Financial stress isn’t just for the poor
This is the unseen side of financial stress in a family doing the “right” things: a weeping woman sitting on the floor of a closet, surrounded by piles of paperwork, as her husband tries to comfort her and undoubtedly feels a heavy burden on his own shoulders. That was the scene at our house less than an hour ago.
Where’s our fucking bailout?
No, we don’t need one, but I have a very, very hard time understanding why people and companies who made ludicrous, irresponsible financial decisions get a taxpayer-sponsored mulligan.
Barack Obama says we’re rich (we will be taxed much more heavily if he wins the presidency and his plans are enacted). We didn’t qualify for a cent of economic stimulus money. We have no credit card debt, our mortgages have low interest rates, our one remaining car loan will be paid off in six months. We have retirement accounts and college savings account. We live in a nice home in a good neighborhood and have a generally comfortable life.
Sounds like a nice position to be in, eh? For the most part, it is, but there’s more to it than that. Those retirement accounts have lost tens of thousands of dollars of value this year. The college savings account might cover tuition for one semester at a state college and we only have three more years before Kid needs it. The equity in our home — the money we brought to the purchase as a deposit, since we’ve only been here a couple years — has evaporated with the market downturn. The other house has lost so much value that we’d need to take out a loan to sell it; if my husband didn’t have a good salary and we didn’t have excellent credit, maybe the bank would forgive the difference, but we’re too responsible to benefit. (How fucked is that?) We have tenants that cover the mortgage, but the tax bill that just hit us for that property is a painful one.
Nobody else is going to cry about our terrible plight, and they shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean that the situation is without stress.
I’m left feeling horribly guilty and useless. I feel guilty for taking the family on expensive vacations for the past two years (and for wanting a vacation at all; my husband can do without, but I’m used to a lot more travel). I feel guilty that I didn’t struggle harder to make my last consulting job continue a little longer. I feel guilty — no matter how ridiculous this is — that I’m not still bringing in the six-figure salary I used to earn, while somehow also being a perfect wife and mother. I feel guilty for every dollar I’ve spent on something just for myself in the past few months. I feel guilty for hating my old oversized clothes and wishing I had new ones… and then I feel guilty for not having clothes that fit me, so I could take temp office jobs. (That’s a nice bit of fucked-up reasoning: I feel guilty both for losing weight so my old clothes don’t fit AND for still being too heavy to find cheap office-worthy clothes.)
This morning, I beat myself up because I couldn’t find a piece of paperwork. Our house got turned on end twice last week, for the office lunch and for filming the 48 Hour Film Project (more on that in a future post), and I stashed paperwork in closets out of the way. My husband — silly him — wanted to make a payment on the aforementioned property tax bill this morning. I was 90% sure I knew where I had put the bill. I looked and I looked and I got more and more upset. If I’m not earning money so we’re more comfortable, the least I can do is keep the house managed like a tightly run ship, right? With each paper I turned over, I mentally flagellated myself for procrastination, untidiness, etc, building up a reserve of self-loathing that eventually overflowed and left me bawling on the closet floor.
It’s over. My husband went to work; I’ll do the filing and admin this afternoon (as I had planned) and will undoubtedly find the bill then It’s time for me to do the weekly shopping. Life goes on. But now, there’s an undercurrent of financial tension that the tax bill and Friday’s theft brought to the surface, and it’s going to take some time to get it deeply buried again.
