Perpetually broke, almost

This is a world problem. I am not complaining, I am not even shaking my head at myself. I am wondering how we manage and the strength of the political and corporate will to keep the population perpetually broke, almost.

I recently turned 55. 55! and the magic didn’t happen. I did not automatically become a financially responsible grandma. Nope, it didn’t. Sure, I pay my mortgage, bills, owings and have enough food. I have enough. Except savings, I don’t have those. I re-mortgaged last year and the bank, in it’s wisdom, offered me a mortgage that would make sure it was paid out by retirement at 65 (yes! only ten years to retirement!). However, this makes my mortgage nearly half my income. That’s a lot.

I’ve done everything you are supposed to do, reviewed my bills, taken up steady payment options, reduced my insurance costs and still I cannot make headway. Heaven forbid, I go out for a meal or to a cafe, there really isn’t extra. Or pay my rego or an extra bill? Nothing left, and I have to borrow $50 to get to my next pay. And food costs? Oh my goodness! I grow and purchase food from the Community Grocer and support other food sharing initiatives.

This is not a whinge about how badly I am off, I am not. I earn a reasonable pay and live modestly. This is a shaking of the head that if I am finding it this difficult to manage, and all my children have left home, how are others with dependants making ends meet? I struggled as a single parent and am struggling now. I am asking myself, is this really because I am hopeless with money or is this symptomatic of an economic system that foists all costs onto its people, despite the level of taxes and contributions we make?

We have politicians who are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and creating a punitive society where the poor are punished. Recent data from the Rental Affordability Snapshot showed how little people on Newstart had available to survive on and that there was 0.01% of affordable housing options for them. We have elderly people turning up at our door at work, unable to pay their bills and buy food. We have people with disabilities unable to juggle finances in this terrible transition period to NDIS. We have families in our Shire going without meals every week. (12% in a Shire of 105,000 people is a lot of people going hungry.) And we have average families, like me, who no longer have capacity to save and just barely keep the starving Drop Bears from the door.

There is something very very wrong here. Very wrong indeed.