BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living From $70k Salary to Food Bank in 1 month

I always assumed that welfare was a cushion to prevent people from starvation and homelessness as well. Not something to pick up to help you maintain a middle class life. Living a middle class life is a privledge and not a right.

Yes everyone pays taxes for welfare, but it's not a retirement plan or rainy day fund. You pay into welfare knowing that it benifits society as a whole to not have starving citizens and homeless on the street.

Everyone needs to save and be responsible in order to maintain the standard of living they have incase of an emergency. If you spend beyond your means as a middle class individual and then experience job loss, you may drop out of middle class. This was a choice you made by not saving and living beyond your means. 70k is only basic middle class for parts of CA, it's not enough to afford expensive jewelry and coach bags with a $2,500 a month mortgage. The cost of living in CA is very high.

I used an on-line interest only mortgage calculator. If this woman had 6.0% interest and only paid interest only payments for the 1st 5 years, she would pay the $2,500 a month for a $500,000 house.

Then I used one of the on-line "how much can I afford mortgage calculators." They recommend that the woman make double her current salary for a 500K house. This is assuming she doesn't have an excessive amount of other monthly bills (credit cards, car loans, etc.)

Yes she's in a bind. Mostly it's just sad that this is probably a norm for a lot of people in our society. Now she might have to step up to the plate and rent her house at a loss, while living in a crummy apartment or with relatives. Eventually she might be foreclosed on if she can't find a job or rent her house. In the mean time she can sell her jewelry and other possesions to buy food. Once she's done all this and still can't feed her family, then welfare will be there for her.

I agree that she should have saved more, planned for her rainy day. I don't dispute that she should be thinking of pawning her luxury items to feed her kids. All I'm saying is that it's easy to point the finger at people and pass judgement on their choices, but every situation is different. Maybe she got that Tiffany bracelet as a gift.



I disagree. I think welfare should be treated as a rainy day fund, not just for the middle class, but for everyone.
Welfare should be a temporary situation, until you're able to get back on your feet. It shouldn't be the sole means of support for nations poor.



The cost of living is very high in CA and $500K does not buy you much house. Also, the article said that the woman had a husband at one point, so when the mortgage calculator says she should make double, her and her husband's combined income should have been enough to pay for their mortgage. I think her biggest mistake was getting an interest only loan, but live and learn.

There is a site that I have lost the link to where it has the financial information for this woman. They bought the house off of her husband's parents for about 200k and then proceeded to refinance again and again until their mortgage grew to almost 600k.
The house we are discussing is almost 3k square feet.

Again, no sympathy. She's an irresponsible spender and she's getting exactly what her actions have dictated.

You can't repeatedly refinance your house borrowing more than it's actual value and not expect to have problems. You house is a house and not an ATM. Those who use it as an ATM are the ones who run into problems.

This story is so common right now it's not even remotely unique. Once the bank repossesses these homes they can sell for 200K less than the owner would have asked. It's one of the few upsides to the current housing market.

The sad thing is they've probably lost their parent's house to the bank. Hopefully they aren't still around to find out.

Froggy - that's a fascinating point of view, I'll do a poll on that!

I am a co-leader at the food bank at our church. We call it the "Storehouse". Anyway, we distribute food to people twice a month. The first and third fridays of the month. We buy our food from a place that has a "big red cross" on their trucks and buildings. They get their food from Second Harvest. Our guidelines to hand out food to families is to give fifteen pounds of food per person in each family.

Yes, there are people who drive up in nice cars and such but we do not judge them because it could be a car that is all paid off or a vehicle they borrowed from somebody and we turn no one away unless they have stolen food from us and that has happened.

People wait down in the hallway in chairs and when we come out with their food, we call their name and they get up and we follow them out to their car. We have had people whose name we have called and either they were in the rest room or waiting outside and didn't hear their name being called so then someone else will say that they are the person and they drive off with the food. It usually happens to the bigger families because they get more food than families with less people.

When we get delivery and stock the shelves, we have to put a line through the bar code on the items because people will take the stuff to the store and try to return them for money.

We average over a thousand pounds of food a week that we distribute and there have been times when we have given over two thousand pounds in a week and twice since I have been there in three years we have handed out over three thousand pounds in a week.

Now, when I say we don't judge people or turn them away, I am in agreement with everyone else that this woman made herself look foolish when she said that she cannot wear her Tiffany bracelet or her Coach bag into the food bank. She most certainly needs to sell her items that are expensive before she can cry poverty.

In the welfare thread that Lisa created, I went into a long tirade about how I have had to be on welfare when I was on disability and was a single father with custody of my two children. I sold whatever I could to pay bills, buy diapers or whatever. I had a movie collection of well over two hundred movies that took some time to get and wound up selling them for 2 bucks a pop so I could sustain my family for a couple of weeks.

I've pawned and sold collectibles, cd's, whatever I could and when I had to. This may be a bit harsh but this woman has my pity but not my sympathy. If she wants sympathy, she can look in the dictionary for it. It's somewhere between sh*t and syphillus.
She was all teary eyed because some kind woman offered to pay her utility bill for the month. She should have said, "No thanks. I have a Tiffany bracelet, a Coach bag and some Prada shoes that I can sell and pay my utility bill."

The video clip didn't say if she accepted the offer or not. How is she waiting to get back on her feet? Is she looking for work? McDonald's is always hiring. If I was in her position, I would take any job so I could feed my kids and keep my lights on.

If there is no one to watch the kids, or the kids are not old enough to stay by themselves, or have special needs, a parent can be in a tight spot having to choose between working and leaving the a child unsupervised, or undersupervised.

It's curious too how children will grow up blaming the custodial and/or working parent for abandonment issues while longing for the absent parent who took no responsibility - it's like they just can't help themselves, even though intellectually they can figure it out.

It's good of you to devote time and energy to your church food bank. I can't understand how people can steal or try to return food bank food and work every angle cheating other people over what would be such a godsend to those who are just trying to keep it together. Although I suppose that food bank items are not counted as income for those who rely on public assistance or food stamps ~ so barter or dishonesty could be a habit over generations to make up shortfalls, whatever they may be.

Living with dignity might mean different things to some of those who have lived in desperate circumstances as long as they can remember ~ cheating and stealing might seem to them more respectable than relying on welfare or having to fill out applications to qualify for every bit of support; giving up their privacy and any feeling of control over their lives.

It's hard to understand, having been raised by strong, honest people ~ but even among brothers and sisters there are tremendous differences in how people see the world. Some have a sense of entitlement and others thankfulness for much less.

I did not see the thread about the woman with the Tiffany bracelet, a Coach bag and some Prada shoes ~ but I do know that all some folks have for an identity is what they buy and wear, and that must be a desperate way to live. They are trying to fill up an emptiness and hunger that can't be satisfied by what they throw at it, as far as I can tell.

Domestic violence, depression and other mental illness happen to people in all walks of life ~ maybe the gal has given up everything she thought she could be and is so beaten down and numb that she couldn't get her priorities straight even if she found refuge and safety for a while. Some man could be controlling and threatening her even after she escaped a bad situation, or she might still be neck deep in it.

At any rate, most people I've seen who are seeing help with food are tired and broke looking, like they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, some working but just not bringing in enough money - some with two jobs part time so they don't have benefits, and if someone gets sick that just puts them over the edge.

Food banks were never meant to be long term ~ and as much as I am greatful for Second Harvest, it is so sad that our communities' need such an organization has gone on so long and stretches out so far into the future.

What was Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? I was thinking of all that, self actualization and such, while watching the Will Smith movie, Pursuit of Happyness ~ how brilliant and ambitious does a person have to be to escape that level of poverty? But one did. He needed all the help he could get.

Pam W
SE of Seattle

jeanne, Hubby makes approx 100K /yr - and we're middle class, and hurting actually. I don't work (Can't really, because there have just been to many emergency situations with my son). But with a child with Asperger's taking 4 expensive meds a month, me taking 3 meds, and then factor in all the other little unecpected things, mortgage, car dying, clothes dryer dying, etc, etc. - his salary doesn't go nearly as far as it should.

I know we could pull the kids out of all of their activities (they each have 1 major one) - but that deosn[t seem fair - and will actually look good on their transcritps for college one day.

but the dollar, she don't stretch so more.

Vance - that bothers me so much that people would steal other peoples' food. I could understand it maybe if they couldn't get food for themselves. But they're right there and can get their own food.

That is just so wrong to me.

I would almost hand out numbered tickets or something, to prevent them from doing that.

Pamela - you're quite right, food banks were meant to keep someone fed and healthy so that they could go on to find work and get their other needs met. It wasn't meant to be a long term solution. What are we missing then, that people are not moving on to that next step? Or do some people become complacent with the steady stream of food and settle into that situation as normal?