Are You Poor or Broke?
Back in Season 2 – heavens, that seems so loooong ago now – one of my peeps made an interesting observation to his family. Gerry of Kelly&Gerry said, “We’re not poor, we’re broke.” Good distinction.
Periodically I hear from people who want to bust my chops because the people on my show make lots of money and I shouldn’t be rewarding them for their stupidity in overspending. Hey, I’m making TV people, if I had to work with poor people all the time, it’d be a pretty boring show. And believe me, there’s a big difference between being POOR and being BROKE.
People who are poor don’t have the resources available to improve their financial situations. They may face a personal challenge, such as a learning or physical disability. It may be because life has kicked ‘em hard and they haven’t found their way back to their feet: divorce can do it; widowhood can do it; unemployment can do it. So can having a mess of kids before you’re financially prepared. Poverty is not something I can do anything about.
Being BROKE, on the other hand, is something I can help people do something about. If you’re broke, you have resources available to you and you can improve your financial situation, you just may not know how. It may be that you’re financially illiterate. It may be that you have no will power, no ability to defer gratification, no time management skills. Or you may simply be LAAAAZZZZY! I can teach you. I can help you see another path. I can kick your ass. I can help you make it better.
I have worked with people who have one foot in both these camps: they’re poor, but it is of their own making, and I can make ‘em make more money. But most of the people I work with are BROKE, and most of the people who watch the show who benefit from the tactics I offer are BROKE.
I often get letters from people who say things like:
Gail, I need help. I’m on a disability income and I don’t make enough money to feed my family, so how am I supposed to save?
You’re right. If you don’t make enough money to feed your family, you’re poor and my strategies won’t work. You have to undo poor – find a way to make more money – before you can put financial strategies to work.
As for the people who “make lots of money and are in debt,” they’re the reason the show exists and so many people who watch have been able to benefit. If the doctor hadn’t been overspending by three times his income, we wouldn’t have had a show. And if the chick with the dogs hadn’t been overspending on her pooches, we wouldn’t have had a show. Ditto the teacher who wouldn’t go out to work, the babe who only wore stuff three times, and the guy who gambled.
Years ago when my family emigrated from Jamaica, the woman who helped to raise me didn’t want to stay in Jamaica either. Daphne, whom I loved with all my heart, wanted her own opportunity. My dad got her a visitor’s visa to the U.S. and she stayed. Daphne learned to read and write at my mother’s elbow. With no education, no financial nest egg, no job, Daphne got busy creating a life.
Daphne worked a full time day job and a full-time night job, looking after an elderly woman who needed an attendant at night. Daphne learned to drive, bought herself a car, bought herself a house, paid for her legalization in the U.S., brought her children to live with her, put her daughter through college. My lord, the woman had fortitude!
The last time I saw Daphne was about twenty years ago. She wanted to buy me something. I was the little girl she’d helped to raise, and she was determined to give me a gift.
I still have the dress Daphne gave me. It’s ratty. Really ratty. But I wear it almost every week. It reminds me of her every time I put it on. And she is my beacon of strength.
Our circumstances do not define us. We can achieve anything we put our minds to. We have the power to make life whatever we want. Some of us want more.
Daphne wanted more. And she busted her ass to make it so. She achieved a lot, moving from poor to not so poor, to secure. She made a life.
God grant me her tenacity.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Gail, on the one hand I understand where you are coming from with this story and also, Daphne’s life story is very inspiring.
But on the other hand I wonder … if it were that straightforward to change things when you have nothing (ie work like a dog, be careful with your money and have some good clear goals) why so very many working people these days are living in poverty? I’m thinking of people who work in minimum wage jobs, working long hours, often having several jobs … and yet they still can’t make ends meet.
In today’s society in Canada, are things still attainable if you have nothing and work hard ? Is the disparity between living costs and low wages too great to enable people to step up to some security like Daphne did in her lifetime? (I’ve not even mentioned the changes that have taken place in the job market - the growth in part-time temporary jobs and the decrease in full-time permanent jobs).
And then there’s the whole immigrant employment issue - trying to get work in Canada but not having ‘canadian experience’ or the connections or having your educational qualifications recognised.
I feel in writing this, that I’m making a ‘yes, but’ type of comment and I don’t particularly want to do this (I like your shows a lot and find them very helpful). However, my experience since moving to Canada has been that it’s much much harder than I ever anticipated to figure out how to make a secure living here (and it’s not for lack of trying!).
August 11th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Poverty:
Tough topic and you have to want to get out of it. Why not dedicate one blog to what people can try to do to make ends meet and get out of the situation?
Rent: Do you need to live on your own? It’s cheaper to share or just rent a room.
Food: Alternate between buying your food at the grocery store and going to the food bank.
Daycare: Alternate taking care of someone else children while the other grown up is at work.
Clothing: Thrift store, mending clothes, …
Car: Use public transportation (unless not available in area)
Education: One course at a time.
Research community support groups.
Best of luck to those in difficult situations. Some did get out and it would be great to hear more about those stories.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Ann, no doubt for many living in Canada life is hard. I know that. And I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault… well, maybe a few of the people who have promised us things like an end to child poverty… but certainly not for a lack of trying on some people’s part. I will say, however, that if a person does not make enough money to make ends meet I can’t help. I give advice on how to manage money. If there’s no money to manage, all my advice is moot.
There are many countries where life is lived in a very different way: people live in much smaller spaces, people eat much simpler food and dress in much simpler garb. People’s expectations are very different. North Americans — even those who have immigrated here — have a very different set of expectations.
I have friends who have had the “lack of Canadian experience” challenges. I am an immigrant and I watched my family face a lot of challenges as they got used to new ways of life. A very good friend of mine was trained as a doctor and now works in a retail store because she cannot practice here. It is very frustrating, I agree. She works hard, really hard, and does her best to provide for her two girls (she was widowed just before she received her papers to work here). She’s had to deal with a lot.
She has some good friends that have helped when they could. She has strong cultural support. She is a good friend and goes above and beyond to help others. She’s doing fine.
I know it’s not easy for lots of people. Being poor isn’t easy in any country.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I have very clear memories of complaining to my mother when I was a child that we were “poor” - my dad had been gone on a sales trip for five weeks and we had run out of money. No milk. The first storebought dress I got was for my high school graduation - the rest were all hand me downs or I made them myself. My mother knit all my sweaters. My Amma made my mitts. I was the oldest, so the snowsuit was new, but it sure wasn’t by the time it got to my brother. What I didn’t realize was that my father was buying his father’s business, we had a roof over our heads and an extended farm family - so we were always going to have food. My mother’s response to my complaint was to throw us in the car and take us down to Point Douglas in Winnipeg. I saw children without mitts and boots and and in that one short drive I realized that all we lacked was money. We were a huge cry from being poor.
Keep up the good work - I’ve sent in my vote to Slice for updates - I really am curious to find out if some of the couples have been able to deal with money tough love for more than a month.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I was “broke” most of my childhood too. Like Karen said, it was just money we lacked. It is not just immigrants that have challenges.
Marie brings up some good points, changing your perspective for what is acceptable makes the difference between poor and broke sometimes. I think my family did every one of her points while I was growing up, and by the time I had graduated school, we were not poor nor broke any more!
In the early 80’s when things were very tight around here, my dad used his imagination, he grew swiss chard in window boxes in the shelter of the snow so we had fresh greens, (we got very sick of chard) he took any job available (and made things to sell too), took in boarders, we made-do in every aspect of our life, daycare was way out of dad’s budget so we had to make our own way home from grade 1…. (we had to do our part as well but children are blissfully ignorant of any plights and resiliant — we thought it was normal and fine).
We found ways around the money and had to no room for appearances. But you know what, we were fed and clothed and sheltered and together!Keeping our tiny home was too difficult and it was lost despite all the efforts. Instead of being homeless, my dad found a way, and we moved in with a woman who could give my dad companionship and give me and my sister some feminine direction, bonus was she had a great garden so we would not be without food, no matter how the economy went. As a kid I didn’t realise how serious the sacrifices were, dad kept us informed even as very young girls, but he didn’t do it to scare us, he wanted us to know that no matter what, we could pull it through with creativity and careful thought.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
As a post-script:
I know a man that chose to live in a TINY room at the back of a warehouse for 8 years with no kitchen, no hot water and a shared toilet… he chose to live there instead of going on wellfare because he had a dream! He was building a metal boat from scratch, and he wanted to do it on his own completely — no loans. He was an unusual man, but the most honorable person I ever met. He would do labour in exchange for materials, and contract jobs for pay until he had enough to keep building and enough to pay for his survival. He did it all above board, paying taxes and all. Now that man can teach the world a thing or two about the power of improvising, and the joy of a project done with your whole being!
IHe taught himself to weld and he built all the fittings for his boat, if there was something he could not build (few and far between) then he found a way to negotiate for the best price and then put his excellent welding skills to work for someone else until he could get it.
When people would stare with awe and disbelief at all the physical time and effort he invested in his dream, they always asked him “why don’t you work full time so you can just buy this stuff?”
He would always smile, “I build these things so I don’t HAVE to buy this stuff. I have more time than money, and that’s what I chose”.
To talk to him was always enlightening somehow. I couldn’t chose to live the meager life he has, and I would never pressume to go against the accepted ways and build like that. Most people save their dreams for after they work, he chose to live FOR his dream…. it still amazes me.
His boat took 8 years to build, and it turned out GORGEOUS, every single detail handcrafted by his own hands and designed by the materials that presented themselves to his budget. He taught himself to weld, carpentry, finishing, upolstery, whatever was required… and he did it well.
He is a hero of mine.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
What a wonderful story about Daphne. I found it incredibly sad though because for every single successful “Daphne” there are hundreds, thousands who never get the “break” to be able to make it, sadly through my work and volunteering I’ve met many.
The dress part brought a tear to my eye!
August 12th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Firstly, I just luvvv your common sense, down-to-earth, straight-up no fuss approach (and blogging style) re financial planning. I was also very touched by your story about Daphne - strength of character will always trump material wealth in my book!!! I, too, am from an immigrant family. As simplistic as it sounds, it is a mind-set. I never knew I couldn’t achieve whaever I wanted (because those ideals were instilled in me by my parents). It is an average life (middle-class) background that I come from - parents who immigrated with 4 small kids (8, 7, 6 and 5) with NO job. I am proud to say my late father and late mother came from strong stock and instilled a strong work ethic in me and my siblings. Times are certainly tough and life can kick you down - successful folks get up one more time than they get knocked down. You really can be successful - it only depends on your definition. Our North American society certainly teaches up that acquiring things shows our ‘neighbours’ how successful we are (yet many a time, it is a credit (or should i say debt)-illusion). I don’t happen to fall into the ‘keep up the with joneses’ philosophy of life. I have decided what is enough for me. Keep up the great columns ~ they bring a smile to my day!
cheers