Feeling Squirrelly

I have this idea right? I was in the peculiar position, this week, to be in a sort of dry spell, fund wise. We have a lot of money promising to come our way, both with my part time work and with the GIBill. And let me tell ya'. When it rains it pours and we drink it up. Unfortunately, when it doesn't rain? We're talking desert conditions.

We are not poor and we don't live in poverty. In fact, the only reason it got so bad this week is because I am stubborn. I suppose, if you don't know this about me, you should. I have two, count them, one, two savings accounts. The only reason our dry spell was as bad as it was, is because I refused to touch the savings. I'm sorry, but that is why it's called SAVE-ings. However, time was my enemy this week. Time moved forward and payments did not.

It fascinates me how different my life seemed in that short time. So, I'm going to do it again. I want to simulate living in poverty for a whopping 7 days. It's enough, let me tell you! Now, obviously, I can't move out of my house or give up the many things that I already have, like shoes, clothes and a car. Also I will cease and desist, if this begins to effect my kids, but in as little as seven days, I don't think it will.

According the the Department of Health and Human Services, the poverty level in America for a family of four is $22,350/yearly income. http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/11fedreg.shtml As if that's even livable! The average income of welfare recipients is actually around $12,ooo/year.

I have figured out that we pay approximately 50% of our income to bills, mortgage, car loan, etc. That is not counting things like groceries, gasoline, spending money, savings, etc. So, if we can assume that welfare recipients also somehow live on 50% of their income,(which is actually impossible and they probably use closer to 75 or 80% of their income just to pay bills and keep the roof over their heads) I can figure that they probably get less than $214 a week to shop with. 214 is 50% of their income. Let's face it, a family of four has more bills than can be covered with only 50% of 22,000 a year, but because I don't even know how I would feed my family for the week on less, I'm going to set my amount this week to $200.

Here are the parameters:

My experiment will start this Friday and end the following Friday.

I will blog all seven days.

I will allow my bills to get paid as usual, but the amount I save, spend, buy groceries with and use to put gas in my car will be limited to $200 for the week. I'm actually willing to do this for a month, but I think I'll see how this week goes first.

I have to try to maintain my normal lifestyle of going to school and work, cooking a decent meal every night and saving money, which I have no doubt will be challenging.

**PLEASE REMEMBER** that $200 is much more than the average family of four, on welfare, would have on a given week. It would be more accurately about $100/week which would actually be impossible for me because both my husband and I are in school and need gas for our vehicles. A limit of $100 for the week would force us to decide between gas and food. Can you imagine world?? Well, can you? Right off the bat we see that living on welfare makes it impossible to go to school and feed your family.