MAY Lower Income Moms thread - Page 5

[jaceycat24]

i bought a book on selling houses that you could get from the library. its kinda like selling houses for dummies but its not by them. i can't remember what its called though. i totally understand the stress of owning a home. i always say i am house poor because of house costs but we actually pay less then if we rented so we'll stay here. good luck. also after 3 years you could apply with the usda for lower income mortgage. you can't have owned a house though i think for three years. good luck.

[s_kristina]

Originally Posted by justmama

Kristina, at least tape plastic up on that window before it rains. You defintiely DO NOT want to deal with the wet interior and wet carseats. Mold city!

Thankfully it didn't rain since dh had thrown away our trap. It was sitting outside and got infested with bugs and other nastiness, downside to living in FL. We've finally found a place to get the glass from and a friend that used to own a body shop is going to put it in with dh. Ouchie part is the glass will cost $75 in our already tight budget with still nothing from DCF about foodstamps.

[ibahippiemama]

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day. I was scheduled to work, but that is ok because it just means more money to move with. My aunt refuses to help with the house situation and I just can't live here with the plumbing and lead problems.

On a good note, I should be getting my raise soon. That also means that I will get retro pay from when the raise was first submitted. WOOHOO!!!! The only thing left to do is wait. I'm still waiting to hear from my worker about my recert for food stamps, but that usually is all good. Now to start work on getting my butt in gear to move.

love and blessings
angie

[s_kristina]

If anyone knows how to get in touch with a live person at DCF in FL I'd love to hear from them. We had paperwork due by 5/2 that we turned in on 4/28 for our medicaid and foodstamps case. We still have not heard a word about it and when I check for info it still says they are waiting on that paperwork. I've already skipped meals to feed the kids and things are just going to get worse if something doesn't happen with our case soon. The phone numbers I have here are just getting me voice prompts for hours instead of an actual person. I'd love to try to talk to someone in the office, but dh would have to take time away from work to do that and put us in a worse place :

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by s_kristina

If anyone knows how to get in touch with a live person at DCF in FL I'd love to hear from them. We had paperwork due by 5/2 that we turned in on 4/28 for our medicaid and foodstamps case. We still have not heard a word about it and when I check for info it still says they are waiting on that paperwork. I've already skipped meals to feed the kids and things are just going to get worse if something doesn't happen with our case soon. The phone numbers I have here are just getting me voice prompts for hours instead of an actual person. I'd love to try to talk to someone in the office, but dh would have to take time away from work to do that and put us in a worse place :

HUGS! I know how awful it is to be in your position! I don't have any advice because I am not in FL and it's easier to reach a live person here. Can i just share with all the lower income mamas how RELIEVED I am that today I found out we qualify (handily) for food stamps? I had NO idea that we qualified for 2 years on dh's old salary. And to think we lived paycheck to paycheck for over as year. I can't believe I can buy food again and not have to stress over every little penny. No more endless pasta and rice meals. Now we can actuall buy some meat and fruit! I hope to not be in this situation for too long but in the meantime it is such a blessing. Dh and I are uninsured so I see this is an insurance policy of sorts. If I can afford to buy quality foods now then we will all be healthier.

[jaceycat24]

have you asked in the tribe section? someone might know there about calling them. good luck.
we have really been blessed this month by living out of our pantry and mil feeling bad and buying us food. i told her she doesn't need to do that but she insists.

[~Jenna~]

Well I don't know how DFS works in FL, but it sounds like you might need to find other numbers to call to see how to get in touch with an actual person, or at least your caseworker's voice mail. I'll ask my DH what he would do, even though we are in a different state, he might have some ideas. I'm sorry you are having to skip meals. That really really sucks. Have you thought about calling any churches and asking them for food? There is a church in our town that gives out food once a month, but if you need it right away they will help you out.

ETA: Are you in Brevard county?

[s_kristina]

Yes, I'm in Brevard. Sorry it took me a bit to get back to you. I've had a horrible stomach mess all last night and it's not letting up. I think I've got the inprint of our toilet seat on my butt.

[~Jenna~]

Wow that really sucks. Dh said a lot of FL dfs is automated and it'll be harder to find an actual person. Did you ever get to talk to an actual person yet? If you want I can try to figure out what the number is to talk to someone. I'm weird cause I like mysteries like that .

[s_kristina]

I did get to talk to the case worked listed on a paper I got. She told me that she has no way to know if the papers we put in the box in the office were attached to the case or not. She doesn't even know if she has our case or if someone else does. She only knew what was on her desk at that moment in time.

[jaceycat24]

that would drive me nuts. i would resubmit but that just me.

[Belleweather]

S-Krisitina: I'd resubmit and see if you can get her to write some sort of cover note that she knows they've been submitted before but were lost by someone in the department.

And send me a PM. Mamas should never have to miss a meal to make sure their kids get food in their bellies -- because we all know we would in a second. It makes me cry, just thinking about that. Hopefully, there is a way I can help??

[Phoenix_Rising]

Hello! I think this is my first time posting here
DP, DS and I live on my income alone - DP is disabled and gets SS $ but ALL of it goes toward medical stuff - Dr copays, medications, therapy. . .there is none left to even help with rent.
I wish we qualified for food stamps or WIC but we don't because they count all of the $ in the household and don't take into consideration things like medical bills or the fact that nearly 1/2 of my paycheck each month goes to health insurance for the three of us. I have two independent contracting jobs outside of my FT job and I am so tired of this. How do I get out of this? We don't have credit card debt thankfully!

[Redifer]

Joining the thread!

Introducing myself, I guess. Just moved to FL from Buffalo, NY.
Cost of living is so much lower here than where we were, but we're still low income. Right now, we're scraping on a $270/wk paycheck from DH, and I'm still looking for a night job.

Anyhow, I'm kinda glad I found a thread that I can relate to...

[s_kristina]

Hi Redifer welcome to the thread and FL. Are you ready for hurricane season yet?

Good update I finally managed to talk to an actual human at DCF yesterday. That turned out to be about the same time my caseworker was finally getting out case cared for. Not only do we have the full month's FS on the card with an increase because of ds we also had the increase from April put on there. There won't be any food worries around here for a while thankfully! In other news dh has been told he will finally be getting paid part of what he is owed for a bunch of work he has done. we aren't sure if the money will actually show up or not as dh turned the guy down for a full time job, but it would take care of a mess we have much quicker then anything else.

[beansmama]

Oh i am soooo happy i came back to MDC. Already i see 3 threads/challanges i need to participate in (next month). This one, pantry challange, no spend challange.

I'm a newly single mom living off of about $300 a month, plus $278 food stamps. I do have a small savings...small now because after my seperation i went nutty and blew the majority of it. I know being a single mom it's nice to have a little cushion incase sh*t ever hits the fan...so i really want to do my best not to blow it all.

Anyway...just saying HI and i look forward to participating!

[Belleweather]

Ugh. I haven't been saying much because I felt like we were doing okay, but I'm looking at the finances and we're clearly not. We've gone through a big part of the tax return money we'd hoped to use as an emergency fund in the last couple of months and I feel terrible about that.

Now, DH is going back to school on his way to PA school or (dare I even hope?!?!) Med school. But that means we need daycare. Daycare part time for two kids would eat up 100% of the 'slack' (yeah, right!) in our budget... which doesn't include rising gas prices or food prices. The theory is that daycare would be covered by DH's financial aid. But then, this is the same school that paid him his financial aid for his first semester there two months AFTER his SECOND semester ended. Their incompetence, it is mighty.

We also haven't gotten a renewal notice on our car insurance and he just (Just? WTH?) noticed they haven't been taking out their automatic payment in a couple months. So we need car insurance and of course our rates are going to increase because we've been "uninsured" now. We owe money on my computer, which I bought to do freelance work that disappeared in a puff of economic downturn smoke.

And, the cherry on the crap sundae? My car is dying. It's not dead yet, but it's a progressive sort of thing and if I don't trade it in on something it will be all the way dead and I'll lose any value in it. I don't want to get a new car, and I have no idea where in the budget a car payment is going to fit, along with daycare, insurance, paying off my computer, and money for increasing food and gas costs.

You know what makes this suck even more? I'm making twice what my mom made when I was growing up and we're still not making it financially. I was so excited when I got this job because I thought that salary would represent financial security and I hate that I'm working hard and we're still having to struggle.

Eh. And I shouldn't be writing this from work, because a) it's not their fault, and b) I have things to do. So I'll end the whine there.

[LionessMom]

yeah! a low income thread!

it is so nice to know that there are moms out there like me! i am sooo struggling. i get a diability check that at least pays the important bills. DH finally got hired by the carpenters union. figured we would be ok or at least on the track to getting there but just found out we are getting our fs cut from 552 a month to 271 a month.. for 6 people! Arrrgghh! Dh's income is not enough to make up for that. good thing we get WIC. They give out farmers market checks too.
Anyway just thought i would share. Here's hoping things will get better for everybody!

[SeekingSleep]

Hey there mamas! I was soooo happy to find this thread! We are low income, but by the states standards DH makes $.25 a month too much to qualify for any help. Last month we lost our medical, but we should be getting it next month through DH's new job, but only medical nothing else. Does anyone know if there are other dental programs for kids who don't have insurance? We need to take DS for his first appointment but are far from being able to afford it.

We are currently working on paying off our debt while living with my grandparents, but it seems everytime we get ahead we slide back some. We did finally buy our own car off Craigslist ($650 out of our income tax check) so I guess we're one step closer. We're working ona modified DR plan for ourselves. I guess we choose to be low income because we choose to live off of just one of us working. Both of us worked for 3+ years in different daycares and just are not comfortable putting our son (and future children) in someone elses care if we don't absolutely have to.

Originally Posted by Crazybean

I just got our stimulus check in the bank today and it's 600 less than we hoped we were going to get.

Ours was shorted 600 too, because our "tax liability" wasn't high enough. DH only worked about half the year after moving here to WA from Ohio. I was sad and yes I cried like a baby because that 600 would have knocked off almost 3 full credit card debts!

[jaceycat24]

[QUOTE=beansmama;11277208]Oh i am soooo happy i came back to MDC. Already i see 3 threads/challanges i need to participate in (next month). This one, pantry challange, no spend challange.


you can join now these challenges. its a real eye opener. this month so far i wasted $81.50. i could have paid that towards my car insurance. i feel like kicking myself in the butt for that one.