Hope: It's Not Overdraft Protection, but It Still Might Keep You Afloat

This week I have $14 in my checking account to last until Friday. Sadly, I’m not kidding (or even exaggerating for effect as I’m known to do). The kids and I have a roof over our heads and clothes to wear. We have groceries and gas and I even have half a bottle of wine, so as long as those things hold out for a few more days, I think we’ll survive. But to say I’m stressed about money would obviously be a huge understatement. My financial struggle and the stress that goes along with it ebbs and flows, but for several years now, it has never truly subsided.

Knowing that a post here is overdue, I looked through my Drafts Folder tonight to see if there was anything salvageable in it. The title of this never-published piece from last year jumped out at me. While our circumstances have changed, much of what I felt when I was writing this is still with me today. It is, perhaps, a little too honest. It might even make you flinch and for that I’m sorry. But perhaps that’s what Perfectly Floppy Bacon does best.

Money Changes Everything

October, 2013

“How can your account be overdrawn?” he asked. He is accustomed to a six figure income and supporting only himself, a dog and a healthy golf habit. He was aghast. “I paid the entire rent. That’s $900 you normally would have paid but didn't.”

How can my account be overdrawn in spite of the fact that you generously paid the entire rent? That's simple. I start with very little. This month I paid all the bills and bought all the groceries. And because of a series of unusual expenses, I was “behind” before I even started. I can’t seem to get caught up. People get behind—at least they do in the world I live in. Single moms certainly do. We might even bounce a check occasionally and then the fees from that add to our dilemma. It can be quite a snowball effect for those of us operating at my end of the financial spectrum.

All moms make choices. I respect those moms whose choices are different from mine. I honestly do. Sometimes I even envy them. My choices allow me to pick up my kids from school, help them with their homework and cook them dinner. My choices allow me to cheer embarrassingly loud at track meets and softball games and run an elementary school Yearbook Club. My choices do not, however, allow me to earn a six-figure income…not even half that.

“But I still don’t understand how your account can be overdrawn,” he persisted. So I took a deep breath and broke it down for him.

• When it was time to pay for summer camps this year, dad didn't want to pay for the kids’ beloved Playground Camp. In all fairness, it is essentially “daycare” and the kids are getting to the age that they don’t need it. And dad’s wife is a teacher who is home for the summer. He’s right that he shouldn't have to pay for daycare so I didn't push it. But the kids love it. It feels like summer to them and it keeps them from being bored, so I sent them on my own. Four times. It may be the cheapest camp in town (thank heavens!) but four weeks for two kids still adds up. Added to my share of sleep-away camp for Ben and volleyball for Lucy, the summer price tag was steep.

• Then we moved. $300 for movers because I just couldn't bring myself to ask friends to move me a third time in five years (and then another $200 for piano movers when the first movers refused to carry my piano up the steps and into the house). New shelves and a mirror for Lucy’s room, a rug for Ben’s and countless trips to Storables in a probably-futile attempt to make a house with two children feel less chaotic for the man who’s never lived with them.

• The beginning of the school year arrived with the dreaded school supply shopping, and of course clothes and shoes for both kids. Add to that the surprisingly-large check I wrote at Back-to-Business day for Ben’s first year of middle school and the back-to-school total was larger than expected.

• Then I received a $216 dollar ticket for expired automobile tabs. I couldn't afford to renew them the moment I received the notice in the mail so I set it aside to pay with my next paycheck and promptly forgot. Did you know the ticket becomes more expensive when you’re more than two months past due? Ouch.

• And let’s not forget the “Day for Me” party I threw myself after making it through another Walk Now for Autism Speaks—on the wettest September day in Seattle history. Seriously. The wettest. How could I not have a little celebration? $30 Target jeans, $50 super-cute boots and a steak dinner that cost more than it should have. Yay me.

• Finally, the check for school photos that I forgot I wrote hit my account, as did the astronomical Cable/Internet/Phone bill I mistakenly scheduled a week too early. And unfortunately, the reimbursement check for the 40 buckets and 1,000 pounds of sand (to hold down the tents in the gale-force winds of the wettest September day in Seattle history) is taking longer than I’d hoped.

I stopped for air. He stared. Given the extremely tight budget on which my family operates, any one of these added expenses would require some recovery time. The seemingly non-stop barrage of these expenses in the last few months, however, has not allowed for any recovery. And, and, and… if you’re a single mom, you definitely understand. Hell—if you’re a parent you understand. But he did not.

And… then today I needed to rent a cello. Lucy was pee-in-her-pants excited when the school Orchestra Director recommended cello for her instrument. It was her very strong first choice. “Can we get it this weekend, mommy? Can we, please, please, please?!” Of course a cello is among the most expensive instruments to rent and it’s “my turn” as dad rented Ben’s viola for two years. So I was figuring out how to scrape together the $180 necessary to walk out the door of the music store with a rented cello, required book, rock stop, rosin and cloth. I had collected two credit cards with small amounts of available credit, a crumpled $20 bill from the bottom of my purse and $40 in ones and fives borrowed from allowance money.

When he offered to help I was touched and thrilled…until he handed me a check. He banks at a credit union and the local branch has no tellers. You can’t walk in and cash a check, which meant I would have to take that check to my own bank. As previously mentioned, my bank account is overdrawn—a situation I will remedy when I receive my reimbursement check for last weekend’s buckets and sand—but I would not be able to cash that check today with a negative balance in my account.

I debated telling him. It’s embarrassing (my broadcasting it to the entire world in this blog aside) and I felt ashamed. I remembered well a comment he had once made about someone not having $200 in his checking account and how ridiculous he found that. As you might imagine, that comment stuck with me. I really needed the money he was offering, though, and I really didn't want to disappoint Lucy, so I took a deep breath and asked him if he could give me cash instead. Then I told him why.

He said he didn't understand. Several times. Apparently he couldn't wrap his head around an overdrawn bank account. Seeing someone else’s life—really seeing it—is difficult, especially when it’s a world far removed from your own. But saying we don’t understand that world or that person’s struggle is just something we tell ourselves because we’re not comfortable admitting that we simply don’t accept it. We can all understand the concept of an overdrawn checking account, but we may not sympathize with that person. We may not feel compassion for their struggle because we simply do not relate. And even though I so badly want him to understand, I contend that there is no shame in a failure to accept, sympathize or relate. The shame lies in a failure to at least try.

When I told Lucy that he was helping us get her cello she asked me, “Don’t you guys essentially share your money?” I told her that we didn't and that many couples don’t. Later in the day she asked me who did the laundry—a random question about division of duties between the grown-ups of the house. I told her that I did the Heagler laundry but that he kept his laundry separate and did it himself. And even though Lucy thought that was weird, I didn't tell her that lots of families keep their laundry separate, because her question wasn't really about laundry at all. I told her, instead, that sometimes it took a while for families to really begin working together as a team when new members were added. She nodded her head thoughtfully and said, “I see what you mean.” Then she paused and said, “Mom?”

“What, Lucy?”

“He doesn't seem ready.”

And just like that, I received some much-needed perspective from my insightful 10-year-old. Maybe he’s just not quite ready.

I hope he will be soon.

Nearly a year has passed since I wrote that but I remember vividly how ashamed I felt. While that’s painful to remember, I’m glad I dragged it out into the light. Reading it again with fresh eyes has shown me something about myself. Something good and honest and true (and dare I say, just a little bit sparkly). I started the last sentence with, “I hope.” And of that, I feel extremely proud.