Gails Blog

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.