349 Days Left

Well, January is half over, which means only 11.5 more months of this project. 16 days may not seem like a long time, but when we're changing our lifestyle as much as we are, it feels like a very long time. A co-worker asked me at lunch yesterday how it was going. I told her to be honest, it hasn't been so difficult to adjust to the smaller budget. The most difficult part of this experience so far has been adjusting the mindset of not being able to just go out and do whatever we want, shop wherever we want, buy the groceries we want, etc.

We did discover, when paying our car payment, that we had calculated our monthly expenses based on the poverty line for a family of four, not two. So, Alicia looked up what the SNAP (food stamp) benefits for two people would be and the estimate was about $200/month. We have to eat, so we are using that "assistance" for our grocery budget. Even so, we haven't really done much other than pay our bills and spend a lot more time at home than we used to.

One of the questions I am asked most frequently is, "is that in your poverty line budget?" When the question is asked about clothing, appliances, etc, my response is that we aren't "selling everything we have and giving the money to the poor" (cf. Matt. 19:21) in order to experience poverty. We are adjusting our budget and lifestyle according to that income level. The other response is that, yes, people in poverty sometimes do spend their money on cell phones, clothes, etc. One of the symptoms of our consumer driven economy is that people feel inclined to buy things that may not be a "necessity." Often, people of all classes purchase things they don't need because they need to "keep up with the neighbors" or even out-do them. For the middle class, purchasing a new tablet even though the old model works fine just means they might not have as much money for new clothes. For the wealthy, purchasing a new car just means they might not be able to fit a vacation into the budget. For people in poverty, purchasing anything beyond the essentials means cutting essentials. Some are willing to make that trade in order to maintain an appearance of not being poor. Others may not choose to sacrifice essentials for "stuff."

We've found ourselves weighing the pros and cons of what are seemingly minute decisions. For example, Las Vegas has experienced an extreme cold snap over the past week. With temperatures below freezing overnight, we need to keep the heat on. But how warm do we set the thermostat? How does using the heat impact our electric bill for next month? Which in turn impacts cuts from other areas. We'll face the same issue in the summer when temperatures are above 100 for the better part of May through September. I suppose the dilemmas we face are part of the learning process.

Coincidentally, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has designated January as "Poverty Awareness Month." We are looking forward to learning more about living in poverty, not just this month, but throughout the year. I feel like we've barely scraped the surface of the lessons the next 11.5 months have in store for us.