The New Poor

I just love applying for financial assistance.  Always a pleasant experience to see in black and white how bad off you are.  Not!!!  I spent the morning filling out forms once again trying to prove our financial need for assistance. This time for a grant through the American Legion that Kevin’s contact at the VFW told us about.  It is so frustrating to fill this stuff out, knowing you probably won’t qualify.  They take your GROSS income not your NET.  So apparently the taxes and medical insurance premiums that come out of my check somehow are available to me to buy groceries and pay bills every month.  How do you figure that?  And when recording expenses, you can only include monthly recurring ones. So this does not include our $6000 family medical insurance deductible that basically makes us have to pay out of pocket 100% for all doctor’s visits, and because we don’t go to the doctor monthly, not considered “recurring”.  You are only supposed to include food as a monthly expense, not toiletries, personal care items or diapers or laundry and cleaning supplies.  The only utilities they count are gas, water and electric.  No phone, internet and God forbid cable.  Car payments are also not considered into the figuring for most assistance programs like WIC or Food Stamps.

So we are the new poor.  Make too much to qualify for assistance and don’t make enough to live on our own.  Hence come January 1^st we have to give up our apartment and move in with Kevin’s mom.  I am grateful we have a place to go, but frustrated and sad that it has to come to that.