EDIT: sorry if that sounded a little harsh. Its not directed completely at you, but in the direction of the general public who have these feelings. In my personal experience the majority of people are using this economic situation as an excuse to set at home and collect unemployment, and whine because they can't go out to eat or buy the latest whatever. Guess its just a reflection of the average work ethic in USA.
Glad I waited, your post really pissed me off. You're right, alot of people are using this as an excuse. I'm not one of them. The situation I'm dealing with is not a constant one. Problem was that we had a withdrawal made by the ISP when they weren't supposed to put us negative. We kept getting the "next week it will be fixed" treatment. That money was meant to pay the rest of the bills. Unfortunately There were other transactions waiting to post (the bank held some transactions for 6 days then posted them all at once), we started collecting fees on that. Overall it totaled us over 400$ in overdraft fees (Chase charges 35$ for overdrafts). So now, any money I brought in was covering those fees instead of covering what is what meant to, things like food for example. I had to start pawning our stuff to make up for the money I had lost to the fees so I could buy those little things like food. Why do we have things like the Internet and such, because those bills had been paid for before the fit hit the shan. We had tried to ride out the month, because I have next month's paycheck coming in on the first (and yes it's from an employer, not welfare). Unfortunately things would not wait.
August 2008, I lost a job paying 35k a year. Things were still tight, but in San Antonio, that's enough to be breathe easier when it comes to money. In September we were evicted, and since we were evicted, no other apartments would accept us because everyone was crying about the economy. We spent the next 4 months living out of an InTowne Suites that cost us 209$ EACH AND EVERY WEEK. I was working 2 jobs just to cover the bill, not food or anything else. I worked for damn near every temporary staffing agency in San Antonio. I built door jambs for new construction, tresses for custom homes, I worked at a Coleman plant making those little 5 qt coolers. We sold everything we had to keep going. Since then I have put my family back under a roof, managed to get a decent job, recover most everything we had to pawn, put myself through school (Full time, accelerated), get my Associates and my certifications. And you're going to tell me to get off my lazy bellybutton and go to work? I am f***ing PROUD of what I have accomplished. It may not seem like much to you, but I worked my bellybutton off.
Now the crack about Solitaire, that was a joke. Apparently I have a very weird sense of humor. I was joking about having a great game like this to play, then having to play solitaire if I wanted to game. I know, it ain't funny if you have to explain it.
Sorry if I seem a little touchy, but I worked really hard for this, and I'm still going. The boat is still shaky. I honestly thought we we're going to lose everything again. Last time I thought that there was no way it would happen to me, this time I couldn't help but think that there was no way it wouldn't happen to me. Our income tax came in this morning which allowed us to right the boat. We weren't expecting that till the end of February. That's why I'm thanking God. 2500$ allows us to get back on track and get things back to the way they we're before the ISP screwed up.
