Did You Fire the Cleaning Lady? or How To Save A Few $$

We are working professionals who feel poor.  Mostly because our retirement fund has tanked, the financial picture is gloomy, and it looks like we’re going to have to work another 10 years just to catch up to what we lost a month ago.  I’ve been taking my lunch to work, saving $5-$7 per day.  He’s been shopping the food sales at the grocery store. We’re bundling car trips. Trimmed eating out.  Last week we managed to have a meal at the local diner for $20 (plus tip).  He’s at the stove now preparing to cook burgers, and the electronic ignition for the gas burner is flickering but not igniting.  This is what it always does after the cleaning lady comes.  The rings don’t always get replaced to the exact position.  He looks up.  “Did you fire the cleaning lady?” he asks.  No, I nod, saying, “There wasn’t anybody else here who was going to clean the toilets and wash the floor.”  “Oh,” he says.  “I thought we agreed to fire her.”  “Well,” I say, “we’re feeling poor, but in reality we’re still making the same income, we’re at no risk for our jobs, and we’re helping out a Latino family who could use the work.”  “Yeah,” he says, “I can see that.  Well, okay.”

True, I’ve been penny-inching.  Three weeks ago I opened my first savings account in more than 20 years.  I’ve managed to squirrel away a few dollars, paying attention to depositing checks that come in from the sale of my art that I normally would have put into my checking account and spent.  It’s an interesting feeling being so aware of debt, credit, savings, and what constitutes poverty.  Bob Herbert wrote in the NY Times this morning that people are losing their homes and more will be destitute and homeless than ever before.  Our president to be will have one of the greatest leadership challenges in 75 years. The banks who have been given the bailout (oh, excuse me, rescue) on the backs of U.S. taxpayers are not releasing any of these funds to provide credit to homeowners who need to refinance mortgages.  I am sleepless worrying about who the next leader of my country will be.  I cry at the prospect of McCain beating Obama and worry about election fraud.  I feel helpless and at the same time both hopeless and hopeful.  I have not felt so much energy in an election since I was a youth and John Kennedy moved into the Oval Office.  Yet, I also feel despair at what we have wrought as a nation.  There is no trickle down for me.

So, as my hair grays and my bottom sags, and I yearn for retirement when I can play at doing the things I love best, I despair and lament my own financial recklessness as a baby-boomer with her head in the sand, and the frivolity of my expenditures.  Who is to blame?  Certainly not the cleaning lady.  Perhaps I will have a yard sale or sell another pair of shoes on e-Bay instead.