No Frills Flight

“This is a no frills flight but I am still on the plane”, says Sandra with a chuckle.

Today is Sandra’s 64^th birthday.  Happy to be alive and in good health, she has a superb attitude about her life, despite, losing jobs, a pension, her home, health insurance,  some well heeled  friends and a healthy diet.

 Sandra has been a worker all her life, a beautician, a mortgage broker, a manager and sales professional.    Once she dreamed of being retired; now she says “I’ll never be able to stop working. I’ve had every title under the sun from sales person, manager, general manager and I did a complete turnaround because of the economy

Here is a snapshot of the turnaround, reflected in her salary:

2000   $55k

2006   $34k

2007   $33k

2008   $28k

2009   $24,500k

2010   $19,500k

2011   $12k earned, with social security  year end will be  about 22k

I ask her what her inner voice says when she worries about money.  “I spend a whole lot of time worrying about money. I plan yard sales to make a little to squeak by.   You don’t feel real attractive because you don’t eat right...so I go visit people and don’t tell them much about me. The voice says put one foot in front of the other, don’t buy on emotion. .. you need fruit and veggies,   When someone asks me to join them for lunch  I lie and say I am working. I can’t spend $15 on lunch.   Keep it to yourself and keep on keeping on.”

Sandra  has a few close friends who have helped her out, but her daughter and son-in-law have no idea how hard things are. “My daughter thinks I am bolted to this house”, (her home of 13 years, decorated as a B and B, complete with an English garden.  Her home is her sanctuary.  She is leaving it soon, because the $925 rent is too high.  She is moving to Senior Housing where she will have subsidized rent.  Her daughter thinks it’s great, oblivious to the real truth.  “She doesn’t know that I don’t eat dinner…that I eat pinto beans and cornbread…no one knows what goes on with me…when I walk out the door I look like I stepped out of a band box.”

 What have you cut out of your life because of money, I ask? “Food, electricity, heat, flowers for my yard, clothes, movies, dinner at night, trips, parties, everything, basically.  Health insurance, I now go the county clinic, no dental insurance.”

 I move into my bedroom so I don’t have to heat the whole house..I have a camping 9 volt battery lamp so I don’t run up the electric bill. I really struggle. I had a roommate for the last year and she almost gave me a stroke…she is gone now. I got a second, job paid under table, just so I can pay rent.

Ten years ago, Sandra enjoyed Country Western Dancing, movies, buying flowers for her garden and a vacation to Colorado every three years.  She went to a few parties and ate dinner every day. She anticipated her retirement to be frugal, but comfortable.  She planned on Social Security at 65 and a   $3000 a month pension, but that is not coming in because the company closed three months before she was vested. She has taken early Social Security because she needs the cash.

 “Now I eat breakfast and lunch.  I NEVER eat dinner.” There was nothing elaborate in her life, nothing too expensive, but a life that was made possible by the little cash that was saved for entertainment. “Now I eat a meal and a half  day, it’s frightening.”

We talked for an hour and I only heard one swear word, not surprising for a “Southern Lady who learned to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

I couldn’t resist asking her if she went to Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, and she adamantly said “NO! Ever since the protests about Viet Nam, and the killings at Kent State, I am afraid they will shoot my ass.”  One swear word and a 45 year old memory.

She knows she is not the only one.  She watched her daughter barely rescue her home from foreclosure. 

 “ I've seen  Job loss, home loss, illnesses have escalated, friends moved out of state. On my street 4 families have moved out of state,  they lost cars, they have kids at home. It’s awful.” 

Still, she has found a way to help others. “I gave money to my friend who lost her job.  She got a roommate and had no food, she applied for food stamps...her PGE was about to be cut off because she owed $40, so I paid it for her.”

Generosity has come her way too.  A good friend, who still loves her despite her empty wallet, still takes her to lunch and cheers her up over tea.  She gave her $100 for her birthday, and Sandra “almost cried”.    A dear neighbor with no family gave Sandy $300 when he got a bonus and has promised to pay off her car.   “I helped him put a few years back” says Sandy.

 But food pantries are just too much. “There are all kind of food programs if you want to stand in line…its demeaning…I am the one who gives a can to this person and that person…I just can’t do it.”

  Her 6 year old grandson is her life line and shining light, the one who pulled her out of deep depression when she lost her job in 2004.  Depression, in a depression, looks like this: “I stayed in my house, I shopped at night, I was a recluse.  I shopped in a baseball cap.” Today she is “just surviving”, no longer depressed, thanks to a neighbor who helped  by buying her a camera and insisting she photograph the gorgeous garden she had created.  Then her grandson was born, and the lights in her heart went back on.  

Every day is a struggle.  Yet, she has gained some things too. “I stay home more, I sketch, I water color, I grow flower seeds.  I created a wildflower garden when I couldn’t buy pants.   I watch TV a lot, I have pot luck get-togethers occasionally. I read a lot. I say “Lord, I am out of talent, help me.”  I have learned to trust a higher power.”

I am moved by her strength, her acceptance and her stamina.  Yet, I am haunted.  Millions like Sandra have filed Bankruptcy, kept their struggle a secret.  I am certain she is not the only one to say “I feel alone.

I think nobody lives in their bedroom under an electric blanket.”

Gay retirement communities o the brink.Gay retirement communities on the brink.

We are the grandchildren of the depression, you know, the “Great Depresssion”, the other one, in the 20’s and 30’s. We were raised on the abundant hope and prosperity of the fifties. 

WW11 rescued the economy and a whole generation from poverty and desperation.   We flourished on the income of one salary.  We had ballet lessons, sometimes private schools, graduation trips to Europe.  We shared a common and a sincere belief that our future was ours to determine if we worked hard, saved some money and got an education.  Our parents: butchers, plumbers, engineers, homemakers, secretaries and firefighters taught us from our diaper days that our job was to ”do better than them”.  Our teachers prepped us for college, and the promising jobs that were right around the corner from graduation. “Middle Class” meant being in the middle of the American Dream. 

  

Of course, the girls could be teachers, airline stewardesses, librarians or  nurses until they got married. Then the 70’s ushered in feminism and gradually the options changed so that a few might consider medicine, architecture or another “white collar” career, if her father agreed that it wasn’t too threatening to potential husbands.Men were expected to work at the same job for 40 years, while women were not “expected” to work once a husband was “caught” and the babies arrived.

The 80’s changed that. Women demanded, and won, the right to pursue their own passions, talents and careers.  Two income families became the norm, just to keep up with the bills, the college funds, the medical insurance, car payments and mortgage. Many flourished, had large “nest eggs” and boasted of “my son the doctor” or my daughter the engineer. The houses got bigger, the cruises longer, the diamond anniversary pendants worn as medals of success.

It’s 2011. For the children of the 50’s the American Dream is keeping us awake at night.  We’re wondering how it all went so wrong when we worked so hard to follow the rules. Millions of our houses have been foreclosed upon,  our cars repossessed. The pendants have been sold on consignment to stall foreclosure, pay the student loans, or health insurance premiums that are steep enough to make us sick. The retirement plans have run amok and we’re gradually beginning to truly understand what our grandparents meant when they talked of no work, no food, no hope.

I have an intense curiosity about my boomer peers.  Just what are their  lives looking like today with high unemployment, dwindling savings and less hope for the future that we ever imagined.   Who are we?  Really, who are we, this aging generation, on the cusp of retirement,  who “did better” than our parents, and ended up doing worse?

I’ve taken my curiosity to friends, Facebook and coffee shops, in search of the boomerangst that seems to be a well kept secret.  I am writing their stories because I want to break the silence about the newly impoverished who are struggling and surviving, often times with the same gumption and pride that our grandfathers mustered to feed their families, find work and hold their heads high.

In one day alone, after a posting on Facebook, I had 5 willing truth tellers. There are millions more.    I will write their stories, as a celebration of spirit, consolation for loss, and a respite from my own musing about becoming a bag lady.

Today Sandra told me a bit of her truth:  “ I eat breakfast and lunch and never eat dinner…I NEVER eat dinner.  I move into my bedroom so I don’t have to heat the whole house . I have a camping 9 volt battery lamp so I don’t run up electric bill. I sit in bed with my electric blanket to save on heat.  I really struggle.” 

Sandra’s story is waiting to be told.  I will do the telling.

Boomerangst

The promised ones, you know, the ones with the silver spoons, are quickly being left home alone, to polish the old silver and count their blessings.   Unfortunately, a lot of those blessings came 20 or 30 years ago, along with the inherited silverware. They are now tarnished or vaporized.

College educated kids returning home to middle aged parents has become the norm, and a prophetic vision of our declining opportunities in America.  Parents can’t say no.  After all, where will these kids go?  Homeless shelters?   So, the empty nest has become a crowded nest, while moms and dads, some of whom are still together, open their arms and keep secrets.

The unfulfilled promise of junior’s law degree, or his sister’s magna cum laude parchment  in Computer Science is carving a river of shame into the welcome mat.  Ironically, as China’s multi-generational households are on the decline, America’s is on the incline.

Blogs have blasted us with the news and stats.  Hollywood has made us laugh ( well some of us) at “Failure To Launch”.   What no one seems to be talking about is the crash landing being felt by the thousands of entrepreneurs, subject matter experts and well heeled boomers who are selling their grandmother’s silver at consignment shops, just to buy groceries for the returning kids.

Last week I had some cheap coffee with a friend who announced that she no longer buys the cappuccino.  She’s also not offering to buy my coffee any more..  “Mexico is looking pretty good”, she said, “I could live on $800 a month there when it costs me $4000 a month here.  I have been looking for a job for two years and used up most of my savings.  I’ve opted for early social security, even though it means $550 a month less that I’d get if  I waited 3 more years.  But if I wait those three years, I’ll be destitute.”

Today I spoke with a young man ( about 40) who owns  a paper shredding business.  One thing turned to another and the “Occupy Wall Street” movement came into focus.  “It’s not just the young people”, he said.  “A man I know, who used to be wealthy is now broke.  He was a business genius who owned several businesses, and had a lot of money.  I mean a LOT of money.  His son is a friend of mine. Now he and his wife , my step mother,  are divorcing.  They lost their home to foreclosure after two of his businesses went bust.  The stress killed his marriage.  Next month the old man is moving in with his son. His dad has no place to go and is flat broke. My step mother is moving in with one of her daughters.  They are both in their 60’s.  Man, can you imagine??”

My own struggles with a changing economy have left me bewildered at how all the best advice turned out to be no guarantee of financial security.  As an aging boomer I’ve developed a sagging sense of belonging in our business world, shrinking savings and frequent visits to the pity pot have left me thinking:  this secret needs to be told. Once I learned that “our secrets are our shame”.  I’m determined to avoid that snake pit, even though the money pit seems bottomless.

So, I will write the stories of the boomers trying to avoid going broke, or those who have. No shame in that.    AMM 10/26/11