Keep your judgement to yourself.

My husband lost his job last year. No worries we are ok now. I just want to share our journey with you.

We were like most young families; we had very little savings and quite a bit of debt. We had one car payment, two student loans, a credit card, a freezer (long story for another time) and a mortgage. We were able to pay for everything and also save for retirement. We did not have anything left over after a trip to the grocery store and filling up both cars. We would watch movies at home and clip coupons. We buy second hand clothes and reuse glass jars. We thought we were doing fine.

Then the hubs lost his job. I was six months pregnant. No insurance. No income.

Our family rallied around us and we will never be able to show them how thankful we are for that time. We were very lucky for all of the financial help they were able to provide. God blessed us with a very wonderful family.

Still we ended up on Medicaid, Food Stamps, and WIC. For us it was a lifesaver. It did take my ego down quite a bit. Going through a grocery store lane with 10 WIC Vouchers and then paying for the rest with your Food Stamp card is a very humbling experience. I saw neighbors and I would wait until they left before I would go through a line. I knew that the people behind me were looking at my purchases and judging them. I could feel it. I used to do it.

I used to think that it was awful that “they” were able to buy whatever they wanted with the taxes my family worked hard to pay. After all we were living paycheck to paycheck ourselves.

I want to give you a glimpse into the mental state of the overwhelming population on food stamps. We were depressed, scared, and shamed. When you think of the family on Food Stamps, the media has taught you that they are all scammers who work the system. We have all heard the story of the person on food stamps with an IPhone. I can tell you why that happens: 1. we had the IPhone before we had no income 2. A cheap flip phone is $200 with our phone carrier. Really? $200 for a flip phone! I tried to replace my phone, but it would have cost us more money than if we just stayed with the old one. It is such a hypocritical world that we live in when we pride ourselves in helping “the poor”, but degrade the people who are going through a hard time.  In reality we are your neighbors, the families you see at church, and the children that your kids go to school with. Just because we do not look poor does not mean than we have money.

When you use a WIC voucher or a Food Stamp card, there are a lot of cashiers that feel they can give you their opinion on your purchases. I am still allowed to buy the occasional box of cookies, just because I am on food stamps does not mean I cannot get my 5 year old a treat. I did not set the rules for these programs, I just followed them. Just an FYI a WIC voucher REQUIRES you to buy certain brands. If you think that it is strange to see someone with 7 cans of Gerber Good Start Formula for their baby when you are buying Great Value, you can call your damn congressman and take it up with him. I did not get to pick what kind of formula I can feed my child; the government chose it for me.

I will never forget buying the things for my son’s 5^th birthday party and hearing someone say, “I hate seeing people buy so much junk food with my tax dollars.” That person had their kids with them. My kids were with me. I could feel my skin turning hot and a lump forming in my throat. I put my head down in shame. I questioned if I should even have a birthday party for my son. I was eating into our monthly food budget by buying all of this “junk”. I made it home, got the kids squared away, locked myself in the bathroom, and cried. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I cleaned up my face. I moved forward, because that was all that I was able to do.

I could not buy some basic things with the food stamps that most people take for granted. I would make do. Baking soda and vinegar became our everywhere cleaner. We even used it in our laundry. I use honey instead of expensive face soap. I learned how to make my own ricotta cheese and yogurt (WIC vouchers wanted us to have 8 gallons of milk a month).

My husband now works; he works more than he did before. He makes less at 2 jobs than he did at one from before. We no longer qualify for the social programs. So this new life is more of a struggle than before. I want to be clear that we are more than ok. We live a very nice life. We never stopped with our frugal ways and we never will. We have paid down our debt quite a bit. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.

I guess we could have up rooted our family and moved somewhere else that was more affordable, but we would take about a $30,000 hit with the house. I guess I could have gone out to get a job, but I was pregnant. We could have sold my husband’s car, but we would not have been able to get much for it. We could have done so many things, but we decided to ride it out because we knew that it would be temporary.

This is a cautionary tale. Like many families we are a one income family and when that income goes away these things can happen. It is very painful to go through something like this. It taught us so much about ourselves. It made our marriage stronger. It helped our older son learn that he can’t always get what he wants. We will never look at “those people” the same way.