knee deep in weeds. Long to-do lists are made and muscles and backs ache continually from trying to do it all.

But that's not why I haven't posted.

Spring also brings new life: trees bud, tulips and dandelions bloom, bunnies and kittens are born, and we were privileged to spend time with our children and joyfully welcome a new grandson.

But that's not why I haven't posted, either.

I have lost my blogging mojo; nothing seems worth putting fingers to keyboard. This spring I just feel sprung.

For many, many years I have been desiring a more self-reliant, country life; I was a poster child for the back-to-the-land, Mother Earth News generation. I retired early and for 10 years we developed Woodchuck Acres into a mini-farm with chickens and goats and bees and a huge garden; hard work and I loved every minute. Two years ago, we took a leap of faith and moved to Indiana. Our reasons were being closer to our grandchildren, a warmer climate, and more land (without rocks!). 

Those reasons are still valid but my goals are less clear to me.

Various health issues have curtailed what I can reasonably accomplish, roadblocks arise that are tough to overcome and everything seems harder than it should be. I'm thinking the cosmos is trying to tell me something.

In other words, I am in yet another midlife crisis.

(Yes, I know that at 62 years of age, "midlife" may be overly optimistic, but it describes my dilemma as well as any other term I know.)

I am an old hand at re-evaluating my life; I know the drill of touchstones and imagining perfect days, of finding your strengths and plotting dreams. I may be too familiar with the process-- sometimes it can be hard to knock yourself out of your old habits and see things from a new angle, to consider all of the possibilities of the world.

But I am not looking for a radical change. I have no ambitions towards becoming a surgeon or conducting an orchestra. Rather I think I need to tweek what I have and love, to expand it further.

I still love living in the country but I miss the diversity of thought and lifestyle found in a more populated area. I'll give up gardening when you pry my trowel from my cold, dead fingers but I can let go of the obsession with growing everything we eat. The animals of the farm still bring me joy--well, some of the them. Guinea hens are every bit as noisy as their reputations suggest and the sheep have not been a success for us (for sale: 2 Katahdin ewes, one ram, year old). And owning an older house, even with all of the repairs and quirks, still means "home" to me. 

I need some help. Have you ever reinvented your life? Changed directions, sought out new adventures? I'd like to hear about it; not only the "I went back to school at 96 years of age to become an astronaut" showstoppers but the small, meaningful swerves your life took, even the mistakes. 'Cause this baby boomer is anxious to get back in the groove.
 

Ye Olde Repair Person



I don't think ours was labelled this clearly.

    In the 5 months since we moved to Indiana, our computer monitor died, the cd player bit the dust, the television stopped working, the jigsaw wouldn't cut, and the new saw we bought fell apart in our hands the first time we used it. Of all of these modern marvels, only the jigsaw was still under warranty (go, Black and Decker) but they didn't fix it, they sent us a new one (the new new one was exchanged at the store).

   This chain of broken has made me long for the golden days of my youth when THINGS COULD BE REPAIRED.

   You young folk may think it's a myth, but I stand as witness that, in days of yore, not only did appliances operate as advertised for several years but that when there was a problem, a repair person came to your house!

   Ah, the repairman. Thought by some to be a figment of delusional senior citizens, this creature was for real and true. In our family's case, the saint of handiness was Bernie.

   Our console television got heavy use. Jack LaLaine jumping jacks in the morning, episodes of the Mickey  Mouse Club after school, news and Bonanza at night. Expanding our world by three channels in breath-taking black and white. But sometimes that world had wavy lines and fuzzy reception.

   Then we'd call Bernie. His arrival was met with glee by us kids. Bernie came in with his tool box; one of those large metal kits with pop-up drawers full of tubes and electronic gizmos. He'd pull the set out from the wall and take off the back exposing the wires and doohickies that made the magic. And he'd fix it! He was the Albus Dumbledore of television repair and we adored him. I can only imagine the mountain of patience that man must have had to work with an audience of juvenile fans watching his every move.

   I don't remember the other fix-it guys that populated our world back then, although I'm sure there were many. My dad himself was often called out to repair juke boxes and pool tables (he owned a vending business). But I'm afraid the house-calling repair person has gone the way of the 5 cent fudgcycle and the milk door.

   When did we stop trying to fix things? When did we give up and start filling our landfills with plastic junk, our lives with black and white ideas and doomsday despair? Where are the Bernies of the world to connect a wire here, replace a tube there, and give us clear reception, at least for a time. We have to believe that what is broken can be fixed; it's not impossible. Bernie would tell us that.

Kneejerks

In many ways, Lick Skillet is a step up from Woodchuck Acres.

The house is bigger, there is a three car garage (our first functional garage in 40+ years of marriage), we have 3 acres instead of 2, the land is soil instead of rocks, we’re in hardiness zone 6 instead of 5.

But stepping up comes at a price.

We lived at WA for 10 years. That was 10 years in a one story house at ground level. Even though the terrain was hilly, my legs forgot what it was like to climb stairs.

Our Indiana home not only has a second story reached by 13 steps but each entrance requires clambering up 3 steps also.

I thought this would constitute great exercise but my knees have rebelled. I am now lurching awkwardly downward every time I go outside and avoiding the upstairs all together.  And I am shopping for cheap knee braces. If it gets much worse I will be crawling up and down.

In old age we return to childhood, as Shakespeare said,
       

        “That ends this strange eventful history,
        Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
        Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

And I would add, sans knees.

For now, I’m managing but starting to walk stiff-legged like a zombie, at least I haven’t developed a taste for human flesh.

We are not pack rats. In our 41 years of marriage, we've moved many times and every time have cleared out and pared down.

Even so, there are still some things you find when you prepare for another major move.

This morning we cleaned out Tom's file cabinet. Tom is a self-employed musician ( see We interrupt this blog) so he needs to keep business records, music files etc. But as we delved into his papers we found the kind of things that make you wonder "What the hey?"

• Like programs for concerts he never went to.
• Letters of rejection from publishers that went belly-up years ago.
• His 3rd place award for a radio ad that he can't remember writing.
• And our daughter's school newsletter from 1991 when she won the local spelling bee.

We could get all sentimental and nostalgic, maybe shed a tear for time's swift passage. Or we could feel guilty for the amount of stuff we will now be adding to our local landfill.

Either way, moving can be...

...bloodcurdling.

Life is for learning

I'm a child of the 1960s, a Baby Boomer. Come of age during the Vietnam War, flower power, and make love not war.

Whenever I hear "Woodstock" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, I get teary. Not because of nostalgia, not because I went to Woodstock (I didn't even know it was happening) but because my generation blew it.

We were going to change the world. We knew so much more than the establishment, knew sending young men to war was a crime, knew the environment was in danger, knew politicians weren't to be trusted.

And what did we do with that knowledge?

We grew up to be the people who send soldiers to war in foreign lands, grew up to invent more ways to pollute the earth, grew up to support the good ol' boys in both parties.

I never marched for peace and justice, I am not an activist, not political, not one to rally to a cause. But I am ashamed of my generation, saddened by the lost opportunities.

"We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the devil's bargain.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."