Michelle's Debt Journal, Date: February 8, 2009
Last month in a moment of writer’s block, I asked readers to submit questions to me and I would do my best to answer them. (And THANK YOU to you guys who participated … you’ve made my life easier by your ideas.)
Emily asked me a question that even gave my Future Husband pause. “What does it mean to be poor?” Actually – I do her question injustice by summarizing the gist of her question – here’s the whole text version:
“How about attempting to determine what “poor” means. I just got my W-2 form, it listed my pay as $28,000. It is the monies I have after my health insurance monies have been removed. I support my husband and myself, I have a small amount on my mortgage, 2 older cars with no payments. Yes I pinch pennies, shop at Dollar General, Aldi’s, Food for Less and Ultra. We take one trip a year; airfare and lodging to see our son and daughter in law. Are we poor? We are in our late fifties and have been pinching for years, but we do not feel poor. What is a good criteria for truly feeling poor?”
From the moment I read that question, I realized that there were two ways that I could approach this – I could give you an off-the-cuff, existential definition of poor, likely written pre-coffee when I was sitting at the cab company or I could take a couple days and ruminate on this issue – probably producing roughly the same response, but more well thought out and only from my perspective.
So I did it the easy way – I wrote a bunch of my friends and asked them to help me out with this blog. The result? Sitting here this morning, I have three incredibly well written responses to my question “what does it mean to be poor?” I have another friend who says that she’s “marinating” an answer and I sit here with an incredible sense of being blessed.
This project of sorts will start tomorrow and I hope you stay tuned …
And it’s not too late to participate – I was hoping for five entries, but I was so excited this morning about the responses I’ve received thus far, that I couldn’t help but post the first response tomorrow. :) If you care to share your thoughts on what the definition of “poor” is, you can go ahead and email at debtreduction101@gmail.com.
Stay tuned – tomorrow you’re going to hear from my best friend from college …
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