Handling stress during a financial crisis

Ran across this fabulous piece by Diane Bergman this morning about how to manage stress during a financial crisis. I thought it had some actual helpful practical ideas beyond the typical Stay Positive! line you usually find in articles like this (although it did include that). I've found when you're swimming in the midst of a true financial crisis and the stress is just drowning you and taking over your life, some of these tips can actually work to pull you back out. They won't necessarily fix the problem, but doing some of them can help change your perspective, give you hope, and help you better navigate the crisis. So check out the article and I hope it can bring a little light to those in otherwise seemingly world-ending situations.

If there’s going to be a revolution, it’s going to start in the Silicon Valley

Check out this lovely gem of an article from yahoo news today. It opens with the jolly story of a disabled homeless woman receiving an eviction notice. Yep, you heard that right. She’s already homeless, can’t get a job because she’s disabled, and the local government is evicting her from her TENT. The article goes on to highlight that while although the Silicon Valley is on the rebound economically, the poor just keep getting poorer and poorer and the rich keep getting richer. It also reiterates the cost-of-living issues we have here that I discussed the other day.

I found this quote particularly interesting:

            “Before the Great Recession, about 10% of people seeking food had at least some college education. Today, one in four who line up at food pantries for bags of free food have been to college.”

This whole thing just incenses me on so many levels, from the fact that everything the article points out is totally true, to some of the asinine and utterly ignorant comments posted below the article by readers. Particularly one reader who goes off about how education is the key to getting out of poverty, when the article clearly stated that ONE IN FOUR people lining up at the food pantries has some college education! And don’t even get me started on the cost of a college education these days and how devastating student loan debt is to so. many. people. Oh yeah, and the fact that it can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, so even if you lose everything financially, you still better find a way to pay back that 20, 40, 60, or even 100K+ in student loans. Another commenter that I wanted to throw something at didn’t see why the woman didn’t just move out of the area. Seriously? Because she gets $826 a month, and lives in a tent, which leads me to believe that she probably doesn’t have a car, so what is she supposed to do? Strap everything she owns onto her back, which by the way, she can’t do because she’s disabled, and walk to some other area which will miraculously be cheaper to live? Or should she take those imaginary savings they think she has and hire someone to help her move? Where she’ll (again miraculously) have enough money to come up with a security deposit for a room to rent. Or the commenter that said this woman must feel entitled. Oh right, I’m sure she feels so entitled that she thinks she deserves to be evicted from her tent. I’m sure it’s quite luxurious living out in the cold. Let’s let go a little of that pride, lady. Argh. I’m seriously going to have an aneurism over these peoples’ lack of compassion, sympathy, and just sheer ignorance of what the reality of being truly poor is like.

So naturally as I’m sitting here in a progressively more agitated ball of anger, I realize I have to start looking at myself. If I’m so pissed off about this, what am I going to do about it? And sadly, I just don’t know. For those of us closer to the lower end of the income scale, honestly what do we have to offer to folks in similar or worse economic situations than ourselves besides compassion? Compassion’s great, but it doesn’t put a roof over someone’s head, and it doesn’t put food in their mouths. So when you don’t have any money to give, and you’re scraping by to put food on your own table, just how can we help out our fellow man?

Maybe the answer is education. I’m not talking about college education so we can all make loads of money and afford nice homes and cars, but education of the “haves” that not all “have nots” are lazy, uneducated, or entitled. That a huge majority of them are educated, hard working people, that perhaps fell on hard times, were injured, or were devastated by medical bills or job loss. That regardless of the reason behind why someone is poorer than someone else, does not in any way mean they are less worthy of respect as a human being. That things can change in an instant, and you never know when the coin will flip and you will wish that someone would show you an ounce of compassion and offer you a place to sleep, or a morsel to eat. Maybe we all need to stop equating income with a person’s value and go back to looking at people’s character. 

I know a change like that isn’t going to feed anyone, but at least if the minds and hearts of those in a position to help can be changed, maybe it will start to make a difference.  

So this is why I'm broke!

This article gives you an idea of the cost of living here in the Bay Area. Essentially, close to 16 percent of residents in the South Bay and Peninsula areas make about $191K per year. Let’s just say, I do not make that. I do not make even close to that. I have never made close to that, lol.

The article makes it sound like everyone who lives here is rich, but the thing is, the other 84% of us are barely scraping by. According to apartments.com, you’d be hard pressed to find a 2 bedroom apartment around here for under $2K a month. If you go by recommended budgeting advice and allot 25% of your income to rent or mortgage, that means you’d need to make about $96K a year just to afford an average 2 bedroom apartment. The BLS claims that the mean national wage in 2011 was $45. That’s HALF of what it costs to live here, meaning roughly 84% of South Bay residents are most likely paying half their income to housing costs. Get laid off and have to collect unemployment? Assuming you were making 96K, then you’d qualify for the maximum amount of unemployment benefits and that would leave you with $1800 in monthly income. And suddenly, job loss means you are homeless. A budget is rendered useless. Good times. The situation is exponentially worse when you’re paying on a mortgage which can average about $750K here for a modest house. I feel for those of you in that boat.

This whole income disparity/cost of living in the Bay Area is a big reason I wanted to start this blog. While 16% of the population is doing okay and can actually afford their housing, the other 84% can’t. And yet, we’re somehow surviving here. We are still living and eating and raising families. But it isn’t easy, and I want to share any and everything I come across that might help someone else keep their head above water here.

So if any of you have figured out how to make six plus figures while sitting at your dining room table, I’m all ears. Just kidding. Sort of.