A Shine User Shares: Learning to Be Poor

It has been a roller coaster couple of years for my children and I. We went from poor to not wealthy but okay back to relatively poor in a short span of time. The learning curve either direction was beyond steep, and, to make it worse I suppose we did it intentionally. Yep. You read that right we did it on purpose with much thought and and knowledge of the extremity of the changes.
After my mother passed away I came into a little bit of money not as much as many where I live like to believe I had or have, I also inherited the home I grew up in, the same home my kid's had always known. Thing was, the home was old, built in the late 50's was in dire need of repair and updating to say the least. I took care of the home first, new roof, updated the kitchen and living space, bumped out a bedroom and bathroom. Not all of it was absolutely necessary but I wanted to do it while I could afford to do it so I did. After that I was generous not only to my children but to a few nefarious individuals that probably really did not deserve it. I was raised that if someone needs help and you can help you should, it's how I was raised and it is a belief I cling fiercely to. All in all, it was fun, fun to be able to splurge on my kids and myself a little, fun to watch the house transform from the old ranch that I grew up in to a home that reflected better my style and personality.
Fun can't last forever, it has to end sometime and it has, now, back when I was thinking this all through had I known that I would not be working a year and a half later, not be physically able to work even I might of done things a tad bit differently but really I'm not sure that I would have. A year ago this February I confirmed what i had known for twenty years, I have arthritis in both of my knees, what I did not know was that the arthritis had caused a tear in a tendon in my right knee. An M.R.I. confirmed that for me it also showed some abnormal bone marrow "signals". Wait! Stop! do not go there I am fine mostly. After following with a bone cancer specialist to rule out an Cancer in the bone (1 million dollars worth of blood work and bone marrow biopsy thank you very much) there was, is, no cancer to be found. The testing however delayed a simple procedure to fix the tear in the tendon n my knee by six months. So six months of not really being able to walk well or be on my feet much made a dent.
I had the surgery in September it was supposed to be routine, a few weeks of physical therapy and bck to work I could go. It is now January and I am still unable to work, still unable to be on my feet more than about 10-15 minutes at a time. Quite the the change for the girl that used to love making pizza's at the local pizza store. Three rounds of physical therapy with little or no improvement have left me in a bad place mentally, and physically not to mention financially. Compound that with discovering or perhaps just confirming that my eldest child is bi-polar and spending what I can and could to find her the help and medications to help her in this world have hurt the budget as well.
So , long story not so short, here we are back to poor of sorts. We went from a monthly budget of around 1800.00 a month to about 667.00 a month. Yes that's right we a little under 1200.00 a month. That's a hard pill to swallow when I'm scrambling to find money to buy a gallon of milk or I'm having to ask the kids for the third night in the week if they want chicken, chicken or chicken for supper. It's hard. I won't lie it is extremely hard to figure out but we are slowly, and in very small steps.
Through a series of articles like this I hope to take you on the journey we're well into by now and show you how we are learning to live poor and not minding it so much sometimes. It isn't easy and it isn't something I recommend to anyone if you can avoid it. Let's face it , in today's economic climate more of us are poor or what the economic standards consider poor than anyone like's to admit. I have read all the "financial and "how to" articles that are out there. They are good, they offer some realistic and usable tips but to me they lack I don't know sincerity and perhaps most of all a sense of humor and humility in all things.
I hope that you will join us and watch as we navigate the rather murky water we find ourselves in these days I can promise you it won't always be pretty, it won't always be fun but we will get through it and come out better for it.
Much love from the Kirwan clan!