brother can you spare a dime.......

It's been said that money makes the world go round, and there is no doubt that one who has wealth has an easier go on their budget, than one who does not. There is a certain amount of freedom that financial affairs can tend to, making the stress of everyday life untroubling monetarily, if you are part of the 1% who acquire a yearly wage of $100,000.00 or more. The other 99% of us make much less and are mostly part of the group commonly known as "middle class", which only means that most of us are living just above the poverty line anyway.

We are the group that essentially pay for every side of the spectrum. Taxes taken out of our paychecks ensure that medicaid carries on (although it has it's own issues to deal with), while our federal government can willy nilly away money to projects that will never really affect us in our lifetime anyway. Large corporations who make millions upon millions of dollars have artful tax accountants and lawyers that know the loop-holes of deductions.... therefore the middle class tax dollars are usually the funding element that supplements revenue needed.

Most households contain two income family members that see to it that food is on the table, the mortgage is paid, and taxes are dealt with. It has become a way of life for many middle classers, because without the income of two people to keep the family structure afloat, it can become to easy to drift into the ocean of poverty if we don't generate revenue to the contrary. Heck, we can easily float into poverty even if we have two incomes, yet spend too liberally. It's all too easy to fall into the vicious cycle once we get started, especially if we want "stuff".

I've worked hard all my life, and this is no secret to anybody who knows me. When I was a freshman in High School I started working by cleaning summer cabins, babysitting, and generally doing anything that would earn me money. I've even picked apples off the trees in an apple farm so that I could earn $10.00 for the day. Needless to say, I quit that job after the first day, as I knew I had a better capacity to be more useful in other areas. Regardless, it was a job I took on because I was $10.00 short of the money I needed to pay for driving lessons the following Monday at school. I also babysat houses for people who were going away on vacation for the week that didn't want to leave their house empty...... one which included a ghost that liked to play funny tricks on me. I filled in for my Mother at my Dad's office, doing accounting work, typing letters, and answering the phone.

After my High School graduation, my Father sat me down on the front steps to our house and had a long talk with me. It was here that he explained the real meaning of life I would have to deal with in the future. He asked me what my plans were for my future, and silly me, I told him that I would probably get married, have a few kids, and that wonderful white picket fence house I always wanted. "Geez," he said, "What if your husband decides to leave you for his secretary.... or better yet, what if he succumbs to an early death and leaves you with children to take care of, what are you going to do then?" I had no answers, and the tears started flowing easily, because he hadn't drilled me like that before, and all I could see was my future down the drain, when I hadn't even really lived yet. He told me that it was important the I come up with a salable skill.... something that would always earn me money, even if it wasn't a lot, but something to get me into the work force and sustain me if the worst possible scenario happened. Starting at the bottom of a company would surely lead me to the top, as I am a quick learner. To this day, it is still one of the best pieces of advice I've ever had, and I made sure to have the same talk to my son, who poo-pooed my lecture with a shake of his wrist. Not to worry, one day it will all come back to him.... of this I have no doubt.

So instead of going to college, I went into the working world, and never looked back.... except for a small class I took in Interior Design while I was still single. When my son was born, I did take time off to be with him for the first couple of years. Since I was against having anyone raising him but myself, I took the helm and stayed out of the work force to teach him the alphabet, numbers, and even made charts of objects he knew so that he could learn the words. We made wonderful progress, and a lot of Sesame Street programs later, his vocabulary was astounding. Then I noticed a major change in myself. I could no longer communicate with adults.... I was, for lack of a better term, a mental midget. I did not have any friends who had babies the same time I did that lived close, and no real adults to talk with on a daily basis. This condition was so bad that I actually invited some Johovah's Witnesses in one day to have tea, as I needed to talk with someone who was my own age. Hubby worked 2nd shift as a chef in a hotel, so he mainly slept during the day, only getting up at 1 pm to get ready for the 3:00 shift. So, yup, I got bored too. It was here that I decided to make another change and reinvent my lifestyle just a tad. I entered my son in a Mothers Morning Out program (very new at the time) where he was able to be with peers and learn structure outside the home. During my freedom of 4 hours in the morning, I went back to work cleaning apartments, as I needed to generate some revenue into the household without having the constraints of a 9 to 5 job. If I ever wanted to move out of the apartment we lived in and into a real house with a yard, I had to do something other than be at home... I had to earn some money somewhere. Besides, babies aren't cheap, and we were just scratching by on the salary hubby generated.

No, I didn't make a killing, but I was able to enroll my son into a structured daycare school ( and I emphasize school here) where they took great care of him. I had a hard time in the potty-training area, and they took completely over. How wonderful peer pressure can be when you have a stubborn child. To me, it was a great relief, and well worth the $75.00 I shelled out every week. And he loved it! The teachers were wonderful souls who took the time to bring the children on field trips, taught them to swim, and held structured classes. Needless to say, my son flourished, and I could get a real job so we could move out of the apartment we were living in and give him a real yard to play in. When he turned six, we finally were able to take that leap and buy a little house that was a bit of a fixer-upper. The fixing up part would still take many years to achieve, but at least we were out and on our way.

I went through a variety of waitressing jobs (easy, quick money) and was finally able to secure a loan so I could buy a restaurant I was working at that the owners had had enough of. Along with two other partners we kept the restaurant afloat for 18 months before we closed the doors in 1998, and went strictly to catering. With the overhead unloaded off our backs, we did flourish in our field, and started making some serious money. Now I could afford to fix up the simple house and bring it out of the 1970's brown "rut". I could also afford to pay off ALL my debts and buy the 4th vehicle I've ever owned so that I would no longer have to run catering orders and equipment in a hyundai hatchback. Things were starting to look up, yet I still did not squander my money away. I didn't move out of my house, I didn't book trips to Europe, I never have gone to a hairdresser or spa for special treatment, and I don't wear jewelry. I sunk money into a Roth and IRA SEP account, putting it to work for me, while I learned to landscape my yard, and renovate my house. Then 9/11 happened, and catering was considered a perk to corporations who bought lunches for their employee meetings. Revenue went down ever so slightly at first, then the bottom dropped out in May 2005 when my biggest account found a caterer who would charge 50 cents less per person for dinner entrees.... leaving only a voice mail to the effect that they wanted to try other options, and never returning my phone calls to see if we could still compete. Since they were 50% of my yearly revenue, we suffered a big hit. It was time for a re-tooling our business, and we are still in the process of keeping ourselves afloat over this today. Easy come, easy go.... but since I come from meager roots, I never let it get me too far down, because I still know the power of bargains and inexpensive shopping techniques.

So, did I make the wrong move to become my own boss? Did I compromise the welfare of my child because I put him in daycare to pursue a piece of the American dream? Not on your life! I have been able to teach him many things in spite of the fact that he spent some years in daycare. I made sure to verse him in techniques of home economics early, and explained that it was my job to send him out in the world ready to tackle simple tasks such as laundry, baking, cooking dinner, yardwork, credit card statements, check-writing, thank-you notes, job expectations, car problems, and a plethora of menial and daily tasks it takes to get through the day. I did this to ensure the fact that one day he will become a husband, and I didn't want his wife to point a finger at me and say, "Why didn't you teach this boy anything?", because I knew that between his father and I, we have covered the basics. In all of this, he still maintains a 3.8 GPA in college, and I don't anticipate that he will ever be standing on a street corner asking passersby if they can spare a dime. One day he may even be his own boss.... he's just that willful, and I'm just that lucky to have him for a son.