I have a sister-in-law who gets three checks monthly from the government, one for herself and one for each of her children. Her children both have full braces....
I need glasses for my distance vision but cannot afford them. My DH needs glasses and has them but has had the same ones for almost 5 years now, and they are held together with crazy-glue.
Braces? Your state must be overly generous, I know MN will not cover braces unless for a severe developmental defect.. not for crooked teeth.
Glasses ... buy them online, much cheaper. EyeBuyDirect has some for less than $20, the hard part is paying for an eye exam. There are a few programs that provide free exams based on income requirements, mostly aimed at senior citizens and kids but there may be one in your area for adults.. do a search.
what frustrates me is the people complaining (not so much on the board) about not having insurance and the gov should provide, yet they do have access to it via their place of employment yet choose not to accept simply because it is too expensive. If it is important to you, then it should be part of the budget and be done with it.
hmm...This is how it would work for my family...
Pay insurance, rent (double check the locks) , utilities (no we can't run the AC this summer, poor hubby will have to suffer while sitting for 3 hours in the dialysis chair in the 90 degree and 80% humidity), bus fare (no more car, can't afford it), food (guess we have ramen again kids) and uhhhh that's it. Don't have enough money left to get quarters for laundry, can't afford phone even though we need it in case of a medical emergency during home hemo, can't afford internet- even though it creates and saves me money everyday. Can't afford my dh's med co-pays. And god forbid our apt building goes up in flames, can't pay for the renter's insurance and after the fire we owe the dialysis company $30,000 to pay for the machine.
No thanks.
ITA...You'd rather have the huge medical bill for having NO insurance? Apparently they are "saving" for those expenses by not paying for medical insurance?
Sliding scale clinics, low cost meds at
Walmart, lots of wishes and prayers that nothing goes wrong. Hoping that things change for the better soon.
Or some such thing? And um... once I pay my health insurance, PLUS the extra $200 each month, how am I going to live on... -$200? Please tell me how I can do that, I am VERY curious to know! Those must be really awesome coupons!
Magical coupons, you just have to BELIEVE!
the last time we went on "vacation" was to stay at a low-end hotel in Boston while my mom was dying of renal failure
and pay $10 a month to go to the gym, trying to lose enough weight to save my mother's life with a transplant...
I'm so sorry for your loss. Watching someone you love fighting the beast that is renal failure is very difficult. my family has been fortunate... but I have to stop and think.. Sometimes the beast wins.
I also think that there are many who respond to these kind of threads need to educate themselves more about the culture of poverty. Middle class culture and the culture of those in poverty are like night and day, and those of us blessed enough to not be poor have a very difficult time understanding or relating to the thought processes of those who have grown up poor and know nothing else. It is easy for so many to point our well-fed fingers and tell others to "pick themselves up by the bootstraps" because those doing the finger pointing have the skills and knowledge to allow them to do so. I am saddened when I read how judgmental and uncompassionate some in our society have become.
Nicely done.
I read a very interesting book that discussed the culture of each economic class. I was raised lower middle class, have lived close to poverty most of my married life.. there was much I had to learn to survive. If my life somehow changed and we were among the wealthy.. I would have no clue how to be in that world.
A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne
Bit outdated but has some good points.
The skills and education they have are worthless, retraining takes money they don't have, and right now there are just no jobs available, not even fast food, retail, or other low-wage, part-time work.
Unemployed are suppose to have help for the retraining costs .. but...
MN ran out of money for the displaced workers education fund.
That may be true for where you live. You may have 3 or 4 different supermarket to shop at, you may also have Walmart or a Super Target. But in most poorer neighborhoods, they are lucky if there is one supermarket. And they don't double coupons, have loss leaders, etc. It's harder to find bargains under those conditions.
And if they do have a grocery store or big box store, the prices are much higher. Plus the cost of schlepping it home. Bus fare, taxi, pay a friend, or pay a stranger for a ride.
Food stamps yes, money to get to store and home again? NO.
Plenty of food, but no toilet paper , laundry soap, quarters for laundry, diapers, fem supplies, shampoo, soap.. etc etc..
It must be the people that God gave a "welfare cheat sniffer" chip. I got left out of the deal; I am totally missing that chip.
darn me too.
Many welfare recipients have tattoos, drink, smoke and take drugs.
Covering tattoo carefully so no one sees.
hmm, hubby falls in that category.... do prescription drugs count?
And uhh, he can't take a drug test since he doesn't pee, renal failure does that to a person.
Heh heh, now I *know* that this was directed towards me, thank you for confirming what I already knew 
