Money

In keeping with recent self-indulgent posts, it is time for my semi-annual 'I need an attitude adjustment regarding making money' post. 
Fact: When I had my first job (working in the Kernersville Library) I loved making money. It provided a degree of independence from my parents that I really enjoyed. At some point, my attitude shifted. Maybe it was around the time my dad told me that I couldn't do art for a living. I'd have to find a career with which I could support myself and do my art as a hobby. A hobby. The thing I cared most about in the world was to be little more than a way to pass my Sunday afternoons. I don't know if that's when my attitude about money changed. Or if it was when I was forced to go to college when I really wanted to move to NYC and become a writer. For the New Yorker. Yes, I've always been a dreamer.
I dropped out of school at the urging of my boyfriend. I moved in with my boyfriend. Making money made sense then because it was a way to keep the two of us together. I married my boyfriend and had children with him. I stayed at home with the children. And eventually, I went back to work. Over the course of the years with the husband, money grew tight. We had arguments. He grew violent. I left. I went back to school. And I never ever picked a career. Why? Because my heart says to make stuff. And I feel like if I can't make stuff for a living (as per my dad) I will invest as little time and energy into making money as possible so that I can make stuff. But I find myself constantly chasing the dollar bill and not making stuff. I have lived below the poverty level most of my adult life. This has been a choice, to some degree as I have never chosen a "career."
People often compliment me. I understand these compliments to mean I have something of value to offer the world. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to translate my value into money.
I don't need a lot of money. I've made do with less than $20,000 for the past ten years. But things are shifting in me. I find myself wanting to travel. Wanting to buy a pair of blue jeans. Wanting to go to the dentist.
I went to the bank yesterday. My checking account balance was a little over $100. I am comfortable with a little over $100. But once it gets below that, I feel uneasy. Because my account has gone down to one or two dollars way too often, causing me to worry about how I was going to eat. This just sucks. And I don't want to be like this anymore.
I hate having to rely on money. But I need to accept it as a fact of life. At age 56 I am saying this! I would like to have that feeling of self-sufficiency that I had when I worked for the Kernersville Library. Do I need to get an actual job? Stop doing the My Girl Everyday thing? I've been getting regular gigs and am extremely grateful that I've had this period of personal freedom from the job world. I am extremely grateful to all the people who have hired me. But I am still basically living hand to mouth. And this needs to change.
A friend of mine recently gave me a book titled "Money: A Love Story." This book is supposed to help me heal my relationship with money. I keep trying to read it, but whenever the author talks about her immense credit card debt as being the toughest financial crisis she's endured, I feel disgust. I had to keep my children warm when the gas was cut off. I had to cook rice and beans and onions and garlic enough different ways to keep them interesting. I've had to ransack the house looking for pennies to buy a gallon of gas so that I could get to work. I had to push my car down a hill every day to jump start it because I couldn't afford to have it fixed. It's hard to take this author seriously.
Still, throughout my entire journey, I've never been truly hungry. I've never been without shelter or clothing. I've never been without love. I am grateful to have made it this far having all that I have. A pickup truck. An ally. A roof over my head. Food. Health. Two little dogs. A wealth of love from family and friends.
I once said to a friend, "I don't want making money to control my life." He responded, "Lack of money controls you just as much as making money controls you." As much as I hate this, it is true.

Thank-you For Your Time

The other day a customer thanked me for my time.  I had prepared a juice for him.  And upon handing it to him, he said, "Thank-you for your time."  I am unable to recall an incident in which this has been said to me.  Surely there has been one.  But in that particular moment, I was touched by this simple statement and the magnitude of its meaning.

Time is a precious commodity.  It seems we never have enough of it.  "Time is money." That's because we spend time exerting our energy and converting that to cash.  Time plus energy equals money.  The dictates of our economy impose a monetary value on our time.  Some people are paid more money than others for their time and energy.  But in my mind, time and energy are relative to the task at hand.

A farmer plowing his field may toil harder physically than a lawyer, but the lawyer is rewarded more money than a farmer.  And a farmer feeds us.  A teacher works long and hard to care for our children, to educate the future leaders of our society.  Yet she is paid less than a Hollywood movie star whose job it is to entertain us.

When a person says, "Thank-you for your time," they seem to have an innate understanding of the time/labor ratio.  They recognize that you have just spent a bit of your precious resources, your energy and time, into serving them.  You gave them a piece of your life.  I think thanking someone for their time is about the best reward anyone can be given for their hard work.  Especially someone who is underpaid.

I spent two days at my friend's house recording a song.  He is such an amazingly generous being.  He is so supportive, so creative and so skilled that it is seriously an honor to spend time with him.  I am greatly humbled by his gift of time.  There is nothing greater than that.  Nothing.

I think I would like my epitaph to read "Thank-you For Your Time."  It would have the duel meaning of  "Thank-you, Mother Earth, for the time you have given me to live, grow and explore Life," and "Thank-you, dear friends, for giving me your time, your love, your support, across the years."

At this point, I will end my missive by saying: Thank-you for your time spent reading this.  If I touch a handful of people with my writing, I am honored.

The Bodhisattva

A bodhisattva works at Planet Care.  You can find him in the "dish room."  We often speak together of existential problems and techniques for transcendence.  We are able to gauge each other's internal climate the way a meteorologist tracks a storm.  Ultimately, we manage to help each other feel better when there are obstacles in our paths.

Last night I said to the bodhisattva, "I do not like this game called making money that was invented by some person a long time ago.  I don't even understand the rules of this game.  Who invented this game of making money?  Who?!"

The bodhisattva said, "You!  You did!"

We both fell into hysterical laughter.  

"Of course!  I did!  I invented this game!  I did!  And I know all its rules!"

Later, I walked through the dish room and the bodhisattva said to me, "That's it!  I'm finished!"

"What do you mean?"

"I quit!  I never want to see another dish in my life!"

I commiserated with him for a moment.  Then I said, "Thich Nhat Hanh says washing dishes is like bathing the baby buddha."  

The bodhisattva's eyes lit up.  "Ah!  Yes!  I will kiss each dish from now on."  And he pulled a large pan out of the soapy water and gingerly kissed it.   

Moral Pontifications Regarding Babies and Monies

I sat in the cafe area of Planet Care yesterday eating my dinner: a banana, an apple and some peanut butter.  I've run out of money again.  I rely heavily on peanut butter and bananas for my sustenance at times like this.  It is unfortunate and ironic that I work in a supermarket filled with healthy foods that I cannot afford.  Sometimes I laugh at the irony.  Sometimes my ire is too great for laughter.

As I looked out the window of the cafe area of Planet Care, I noticed a pregnant woman and a man, presumably the person who impregnated her, get out of their car and walk across the parking lot to the doors of Planet Care.  I had an immediate sensation of revulsion in my gut upon seeing this pregnant couple.  I examined this revulsion and found myself thinking, "Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age?!"

Why would anyone want to have a baby in this day and age.  

Suddenly, the realization hit me: I have allowed the cannibalistic mentality of society to consume my thought process.  I have, to a degree, lost hope that our world will improve.  I have temporarily become That Person Whom I Abhor at any sort of family or social gathering: the Pessimist. The Nihilist.  The one who focuses on the destruction of the planet's natural resources, the monopolization of our food supply, the corporate takeover of our government, the unwillingness of the NRA to be reasonable, the vast number of people who are blatantly angry and aggressive who contribute further destruction through their anger and aggression.  I have grown angry.  And I am contributing to the destruction of the world around me through this anger.

My thoughts have been cycling around the topic of money to the point of obsession.  How can I make more?  What job can I see myself doing that would pay enough to comfortably sustain me?  I've invested money in therapy so that I can overcome the obstacles to my own growth....so that I can get a job that is more in alignment with who I am and what I am, a job that pays me a living wage.  I have taken money out of my food supply and put into a professional counselor for this reason.

The stunning realization is that there is nothing wrong with me.  I am merely trying to conform to a world whose principles I reject.  I have worth, despite the fact that I earn substandard wages.  When I have time to write or paint or play music, I am aware of my place in this world.  Everything makes sense.  When I put  time and energy into the pursuit of money (job-hunting), I feel like I've raped myself.

The thing that has become abundantly clear is the need to create a new world for myself.  A world of freedom.  A friend once told me that we are all slaves to money.  Whether you have it or whether you don't, your existence is ruled by money. My goal is to emancipate myself from this mental slavery. My goal is to spend more time enjoying my life by doing the things that I find rewarding and less time chasing money.  It is an attitudinal shift. Not a financial one.

While it can be argued that one needs money to do the things that one enjoys, I will argue that one can find a way to do the things one enjoys without money. For example, I was painting with The Greensboro Mural Project one Saturday and a man pulled over in his car and offered free paint.  Free paint?!  How can that be?!  He's a painting contractor.  He has a lot of left-over paint from jobs he's done.  Rather than take all this to the recycling center, he would like to give it to people who could use it!  Imagine that!  Free paint from someone who was just going to throw it away!

There is a facebook group called "Friends Swapping Stuff"  where people will post the need to get rid of certain items and the need to acquire certain items.  Sometimes it works like this: someone will announce that they have a couch they no longer need.  They would like to have garden tools.  So someone with garden tools approaches them about swapping for their couch.  Or, someone who needs the couch finds someone with garden tools and gives that person something that he or she needs and then swaps the tools for the couch.  Sometimes people offer things for giveaway and do not ask for anything in return.  I got a piano this way.  The only thing I had to do was move it.

I want to believe in a world where money doesn't rule.  I want to utilize resourcefulness and cooperation rather than fear and competition.  While I recognize that money-making will be a part of my existence, I do not want my existence to be defined by money-making.  Rather, I want my existence to be defined by the sheer joy of living as manifested through creative acts.

I went on a job interview recently in which I was asked what I would like to see myself doing in a job scenario.  I immediately said I'd like to write.

"What else?" he asked.

"I'd like to utilize my networking and promotional skills."

"What else?"

"I'd like to work with the public."

"What else?"

"I'd like to....."

I started to zone out here.  What was he asking me exactly?  How was I supposed to answer?  I was really trying to avoid saying things like "I want to paint vaginas all over Greensboro.  I want to make mask and puppet theatre pieces in the park downtown.  I want to bring Carl Sandburg's "Rootabaga Stories" to life.  I want to be in an all girl cowpunk band that writes and performs silly songs.  I want to make movies."  I knew if I said these things, I wouldn't get the job.  But those are the things I really want to do.  So I edited my answers. There was a time when I did not do this.

I had an interview once in which I was blatantly honest.  I did not get the job.  But I was on top of the world at the end of it. Happy beyond measure.  Because I'd told the truth.

To lie to myself and others is to diminish the life force inside of me.  Creativity is my Truth.  I vow, therefore, to only speak the Truth and nothing but the Truth. 



 

Bargain Hunters

People care a lot about money. I learned this in a big way today at Planet Care.

Among my first customers of the day were a couple - an older man and woman. They tend to be a bit gruff, especially when made to wait. After I finished serving the customer before them, the man practically pushed his groceries in front of the scanner for me. They had only a few items and I finished with them fairly quickly. I had started on the groceries of the next person in line when the woman, standing a good fifteen feet away from me, yelled, "The cinnamon buns are supposed to be 99 cents!"

"Excuse me?"

"The cinnamon buns are supposed to be 99 cents! They rang up as $1.99!!!"

"I see. Well, you can go see the gentleman at the Service Center. He'll refund the difference. I apologize. They're in our system at $1.99. And that is the only way I knew to ring them out."

"Well you need to change your system!"

Yes. I'll change the system. Because even though I work the cash register, I am really an IT specialist.

"Yes, we do."

"You know, Taj Mah Teeter would give us this item for free if this happened there! I'm not asking you to do that. I'm just saying that's how it would be handled there."

"Well unfortunately I can't do anything for you at this point. You'll need to go to the Service Center for a refund. Again, I apologize."

They harrumphed their way to their refund and gave the manager at the Service Center an earful. Never mind that they obviously have money. Never mind the fact that the only time they come in to Planet Care is when they want to redeem their coupons for free stuff. Never mind that they made a big stink about being overcharged by one dollar. Never mind.

Planet Care likes to bestow gazillions of coupons upon its customers or would-be customers. Each week, a new coupon - usually for free stuff - is emailed to everyone on Planet Care's special email list. It is the customer's responsibility to print out a copy of the coupon to bring with them to the store or to pull up an electronic version on their technologically superior and internet capable cell phone. They must show us, somehow, that they personally received this coupon. Of course, this system is highly abused. People email coupons to their friends. People print out multiple coupons and visit multiple times to take advantage of the weekly offerings.

As a result of the weekly email coupons, we cashiers must handle a variety of oddballs, tightwads, freeloaders and control freaks. I had three transactions in a row which exemplified this. The first was a woman who had left her coupon for a pound of free hamburger at home. She was an older lady and she whined about the fact that she'd forgotten her coupon. But she clearly had not forgotten to pick up her pound of hamburger. Which she was expecting to get for free. If she could only irritate the cashier and cashier's boss to the point of submission. She managed to accomplish this fairly rapidly and I gave her the pound of meat. "Don't forget the senior discount," she cooed in a sickeningly sweet tone.

Good grief.

The next customer in line had a coupon for free hamburger and another for 3 pounds of apples. As I processed her order, she asked in a timid middle-school manner, "I got a free lunch bag the last time I was in." The result of yet another email coupon. "But I left it on the floor and my dog ate it. I was wondering if I could get another one?"

Say what? Are you fucking kidding me? How the hell am I supposed to take that request seriously?!

"Ummm, I really don't know, m'am. Let me ask my boss."

My motivation in calling Bookkeeper Doug over was I just wanted him to experience the same degree of disbelief I had just experienced. Otherwise I would have just told the woman no. But I called Doug over. And he could barely contain his contempt. "I'll give you this one, but it's my last one. So you probably want to keep it out of the reach of your dog."

It wasn't really our last lunch bag. But I thought this provided the scenario with a nice touch.

I completed this transaction and the woman stood close by and examined her receipt. Apparently, she'd purchased steak and I'd neglected to use the $2 off per pound coupon. "It was attached to the hamburger coupon," she said.

"Doug! I messed up again!"

Next in line is a woman with piles of bags of frozen goods. Scythian Farmland offers a $1 off coupon for two bags of frozen vegetables. The woman hands me her pile of coupons and asks if I would mind taking them off as we go along to make sure she has the right number of bags of vegetables for the number of coupons she's brought in.

She's lost count? This is not a good sign.

I scanned two bags of vegetables then one coupon. I set the coupon aside. I scanned two more bags of vegetables and another coupon. I set that coupon aside. I did this ten times. She purchased twenty bags of vegetables in order to use ten coupons.

Then she had the coupon for the free 3 pound bag of apples.

Then she had the coupon for the free hamburger.

$1 off turkey bacon.

$1 off Planet Care cleaning products.

"And don't forget my senior discount!"

The tune of the Christmas song "Twelve Days of Christmas" danced through my head: twenty bags of veggies, 3 pounds of apples, one pound of burger, a dollar off the bacon, a dollar off the cleaner, ONE SENIOR DISCOUNT!!!!

Later on, I had one customer who had several items. Among them were six drinks. This lady knows the drill. There's a coupon that allows her to save 50 cents on one drink. It's in a book of coupons we keep in a rack by the Service Center. She pulls out six books of coupons in order to snag the six coupons needed for the purchase of her drinks. This particular coupon stipulates only one coupon per transaction can be used. So she asked to have each drink rung up separately so that 50 cents can be deducted from the cost of each one. In the first transaction - the one in which I sold her more stuff than just one can of drink, the coupon inexplicably did not work. 50 cents was not deducted from her purchase. She did not notice this until after I'd completed her sixth transaction. She immediately proceeded to the Service Center for a 50 cent refund.

These encounters would all be funny if they weren't accompanied by a quality of desperation. It's hard to define. The coupon grubbing and the expectation of free stuff feels panic-driven. It is like a milder version of looting. But we've had no natural catastrophe or national emergency. Yet. Maybe they are anticipating worse times. So they horde whatever they can. Because it makes them feel powerful and in control.

Times are uncertain. People feel vulnerable. The rich and powerful make life Hell for the underpaid, and under-employed. Everyone feels trod upon. So they unleash their fear and anxiety in the supermarket. They look for the deals. They seek out the free stuff and they aim to collect it. And woe to the person who stands in their way!

$2.66 Worth

I admit, when it comes to managing money, I suck.

"Kathy, you have to have money in order to manage it! Your problem is you don't have any money!"

Truer words were never spoken. These words came from the mouth of a dear friend during my brief stay in the third world country that is West Virginia. This was a dozen or so years ago when I was the sole provider for my family - which at the time consisted of my daughter, my son and ex-husband guy who, at the time, was married to me.

I was the store manager of a gift shop in a little tourist town on the eastern panhandle. It was a lovely shop and I had a lovely time working in it. But the various worldly demands made of me tempered my enjoyment. I made $9 an hour. And feeding everyone and taking care of everyone's needs on that salary was challenging to say the least.

Fast forward to my life today. I am a cashier in a "healthy supermarket." I make fifty cents more an hour than I made at the gift shop job in 1996. I stand in a cubby behind a cash register for roughly 8 hours a day. I crave activity and a feeling of usefulness. When there is a steady stream of customers to keep me busy, there is no problem. I can pretend like entering information into the store's computer system about each and every item purchased is a useful thing. I can pack up the customer's groceries and load them into their carts and pretend like I'm being helpful. When there is not a steady stream of customers, I pace around in my tiny cubby like a caged animal longing for freedom. My boyfriend says the cubby that I stand in is too small for my dreams.

Ah yes. My dreams.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to travel the world. Today, I am a writer, even though I currently don't get paid to write. I am an artist who makes no money at her craft. And this year, I worked on my very first movie - again, not for money. This year was a bit of a milestone for me: I traveled to Brooklyn twice.

I am not living up to my full potential and I make a ridiculously low salary which is not nearly enough to pay for my existence on the planet. These are hard realizations to allow to manifest in one's consciousness.

Tim LaFollette recently told me to stop being a wimp. He said this after I told him that I am too scared to play guitar in front of people. Tim LaFollette is battling a disease that will end his life. He is doing so with humor and dignity. When he told me to stop being a wimp, I realized I am the biggest fucking wimp on the face of the planet. And I have no excuses.

I have talents and skills which I do not exercise during my daily grind. I long to feel useful and productive. I would feel useful and productive if I were to utilize my true talents. Yet do I seek out opportunities which will allow me to utilize the talents that lie dormant for eight hours a day?

No. I do not. And it is this awareness that makes going to work such a chore.

My sister, Boot Camp Becky, tells me "You need to believe in yourself!" I wonder in what way.

I believe in my ability to create. I believe in my ability to make people laugh. I believe in my ability to tell a story or to write a song. I believe in my ability to connect with people, to listen with respect and compassion to their stories, to empower them. I believe in my ability to be the person I want to be. But I do not believe in my ability to translate all this into a money-making venture.

"Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money...if all you want...is to make a lot of money."

This quote from the film Citizen Kane haunts me. Is that all there is to it: if I need to make more money, I just need to focus on making more money? Why does that concept elude me? Why am I unable to motivate myself to simply make money?

Typically, I find ways to justify my inability to focus on money. Typically, I dodge a lot of financial bullets. Occasionally however, I am hit. Major illnesses, mishaps with the law, automobile repairs, these are among the biggest bullets. Up until recently, I've been doing pretty well with the ol' robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul strategy. Today, my years of financial struggle came to a head in a millisecond during an insignificant transaction at lunch time. And as a result, my self worth was called into question.

Each day that I work at Planet Care, I select food items from its salad bar and purchase my meal. I purchase my groceries from Planet Care because I'm too tired or lazy to go anywhere else at the end of a shift. In this regard, Planet Care and The Company Store have a lot in common.

Today I took my salad bar selection to the cash register reserved for employee purchases. Planet Care employees are able to purchase salad bar items for half the cost of the average customer. This is called a "staff meal" purchase. And this is fairly nice. In an instance such as today, the meal that I had selected would have cost the average customer $5.32. The salad bar items are sold by the pound at $7.99 per pound. We cashiers remove the weight of the dish or receptacle that the customer has placed their food selections in. So in theory, the customer is only being charged for the weight of their food.

Items such as meat, fruit, potatoes and beans are heavy either because of their density or water weight. I try to avoid heaping too many heavy items on my plate. I base my food selection on the amount of money I will have to shell out for it at the cash register. I try to keep my cost a little below $3. This is less than a pound of food. Which is ok really, because I only have 20 minutes in which to eat. It is better to buy a little food which can be thoroughly masticated than a lot which one must forcibly swallow in large chunks.

Today, I selected $2.66 worth of food. I slid my debit card through the debit/credit/EBT card processing unit and touched the appropriate flat screened buttons.

Declined.

I had no cash. I had nothing with which to barter. I could have opened a vein and payed in blood. But my blood is defective. I'm pretty sure that offer would have been rejected.

It takes roughly 17 minutes of my time working at Planet Care to earn enough money to buy this meal that I would have to consume in 20 minutes or less. I could have offered to tag an additional 17 minutes onto the end of my shift. But this is not the way Planet Care rolls. I needed an immediate form of payment. Fortunately, a co-worker was buying her meal at the same time as I and offered to pay for both. I feel it is noteworthy to mention that her name is Hope.

Yes, in money matters, I suck. In other regards, I'm a pretty decent human being. But the money thing is a real ball-buster. Something as simple as being rejected by the bank for having insufficient funds to pay for a $2.66 meal creates such a staggering sense of worthlessness, anger and depression.

I had $2.66 worth of food which cost me - at the current rate of $9.50 an hour times the amount of time I spent feeling bad about insufficient funds and my co-worker bailing me out so I could eat lunch - $85.50 worth of angst. I am no economist, but it seems like I should invest in my future with a bit more discernment.