September 2010 Low-Income Thread - Page 2

[maciascl]

Originally Posted by zebra15

Of course the DES call center was busy. Monday was a holiday so they have double the calls today, plus all the weekend calls... you didnt think they would be able to help did you LOL...

HA! Very true! It is always busy, it's crazy. But yesterday I decied to just give it a try and call the automated system that gives me my balance to see if it had been processed and... it was!! Amazing! So we got our regular amount from Aug and the we were bumped up about $100 starting in Sept because we added the baby on. Woo Hoo! Going to try to ride this positve energy and make it last

[Pumpkin_Pie]

I am still here too. I don't think I am actually going to move in January now. I just talked to a friend who lives at the co-op that I am trying to move into and the apartment that I would be moving into doesn't have a yard or a second floor deck. All of the other ones do, but not this one. I really would like either and I think I am going to hold out for the next place to open up so I can have one. I think I might be possibly adding on six months to a year of waiting, but I also will be in a better spot financially (hopefully!). This way I could buy DS Christmas presents, pay off my credit card and really sock away some savings. Being unemployed for five weeks was not pretty.

I am getting a little freaked out at an appointment for cash assistance that I am going to on Monday. I don't qualify now that I am working, but I was unemployed for five weeks, so am WAAAAAYYYYY behind on bills and my car is buring through a quart of oil a week now. There is no way I can afford car repairs right now, and the step down assistance program that I was on was cancelled when I lost my job. I don't have any safety net right now and if my car dies, I will have no way to get to work and will most likely lose my job. I am afraid that they will pretty much sit down with me, see how much I am making now ($10 per hour, 30 hours per week) and laugh me out the door.

[frugalmama]

FINALLY got DD's medicaid processed and a temp card picked up. She's going to her doc in the morning to see whats going on with her being sick.

Still no action on my medicaid. I guess at 5:01 pm tomorrow I'll be calling the ombudsman back to pursue it further. I also will be complaining about what happened today while picking up DD's medicaid card. They called everyone by full name signed in as they normally do except for me who they called "Miss {blank first name}" with the name not being correct either - it's a much longer form of my name, which was clearly printed on the form. They also immediately called another name afterwards too, which didn't give me any time to get to the window. Then when I went up to see if that was me they tried to make me sign in again since I "wasn't present when called".

I just want my medicaid people! How hard can it be? - I don't have any income!

[zebra15]

Well dang- there was work available for tomorrow and I didnt take it. DS is sick and I probably need to take him to the Dr. (its a huge no-no to take a sub job then cancel it). I would've loved the $$ from basically 3 days of subbing this early in the year...

DS has been struggling with some sort of sinus infection/asthma/allergy thing for over a week now. My luck he has streph, bronchitis AND an ear infection. So I am going to see how he is in the AM then go from there.

Either I will have him do breathing treatments all day with tylenol/motrin or we will be at urgent care. I am by-passing the dr's office since they are useless for anything but routine rx refills.(have I ever mentioned how much I hate our medicaid dr. i would love to change it but i dont know what i hate more, dr hopping or the dr we have)

[skybluepink02]

Hi all,

I'm new here. I'm newly separated from my husband and am going through the food stamp application process. I'm going to be living on 800 a month CS and 450 food stamps. I'm living rent free right now, so I think I can manage. I'm going to start LPN school soon since I can't find a job anywhere. All in all I feel pretty good about everything. I look forward to getting tips and support from you ladies!

[natural_mama89]

Hope everyone is doing alright. To whomever was on the phone with whatever government agency, I know how irritating that is. I was on the phone with dshs on hold for like half an hour yesterday and didn't even find out what I need to know. The person I talked to put in a call back though which means my worker is supposed to call me back within 24 hours. Hopefully she does.
Welcome skyblue!!!! We have a nice little bunch of supportive and knowledgeable mamas here. We will all do the best we can to help you through this time of hardship .

[thatgirliknew]

Well, thanks to you; my MDC mommas, I paid rent on time. And I got on WIC so that's basically an extra $150 or so a month for food. And I was all set to pay all my bills on time until I called to cancel my newspaper and they told me they did, but then they took the money out of my account anyway and overdrew it, (which also overdrew another small item) so my bank account just lost $85 overnight and now they are saying it could take 10 days to fix. I had to call my insurance company and tell them that I would pay as soon as possible. I was looking forward to a $300-something check and ended up with a $240 one. Can't wait to get this fixed.

[Ianthe]

I got accepted as a ChaCha Guide! Thanks to the mama who referred me

[natural_mama89]

Forgive me, but what on earth is a ChaCha Guide?

[thatgirliknew]

Originally Posted by Ianthe

I got accepted as a ChaCha Guide! Thanks to the mama who referred me

Woohoo. I haven't done much this weekend but I think it's Guaranteed Cash weekend which is bonus money for doing a certain amount of questions.

My husband just took a test for expeditor today so I might have him making us some money too.

[thatgirliknew]

Originally Posted by natural_mama89

Forgive me, but what on earth is a ChaCha Guide?

ChaCha is something a couple of us on this board do. Users text a question to ChaCha and it is assigned to a guide who answers it (and gets paid for it)

[chely7425]

How do you go about becoming a chacha guide?

[surrogate]

ooooooooooooooooooooooooh god i am going nuts. I have a mouse "problem" to put it lightly. I finally gave in and bought 5 of the "no show" dcon traps set them all out earlier...snap. snap. Yay, right? Til I go look and I have 3 mice caught between 2 traps, and they are ALL ALIVE....omg....so it took me an hr to get the courage to pickup the traps and dump the mice outside. yuck.

I reset them, and am crossing my fingers for DEAD mice in the AM.

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by chely7425

How do you go about becoming a chacha guide?

PMing you

[averysmomma05]

Originally Posted by thatgirliknew

Woohoo. I haven't done much this weekend but I think it's Guaranteed Cash weekend which is bonus money for doing a certain amount of questions.

My husband just took a test for expeditor today so I might have him making us some money too.

There was also a contest for quality that if you answered 400 questions between last Sunday and this Sunday at 12am (Sat night really) with 95% quality and completion you get $10. Do a extra 200 to make that 600 and you got another $3 on top of that so total of $13. I wish you guys would have joined months ago! GC this time SUCKS compared to about 6 months ago omg the money that could be made!

[frugalmama]

Originally Posted by surrogate

ooooooooooooooooooooooooh god i am going nuts. I have a mouse "problem" to put it lightly. I finally gave in and bought 5 of the "no show" dcon traps set them all out earlier...snap. snap. Yay, right? Til I go look and I have 3 mice caught between 2 traps, and they are ALL ALIVE....omg....so it took me an hr to get the courage to pickup the traps and dump the mice outside. yuck.

I reset them, and am crossing my fingers for DEAD mice in the AM.

Could you just get a cat? Much easier I promise.

We need to get another cat ourselves - my old one died of old age and I've been waiting until DD is a bit bigger and gentler with animals before we get one. When we do I'm going to try to get a farm cat so they know how to mouse & such - it's a HUGE help.

[confustication]

Oh gosh- things are looking up for us- for now. So, for everyone here, hang in there- enough perseverance and you will come out the other side.

DH is working his new job and though he's away from us for a while- it's because he's getting everything settled and looking for a new house etc. I'm excited. Also, he's making really great money- which is a LOVELY change from what I've been able to get where we have been living. Somehow, without using his degree, he is making more than I can with multiple degrees, but whatever works! Once things get caught up I won't have to feel guilty about going out and splurging now and then. I'm already window shopping on the net for clothes for myself- lol- 3 new pair of jeans, a couple new tank tops and a cardigan!

DS 2 turns 1 this week, and we'll have a small birthday celebration. Without DH here, it's hard to really be too excited about it, but we'll see what we can create.

[bandgeek]

I started working about 2 months ago. We'd been living on DD's SSI check and food stamps previously. Which wasn't working. So I more than doubled my income but I still feel like I'm struggling all the time. I have actually managed to put some money aside (I really need a new car) but aside from that, things are still tight. I spend a lot more on gas, about $120 a month now instead of $50-60. And since I'm actually buying things instead of doing without, a lot of my paycheck goes there. I keep track of everything I spend. I make a note next to every purchase what it was for. I looked back at it yesterday and none of it seems unreasonable I guess. I just find it odd that I have so much more money now (I'm still low-income, I'm just talking relatively) and still barely seem to have any! Is this normal!?

So far, in the last 2 months, I've bought a diva cup (not "necessary" but since I'm working I'd like not to worry about changing pads while there), a vegetable peeler, school supplies, shoes for all 3 of us and socks for DD (the shoes were no more than $5 a pair), onesies for DD, a b12 supplement for me, diapers, a birth certificate so I could enroll DS in a virtual academy, 3 $5 shirts for me, about $15 worth of stuff at goodwill, 2 bras, and food when I was staying at Children's with DD. That all sounds reasonable right?

If I didn't have the money, I wouldn't have been able to justify much of that. I used to have trouble buying TP for crying out loud! I use cloth when I can, but we have nursing in the home, plus therapists and whatnot coming to the house for DD and I really need to have TP. I wouldn't have bothered with the k12 academy and put off getting a birth certificate. I might have bought the shoes for the kids since they were $3 a pair, but none for me. I definitely would not have bought a diva cup....that's a "big" purchase for me...something I think about and weigh the pros and cons.

I started buying disposables, which is a huge waste of money. Thankfully medicaid will pay for those in less than a month, when DD turns 3.

This is more of a rant than anything. On the bright side, I'm not risking my electric getting shut off anymore.

[surrogate]

Originally Posted by frugalmama

Could you just get a cat? Much easier I promise.

We need to get another cat ourselves - my old one died of old age and I've been waiting until DD is a bit bigger and gentler with animals before we get one. When we do I'm going to try to get a farm cat so they know how to mouse & such - it's a HUGE help.

I tossed that idea around, but I hate animals...and cat fur and litter boxes....nooooo lol....but aside from that I do daycare so I don't want animals around the small kids.

Caught one mouse last night....he was in full rigor this morning, i couldn't get him out of the trap and had to toss it! UGH! Those things are $5 each but i just couldn't look at it to figure out how to get it out...makes me cringe now thinking about it. At least I managed to get 4 of them out of the house so far

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by bandgeek

I started buying disposables, which is a huge waste of money. Thankfully medicaid will pay for those in less than a month, when DD turns 3.

Can you tell me more about this? DS1 is over three and not potty trained/learned yet.