Broke? Its the new trend

This morning as I do every morning, I woke up listening to NPR’s Marketplace. They had a guy talking about his financial life, seems 6-7 years ago, this chap was living the good life in Manhattan, earning six figures in the tech industry and basically no financial woes. Now this fellow lives in the Catskills, earns barely enough to get by, has no health insurance but in some ways is happier than he’s ever been. It appears he calls his new and some might say not improved lifestyle, living a sustainable life.

See, he gardens, composts, and is a vegetarian. I must admit I had a good chuckle while listening to this piece. Shit, it was only about 8 years ago that the spousal unit and I were in Chicago earning good money ourselves, with full coverage insurance and pretty much no financial woes. Only thing is as my life style has taken a detour, I am not calling it living a sustainable life but living a financially insecure life or as my folks used to say…I’s broke.

I love how folks like to dress shit up especially white folks, see as a working class Black woman, being broke is the way I was raised, we didn’t need fancy words to accept our condition. Yet it seems some folks do, heck today I was at the kids consignment shop and ran into a woman I know who isn’t the kind of person I would expect to see there. However times is tough so we are all looking for bargain, she looked a tad embarrassed to see me, as if I would judge her for buying her kids used shit. I see a lot of that same behavior at the local Goodwill which now on Saturdays is packed full of folks who are more used to dropping off at the Goodwill rather than shopping there.

Folks, its all good, you are not alone. Truth is many of are broke as shit these days, hell I just got off the phone with my daughter’s doctor who confessed he doesn’t have health insurance and is running tight these days. Damn, you know we are fucked when the doctor doesn’t even have health insurance. At least he can treat his own kid unlike us average folks who need his services. Of course as more of us are without insurance we can’t afford to see the doctor.

Nope, I am convinced that this season’s new fad is brokeness, all the hip and not so hip kids are participating. Yeah, you may say you are living a sustainable life but some of ya’ll are just faking the funk…as for me, I am embracing the moment.

10 thoughts on “Broke? Its the new trend”

  1. Now that I’m living in a house with a bit of land I’m thinking it might be time for me to learn how to garden my own self. I sure could make use of some tomatoes, peppers, whatever else will grow here in IA. (Not corn, though…my dad says that corn is a lot of work. He grew up on the family farm in SC so he would know.)

    The big thing for me happened a couple of years ago. Before, when I had money, I refused to shop at WalMart. Even though I knew plenty of folks with money who shopped there, and I never judged them — you never know what people’s situations are — I didn’t shop there for political reasons. Given my situation now, for certain things (mostly toiletries and household products) it’s stupid for me NOT to shop at WalMart. There’s a Super WalMart in the next town but I’m not grocery shopping there yet.

  2. Definitely take care of your needs while you can. As someone who pays out of pocket for these things, they are not cheap. Everyone in our family except the 3 yo wears glasses/contacts and its costly. Thankfully neither me or the hubby have had a change in our prescriptions in several years so that keeps costs down.

  3. Damn! Not the doctor too!

    In about 5 months I’ll be out of healthcare too. I should probably scrape up my pennies so I can get my teeth and glasses taken care of.

    It’s true, more and more are joining the club. Unfortunately, for those who already belonged to the club, the cost of membership is going to skyrocket. Some people are already so far down, there’s nowhere to go. Up? Well, is that even an option right now?

    Ah…

  4. Sustainable living – wth! Dude is B-R-O-K-E (you did break it down so it will forever be broke).

    I’m with you on how white folks will rename stuff / situations in an attempt to bring the issue to another level. No Money = Sustainable Living in their world. Remember how they coined “reverse discrimination” to explain when white men felt their privilige was being taken away?

    We are all feeling the economic woes.

  5. Tell it girl. The new fad most definitely is brokeness but you know, I hope it leads to fundamental change in our society. It’s funny, folks kind of used to look at you with pity when you told them you shopped at GoodWill. Now, it’s all good. I’m happy that I’m already nice and comfortable and used to “simple living”. We should have an easier time of things.

    LoL . . . Dee . . . I ain’t giving those things up either.

  6. Funny, I was just searching for something on MDC and found an old Voluntary Poverty thread. Love reading those, lol. I’ll be the first to admit that I became interested in simple living b/c I was already doing it out of necessity. The thought still appeals to me though, choosing to have a life filled with less stuff and more with experiences. I’m not about to become a 100 things minimalist or anything, but you know I yearn for the s.o.u.l.e.mama life, lol. I’m not giving up my internet though. Or my camera, or my pc…

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