I don’t know why life has to be such a struggle all the time.  It seems like there’s never enough time or money to get everythin done I need to get done.  I seems like all I get done is working and I still ain’t got no money to pay all my bills.  And things just get keeping higher and higher.  If groceries keep getting higher I ain’t gonna be able to feed my kids.  We already been cuttin back to two meals a day instead of three.  All the food pantries is running low on food.  I guess cause everybody is in the same boat I am not enough money. I just cain’t understand why if you work hard you still end up poor. It just don’t make no sense that I work and work and still I got nothin in my kitchen.  I ain’t even got enough peanut butter to make a sandwich.  That is if I had any bread to put it on.  It wasn’t to long ago that I could get bread for less then a dollar now it seems its almost 2 dollars.  Its just crazy.  Everybody has to have bread.

This is it.  I think I am gonna  just give up and quit tryin.  I’m barely makin it as it is and now today gas is $3.95 a gallon. I had my electric shut off because I cain’t afford to pay it and everything else and feed the kids and put gas in the car to get to and from work.  There’s no bus here so if I don’t have no gas I don’t have no job.  It seems like everything is costin more and more.  What’s a workin family to do? If the prices keep risin soon we’re gonna be livin in a cave up on the ridge. I done maxed out my credit cards just tryin to keep gas in the car and groceries in the house. I cain’t even make the bills and they keep callin me all the time wantin their money. I ain’t got it and they just don’t want to listen to that. 

I seen where the food pantries is runnin out of food because so many more families are needin their help. I saw in the paper that more people are havin to get on welfare because times are so bad.  I just don’t know what those of us who done used up our welfare are gonna do if we cain’t make it. We’re working hard but we ain’t getting no where just farther and farther behind. 

Sometimes I just sit and cry cause I don’t know what else to do.  The groceries and the gas just keep going up.  I seen where Iraq has something like a $70 billion suprlus from oil or somethin. If they got all that money over there then why we need to keep givin em our money.  The President or whoever, needs to keep our money right here to help us that need help. 

Don’t get me started on that President of ours, he ain’t never done nothing for me or anybody I know.  He send out that little bit of money called stimulus and wants us to spend it on shoppin.  CAIN’T NOBODY AFFORD NO SHOPPING!!!  When I get mine I’m gettin my lights back on and putting some gas in the car so I can work. 

I aged out of the system and no longer can get health-care…So I can’t afford to go to the eye doctor which is a really big problem because I have a really bad astigmatism, which basically means I am going blind, and I can’t see 6inches in-front of me without glasses or contacts. Well the dog got a hold of my glasses two days after my CHIPs ran out in January 2007. Luckily I had my contacts and then I ran out of contacts so I wore the same pair for 3months, you are only suppose to wear them for 1month but when you have no money and no health-care you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Eventually my eyes started to really hurt bad from wearing the same contact lenses. So I searched for some old glasses hoping to find some that would work the only ones I could find were 3years old bent up and held together with a bread tie its all I had so I had to wear them I couldn’t see good at all with them and they looked crazy but it was better then none after I filed my income taxes I called the eye doctor and got an appointment I have glasses and contacts now with the help of my mom who paid for my appointment and I paid for the glasses and contacts but the glasses and contacts alone are $200 which is cheap compaired to what it could be but it is only a six month supply of contacts. I do need the contacts I can see better with them, the glasses are just a back up but because I had to buy glasses and contacts I had to make a choice weather I needed to see or go to the doctor to see about a pain I have been having wear my gallbladder is and I chose sight because I can always go to the ER if it gets really bad and pay it off slowly over next 20 years but if I can’t see then well I wouldn’t be very much help to anyone and it would also be dangerous for me I would be falling downstairs I didn’t see and such. I shouldn’t have had to make that choice no-one should have to make that choice.  We need free universal health-care!!

Poor People have to make choices like this everyday…for example A lot of parents have to go without medical care because they simply cant afford it. I know a single mother that only has been to the doctor when she breaks something or she is really sick and isnt getting better. And when she goes to the doctor she has to make a choice what not to pay if she needs medication.

This is why I fight to end poverty no-one should have to make choices like these and I don’t want my little niece or nephew (that will be here this summer) to have to make these choices when they grow up. This is why I fight to end poverty it is for the future I don’t want them to have to make the same hard choices as so many people before them have had to make.

Well, its almost time for Halloween, the beginning of the holiday season that just costs too much.  It starts with Halloween.  The kids need costumes, and you got to buy candy or make some cupcakes for them to take to school.  Then comes Thanksgiving, which ain’t too bad because most of the stuff you need you can buy with your food stamps, but that makes the rest of the month harder.  Then comes the holiday all us poor mama’s dread.  Christmas.  And God forbid if any of us was unlucky enough to have birthed our kids in the winter.  That means on top of all this money for Halloween and  Christmas, then you got birthday.  And all  these holidays come one right after another.  It don’t give you anytime to save up, but there ain’t much saving when you living on less then $300 a month.  Then on top of everything, its the time of year when your bills go up because its cold and you got to have your heat on.

Everybody thinks all the churches and the Secret Santa’s will help.  Well, they do and I thank them for it, but its just not the same as going out and being able to pick out the stuff you want to buy for your kids.  Its just not the same.

How many of you out there knew today was Poverty Day?  I sure didn’t until I got an email that was sent out by the Census Bureau.  I thought when you was poor everyday was Poverty Day.  Guess I was wrong.  According to the Census Bureau the number of people in poverty has dropped from  12.6% to 12.3%.  Wow, a whole big .3%  Doesn’t mean much to you and me does it?  I was poor before I got the email and I’m still poor after I got the email.  I guess I just wasn’t one of those .3% that woke up this morning to find out they had won the lottery.