Kiddo Magiddo's birthday party was this weekend, and I
frantically prepped the house for it. It
was pretty bad, and we are going to have to go through a bunch of random piles
and boxes in the next few weeks. I let a
lot of things slip in the endless shows and in my exhaustion around Tiny
Magoo. My standards always climb
sky-high when it comes to someone else viewing my house, so it created massive
amounts of stress. By the time the party
finally started, I was practically listless, and I had done it to myself. Fuzzy was of course right that no one cared,
and the second and third kids to arrive were highly enthusiastic about potato
chips, but terrible at keeping them on plates, so there's that.
I was struck by something in talking to the other parents,
though. We are in the lower middle
class, in a bracket I like to call "Bay Area Broke." We would be downright comfortable in many
areas of the US, but out here, we are definitely closer to broke. I can do what I do (contract sewing and
costuming) because Fuzzy has a full time job and a side hustle and because we
bought our house at the bottom of the market 10 years ago. Our cars are smallish and ordinary. My mother-in-law was stunned by how tiny and
"boring!" our house was when we first moved in, but she suddenly
understood my requirements when Fuzzy lost his job within a couple months of
closing. They sidled up to me, quietly
asking how much we needed from them to pay the bills and were stunned to
discover we could cover it on my then-full-time job.
Most of our friends are in similar set ups in our town. At the party, we had one set of parents who
had recently transitioned into the mother staying home. She was considering returning at least
part-time to work, as she had not anticipated how difficult losing money for
little extras and such would be. Another
parent was a single parent living with her own parents. Her income is limited by her inability to
drive or afford a car. Talking with her
made me realize that I am much more wealthy than I usually think.
There has been a lot of talk lately about privilege and the
fact that, once you get below a certain level of income, the rules of frugality
and saving change. I recognize that I am
privileged to practice what I call "middle class frugality." I have not purchased new bathroom towels in
over a decade, simply because I haven't needed to. I received several sets of high-quality
towels at my wedding from generous friends.
I'm lucky that I had a wedding and generous friends. I wear many of the same clothes I purchased
years ago, because I have the space to store them and laundry facilities that
allow me to keep them up. I work hard to
keep things under budget, but at least I have a comfortable budget to work in,
as well as space on my credit card to float things that I will be reimbursed
for later.
When my full-time job disappeared with little warning soon
after Kiddo's first birthday, I learned the hard way that I needed to create
multiple streams of income. I am not
wealthy enough to have real estate or investments to turn to, but we have
several jobs at this point. Right now,
Fuzzy works a full-time job in manufacturing, a part-time job running lights
and sound for a community center near us, and an on-call job doing backstage
work for a local venue that hosts touring bands, dance troupes, and the
like. Meanwhile, I do costume shop
management for an independent designer, hourly customer service and order
fulfillment for an online fabric retailer, piecework for a vendor who sells at
historical events, teaching at a summer day camp, overhiring for other costume
shops in the area, and commissions, which are almost exclusively historical
costume. I also sell some pieces at
certain events. All this somehow adds up
to what we need each month, plus (in most months) a little extra to work
towards our goals. I assure you, tax
season at our house is exciting.
We work very hard, and we carefully plan our lives, but I
recognize that we are intensely lucky to have our opportunities. How do you make it work?
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