Queercents

“Strong and content I travel the open road.” – Walt Whitman

When people learn that I spent almost four years living in an RV, they often have many questions about my former lifestyle.  Living in an RV seems almost romantic, especially if travel is involved.  I am often asked for advice when people consider making a similar move.

When I lived in my RV, it wasn’t because I was planning to travel and see the world.  For me, it was simply a matter of economic necessity.  I was in the middle of a financial implosion, my home was in foreclosure, I had filed bankruptcy, and I moved into my trailer as a way of avoiding homelessness.  Although I certainly would have liked to travel, my job and lack of credit kept me firmly in place.

But there are a lot of people who are successfully living the nomadic RV lifestyle.  Some, like the folks over at Geeks on Tour, run their own business from the road.  Others, like Tioga and George, are retired and choose a more frugal lifestyle in Mexico.  Retired or not, it is possible to live on the open road if that’s the lifestyle you choose for yourself.

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“In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work.  It is invisible and remains so, maybe for 20 years.” – Jacques Barzun

Our 13-year-old daughter is in the middle of her own financial implosion.  On the last day of June, after spending several days with a friend, she stepped into my office and remarked, “Gee, I am going to need to save some money!”

I played stupid, even though I knew what was up.  Since the beginning of the year, our daughter has been regularly raiding her savings account.  Over the past six months, she has reduced it from a high of $275 to a mere five bucks.  Since our credit union requires a minimum balance of $5, she’s effectively brought her savings down to zero.

I tried to keep things casual.  “Oh?” I replied.

“I went to the bank when I was staying with my friend, and I didn’t have any money!”

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“Celebrate your success and stand strong when adversity hits, for when the storm clouds come in, the eagles soar while the small birds take cover” – Unknown

Although we have been surviving my wife’s recent period of unemployment followed by several financial emergencies, the challenge has been made more difficult by the fact that we’ve also had several celebrations on the calendar.  During the last weekend in June, my wife and I celebrated our first year of legal marriage, after being together over ten years.  This past weekend, we celebrated the Fourth of July.

Initially, we were tempted to completely cancel both celebrations, as it would mean we wouldn’t spend anything at all.  However, we realized that complete deprivation is not helpful when trying to stay on track and it might make us more likely to splurge inappropriately, later.  We’d planned both celebrations well in advance, and it felt like a pretty lousy idea to cancel everything.

We ended up scaling back our plans, but we still managed to enjoy both celebrations.

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“Action expresses priorities.” – Mahatma Ghandi

Since my wife’s contract unexpectedly ended last March, I feel like we’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with all our bills.  Although we certainly have made some cutbacks, and I’ve taken on extra work, it hasn’t been completely easy.  It’s been difficult and stressful, but somehow we’ve managed to muddle through.

Recently, we got some incredibly good news.  My wife landed a part-time contract as a paralegal.  This is a wonderful development not only because we need the money, but because it supports our goal of diversifying our income streams.

Of course with every silver lining, there is an ugly cloud.  During the past month, we’ve had several emergencies come up, and my wife’s new gig won’t bring in any significant income until August.  As a result, we are now facing a small financial crisis brought on by the following unexpected expenses:
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“Today, there are three kinds of people:  the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves.” – Earl Wilson

In a world where credit card issuers can suddenly give you unfavorable terms, or even cancel your card outright, I’ve long since recognized the wisdom in keeping my credit cards paid off every month.  I feel pretty dumb when I’ve had to pay interest charges, late penalties or over-limit fees, because I know that I haven’t received any added value, and I’ve increased the cost of goods and services purchased.

Although paying the cards off every month is the goal around our house, I’ve also realized that adhering to that goal is tougher than it seems.  Sliding a piece of plastic through a slot is a much more convenient way of paying than writing a check or carrying around a wad of cash.  Unfortunately, it’s also much more insidious.  It’s easy to get to the end of the month not realizing how much my wife and I have spent.

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“Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner.” – Les Brown

When my wife’s contract suddenly ended at the end of March, we made a number of sudden and dramatic cuts to our budget.  We trimmed our existing bills, cut unneeded services, and stopped eating out.  We started taking on extra work that normally we’d refuse, including jobs that paid substantially less than what we’d usually accept.

Some things I barely miss.  With all the extra work I’ve taken on, I don’t have time to miss my cancelled piano and guitar lessons.  We’ve been without cable and satellite television for two years now, and I’ve long since stopped caring about the network programs that I previously found so addicting.  The extra work leaves me with little time to watch rented movies, so the cuts we made to our movie rental and entertainment budget have mostly gone unnoticed.

What I do miss is eating out, especially when I have been working so many extra hours.  Back in the old days, when my wife and I found ourselves super-busy at work, we’d pick up the phone, order a pizza, or run out for a nice meal in a restaurant.  We’d go out, get a little time to ourselves, and then go home and collapse into bed. Read the rest of this entry »

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” – James Arthur Baldwin

Last month, the Washington Post published an article entitled “Poor? Pay Up.” The story described how being poor often results in the lack of basic conveniences such as a car or a checking account, and how the lack of those conveniences leads to extra fees and high prices.

When it comes to food shopping, not having a car means that one is much more likely to use the corner store, where the costs are much higher.

You don’t have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe’s, where the middle class goes to save money. You don’t have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.

Groceries aren’t the only place where the poor pay more.  A lack of a checking account results in paying exorbitant fees at check cashing places.

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“The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.”
– Adam Smith

Despite some experts claiming that our current recession is starting to ease, it’s pretty clear that, at least in my community, the economic times are still very hard.  The other day, I saw an article in my local newspaper that announced our unemployment rate was well into double-digits.  Although the paper claimed that the unemployment numbers were dropping, there was supposition that the decline was not because people were finding work, but because they’d given up trying to find a job or had exhausted their unemployment benefits.

Although my wife and I are by no means unemployed, we are certainly feeling the sting of the local recession.  When I sat down to do my end-of-the-month bookkeeping, I realized that our net income is down almost 33% from the same period last year.  Although we are certainly trying to diversify our income sources, and I’m working incredible amounts of overtime to fill in some of the gap, we are dealing with the ugly problem of having far less income than we’d like.

In the wake of less money coming in, it seems like more than our usual share of automotive repairs are popping up.  One of our cars badly needs suspension work, and drives like an inflatable bounce house.  Another earned a $50 parking ticket from our money-starved local police department because the completely worn clutch finally gave out and the car couldn’t be moved within the 72-hour parking limit.

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“Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.” – Andrew Carnegie

It’s been almost two months since my wife’s contract suddenly ended, and we made dramatic cuts to our budget.  We’ve found that the slow economy is making it harder to find larger, long-term contracts, so we’ve compensated by taking on smaller, lower-paying projects that we would have normally turned down.  I’ve been working a lot of overtime, trying to turn these small jobs around quickly to generate more income.

Last week, I worked 65 client-billable hours.  The week before, I worked 60.  Even though I’ve been putting in extra time and we’ve made every effort to shave our expenses, our business’ second quarter net income is down 30% from the same period last year.  Ouch.

My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing our situation, and we’ve realized that we’ve made yet another mistake with our financial lives.  For the past ten years we’ve both worked in the same industry, for the past eight, we’ve both worked for the same business, and for the past three, we’ve both worked for the same client.  Although this situation has worked extremely well when times were good, it’s been a real detriment as times have gotten harder. Read the rest of this entry »

“To be able to move on, one has to learn to forgive not only the person (or people) who have done one wrong but also oneself.” – Eugenia Tripputi

The most difficult aspect of losing my house to foreclosure and filing bankruptcy has been the overwhelming sense of failure that has come from those experiences.  Even though I filed for bankruptcy nearly a dozen years ago, and I’ve recovered financially, the emotional damage of the experience is still with me.  When I make financial decisions, I mull them over much more carefully than I did in the past.  If it looks like money is going to be tight, I react immediately.  My emotional reactions to money are very much colored by the fact that I realize it’s not that hard to fall into bankruptcy, and if I’m not very careful, it could happen again.

Bankruptcy is also a very isolating experience.  People tend not to talk about money, especially when it comes to sharing financial difficulties.  It’s easy to share good news about a raise, a promotion, or the new car; it’s a lot harder to admit that your spouse is out of work and you are having trouble paying your bills.

At the time I filed bankruptcy, I knew only one other person who had filed.  He was a casual acquaintance I’d met in college, and I regarded him as being irresponsible, lazy, and somewhat dishonest.  He’d run up debts that he knew he could not afford to pay, knowing full well he’d file for bankruptcy at some point in the future.  Since I had no one in my peer group with whom I could compare myself, I felt like I had an invisible “L,” for loser, tattooed on my forehead.

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