Thursday, January 27, 2005
Bringing Home the Bacon
Yesterday I did something I haven't done in quite a awhile. I went down to Robert's Bookstore and sold my books for money.
For 8 years I lived as a single mother raising my four daughters, not an easy task sometimes. During that time I worked in the evenings as a waitress at a local seafood restaurant. During the day I worked at the school fixing breakfasts and lunches for the kids. This job is where I was able to get insurance for my family. Also during this time I was able to buy a home. I was pretty damn proud of myself!
Now all went smoothly for a while until I could no longer squeeze the nozzle for rinsing the dishes off. Also where I could once balance six dinner plates on my left arm I started dropping them. Then I could no longer turn my head, my body was falling apart. Also during this time my mother passed away. This is something I'd like to cover in another blog. If only for myself. Anyway after many tests and an MRI they discovered that I had two herniated disc's in my neck and corporal tunnel in my wrists. What I'm getting at is this. Because I could not work for nearly a year we relied on creative financial planning.
This is when I discovered my books were valuable to other's beside myself. I discovered I owned alot of things that were valuable to others besides myself. We would have emergency garage sales where I opened up my home and let people come in and buy anything they wanted. This worked very well. All and all my kids adapted to our new way of life fairly easy. We survived on eating chocolate malto mill. Meatless spaghetti and lots of Mac & cheese. We were able to get food from the local food bank. So we did good. There are always people worse off then you. At Christmas time people showed up at our door heavy laden with Christmas presents. It was a wonderful Christmas, and I will always be grateful. Through help from the local employment agency I was able to get another job. I became a valet for the huge casino in town. This to me was a very fun job. I was able to drive cars I had only dreamed off. Mercedes Benz, = (this word is not in my dictionary) Corvette's, even some huge 4 wheel drive trucks and tiny sports cars etc. I loved working outside even in the rain. During big events when it rained we, the valets, would all be decked out in rain gear, running back and forth to the parking lots. If you were lucky you could park someone's car and bring someone else's car back.
I had a friend who was in a similar position with four kids. She owned an older red Mercedes Benz, but couldn't afford the gas to put in it. Sometimes we would sit in her car out front, 8 kids milling around and pretend we were cruising. We'd have our noses pointed slightly upward and be waving our princess Diana Wave. That was before "check 22" , before the checks cleared fast like they do now. If one of us needed something and had no money we'd write checks to each other to cover our checks. This gave us a 3-4 day grace period. One of our mottoes was "if you're going to write a check, write a good one". This meaning that instead of getting a bad check charge for a 5 dollar purchase write a large check and get all you need, thereby only getting one bad check charge. We always made good on our checks, sometimes it would just take a couple of extra days. Now you might be wondering why I'm writing this, and well I'm trying to remember where this was going, anyway creativity and humor can get you through some really tough times.
Now this happened before all my injuries. The girls and I were living with a sofa and chair that we had obtained from a friend. Now this sofa and chair was way overstuffed and covered with the most God awful mustard yellow scratchy material you can imagine. So because money was coming in steady we decided we needed a new sofa. We went to the local furniture store that had a layaway plan. They must have had at least 100 couches. We all went our separate ways, except the youngest, we looked and looked calling each other to see our finds. I had found the one that I wanted and gave my kids the job of figuring out which one it was. Believe it or not they found it. Today I'm still not sure we have the right couch. You see, with the layaway plan they stored our sofa in the back where we couldn't see it. And so we proceeded to make payments. I had a tip jar where I placed all the coin that I received for tips and we saved this for our payments. The furniture store was very understanding as it did take us a year to pay off our layaway. With the help of a friend we went to pick up our sofa and loveseat and I'm looking at them and swearing that this is not the right one. I don't mean cursing, mind you, I was just very sure of myself when stating this wasn't ours. They assured me it was. So we brought them home. During this year I had built up my sofa and loveseat into a Burgundy velvet overstuffed wonder. Well my couch and love seat are not velvet. They are beautiful though. I only have the loveseat left. The couch was purchased at one of my garage sales. Brought in good money too.
Where am I going with this story? I don't know! Perhaps I'm trying to say that when you're low on money there are always creative ways in bringing home the bacon. ¶ 1/27/2005 07:29:00 AM
For 8 years I lived as a single mother raising my four daughters, not an easy task sometimes. During that time I worked in the evenings as a waitress at a local seafood restaurant. During the day I worked at the school fixing breakfasts and lunches for the kids. This job is where I was able to get insurance for my family. Also during this time I was able to buy a home. I was pretty damn proud of myself!
Now all went smoothly for a while until I could no longer squeeze the nozzle for rinsing the dishes off. Also where I could once balance six dinner plates on my left arm I started dropping them. Then I could no longer turn my head, my body was falling apart. Also during this time my mother passed away. This is something I'd like to cover in another blog. If only for myself. Anyway after many tests and an MRI they discovered that I had two herniated disc's in my neck and corporal tunnel in my wrists. What I'm getting at is this. Because I could not work for nearly a year we relied on creative financial planning.
This is when I discovered my books were valuable to other's beside myself. I discovered I owned alot of things that were valuable to others besides myself. We would have emergency garage sales where I opened up my home and let people come in and buy anything they wanted. This worked very well. All and all my kids adapted to our new way of life fairly easy. We survived on eating chocolate malto mill. Meatless spaghetti and lots of Mac & cheese. We were able to get food from the local food bank. So we did good. There are always people worse off then you. At Christmas time people showed up at our door heavy laden with Christmas presents. It was a wonderful Christmas, and I will always be grateful. Through help from the local employment agency I was able to get another job. I became a valet for the huge casino in town. This to me was a very fun job. I was able to drive cars I had only dreamed off. Mercedes Benz, = (this word is not in my dictionary) Corvette's, even some huge 4 wheel drive trucks and tiny sports cars etc. I loved working outside even in the rain. During big events when it rained we, the valets, would all be decked out in rain gear, running back and forth to the parking lots. If you were lucky you could park someone's car and bring someone else's car back.
I had a friend who was in a similar position with four kids. She owned an older red Mercedes Benz, but couldn't afford the gas to put in it. Sometimes we would sit in her car out front, 8 kids milling around and pretend we were cruising. We'd have our noses pointed slightly upward and be waving our princess Diana Wave. That was before "check 22" , before the checks cleared fast like they do now. If one of us needed something and had no money we'd write checks to each other to cover our checks. This gave us a 3-4 day grace period. One of our mottoes was "if you're going to write a check, write a good one". This meaning that instead of getting a bad check charge for a 5 dollar purchase write a large check and get all you need, thereby only getting one bad check charge. We always made good on our checks, sometimes it would just take a couple of extra days. Now you might be wondering why I'm writing this, and well I'm trying to remember where this was going, anyway creativity and humor can get you through some really tough times.
Now this happened before all my injuries. The girls and I were living with a sofa and chair that we had obtained from a friend. Now this sofa and chair was way overstuffed and covered with the most God awful mustard yellow scratchy material you can imagine. So because money was coming in steady we decided we needed a new sofa. We went to the local furniture store that had a layaway plan. They must have had at least 100 couches. We all went our separate ways, except the youngest, we looked and looked calling each other to see our finds. I had found the one that I wanted and gave my kids the job of figuring out which one it was. Believe it or not they found it. Today I'm still not sure we have the right couch. You see, with the layaway plan they stored our sofa in the back where we couldn't see it. And so we proceeded to make payments. I had a tip jar where I placed all the coin that I received for tips and we saved this for our payments. The furniture store was very understanding as it did take us a year to pay off our layaway. With the help of a friend we went to pick up our sofa and loveseat and I'm looking at them and swearing that this is not the right one. I don't mean cursing, mind you, I was just very sure of myself when stating this wasn't ours. They assured me it was. So we brought them home. During this year I had built up my sofa and loveseat into a Burgundy velvet overstuffed wonder. Well my couch and love seat are not velvet. They are beautiful though. I only have the loveseat left. The couch was purchased at one of my garage sales. Brought in good money too.
Where am I going with this story? I don't know! Perhaps I'm trying to say that when you're low on money there are always creative ways in bringing home the bacon. ¶ 1/27/2005 07:29:00 AM
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Thanks Gorilla, I would like the luxury once, just once to know how the other side lives. But I have found that not only me but my children as well have learned that... "Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true, but its father is creativity, and knowledge is the midwife"
Jonathan Schattke quotes
Thanks Gorilla for checking back.
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Jonathan Schattke quotes
Thanks Gorilla for checking back.
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