![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Had the thought that I should get my paychecks together to mail a deposit envelope. Completed the process, stuck the envelope in the mail slot, and looked out the door. There was the mail truck, parked outside. Sure enough, about two minutes later the mailman came. Good timing in my part.
He brought the new heat bill. I could just about have paid the old one, in another two weeks or so, but the new one is twice as much, so I'm sort of stuck (huh, funny how they only get bigger when you don't pay them and continue to heat your house). But inside, among all the weird crap that comes in utility bills nowadays (ads for cubic zirconia jewelry? printed right on the envelope, man) it had a little pink flier about how perhaps I qualify for assistance. They had a handy little income chart-- 1 person, gross monthly income of $x,xxx-- and I realized that I was well under the limit for one person, let alone two.
Humbling, as I thought I was making pretty good money, but actually it's not all that much, is it?
Yesterday at work, towards the end of my shift one of my co-workers showed up to temporarily cover the called-in-sick co-worker's shift. "Do you have a bunch more hours now?" she asked conversationally. "I asked them to cut mine so I could go back to school, so I'm working two days a week less. And Lisa and Evan and Brian are cutting their hours to go back to school too."
"No," I answered, thinking about my schedule. "No, I'm working fifteen hours a week in the club and the rest of my shifts are the same as they've always been."
"That's weird," the girl said, looking puzzled.
"Yes," I answered, "it is." I am also troubled by the fact that the new girl is only working one shift a week, and so I am not going to be working any fewer hours in the club, and thus am not going to make any more money.
I was feeling good yesterday, because I was working hard and had money in my hand. That's the deceptive part of this kind of work. When you're working hard you don't feel underemployed and you feel like you deserve money. And you feel like you have more money than you do when you are holding it in your hand. Money you can see seems like a lot. But then you get your paycheck and wonder if you should cry. Because money that's in your hand is never as much as it feels like, and when you try to save up enough to make a nice round-numbered deposit and chunks of it keep being removed from the 'for deposit' jar to pay for gas and food and you just can't manage to make the nice round number (which isn't even a big enough round number to cover one entire bill, which is depressing)... Looking at the two-digit paycheck makes things that much worse.
Well, I just went through my iCal for January, where I'm writing down every cent I earn, and added it all up, and I'm eligible. I guess I should call Social Services, as that's who it's through.
God that's depressing.
On that cheery note I'm going to try to start my day. I woke up feeling mildly cheerful, but now I just feel tired and a little hopeless. I feel like I was hit by a truck, as I always feel on Wednesday mornings, and I still can't afford to pay my gas bill without state assistance? By God, I wish George Bush had had to live from paycheck to paycheck like this just once. He'd feel a little less fucking smug about rich people's role in society, wouldn't he?
He brought the new heat bill. I could just about have paid the old one, in another two weeks or so, but the new one is twice as much, so I'm sort of stuck (huh, funny how they only get bigger when you don't pay them and continue to heat your house). But inside, among all the weird crap that comes in utility bills nowadays (ads for cubic zirconia jewelry? printed right on the envelope, man) it had a little pink flier about how perhaps I qualify for assistance. They had a handy little income chart-- 1 person, gross monthly income of $x,xxx-- and I realized that I was well under the limit for one person, let alone two.
Humbling, as I thought I was making pretty good money, but actually it's not all that much, is it?
Yesterday at work, towards the end of my shift one of my co-workers showed up to temporarily cover the called-in-sick co-worker's shift. "Do you have a bunch more hours now?" she asked conversationally. "I asked them to cut mine so I could go back to school, so I'm working two days a week less. And Lisa and Evan and Brian are cutting their hours to go back to school too."
"No," I answered, thinking about my schedule. "No, I'm working fifteen hours a week in the club and the rest of my shifts are the same as they've always been."
"That's weird," the girl said, looking puzzled.
"Yes," I answered, "it is." I am also troubled by the fact that the new girl is only working one shift a week, and so I am not going to be working any fewer hours in the club, and thus am not going to make any more money.
I was feeling good yesterday, because I was working hard and had money in my hand. That's the deceptive part of this kind of work. When you're working hard you don't feel underemployed and you feel like you deserve money. And you feel like you have more money than you do when you are holding it in your hand. Money you can see seems like a lot. But then you get your paycheck and wonder if you should cry. Because money that's in your hand is never as much as it feels like, and when you try to save up enough to make a nice round-numbered deposit and chunks of it keep being removed from the 'for deposit' jar to pay for gas and food and you just can't manage to make the nice round number (which isn't even a big enough round number to cover one entire bill, which is depressing)... Looking at the two-digit paycheck makes things that much worse.
Well, I just went through my iCal for January, where I'm writing down every cent I earn, and added it all up, and I'm eligible. I guess I should call Social Services, as that's who it's through.
God that's depressing.
On that cheery note I'm going to try to start my day. I woke up feeling mildly cheerful, but now I just feel tired and a little hopeless. I feel like I was hit by a truck, as I always feel on Wednesday mornings, and I still can't afford to pay my gas bill without state assistance? By God, I wish George Bush had had to live from paycheck to paycheck like this just once. He'd feel a little less fucking smug about rich people's role in society, wouldn't he?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 04:19 pm (UTC)And I believe sincerely that you'll do it. Be a professional, money-making writer, I mean. You have the discipline, which I'm coming to believe is the single most important ingredient.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-27 03:55 am (UTC)Go ahead and use the HEAP. The fact is that the gas company has to raise their prices because people aren't using enough gas this year, because we lucked out and it was warm, so the state helps pay for it by giving out the HEAP. Going to apply for it myself.