Time, that funny little than that always seems to run far faster than you could ever run, always slightly out of reach, racing to a finish line you never seem to be able to catch up to.Time, that very thing you hear your whole life from financial bloggers to make your friend, to get time on your side, to get your money working hard for you rather than you working hard for your money. With time you can see the miracle of compounding interest, growing savings accounts, building businesses growing all at some far futuristic destination. Time, that useful little tool where anyone will tell you should not be wasted, it should be taken advantage of in your spare time in order to generate more income.
For the Poor this almost seems like some fictional story, some fantasy, some unrealistic concept that is always just out of reach. Time is not typically a friend to those in poverty, the poor working class, that we are always told needs to be used more efficiently. Why?
The main reason is that time really is not a friend to the poor working class because everything tends to consume so much MORE time than the average persons time. It works against us, leaving us exhausted at the end of the day. Everything we tend to do winds up being time consuming, laborious work that can drain you right to your very wary bones.
When an average middle income or above person has a job, they get in their car and drive to work taking 15 minutes of their time. Many times when a poor person has a job, the car is not all that reliable and when it brakes down they have to bike to work taking an hour of their time. If they are not fortunate enough to have a bike, they are reduced to walking taking 2 hours of their time.
Everything takes longer, requiring large chunks of precious time and often requiring far more physical exertion than it really should. If you need clean clothes and can not afford a washer or a trip to the laundry mat, then one is reduced to spend a back breaking hour or two washing it all out in a bathtub, hand ringing it out, then hanging it up to dry to later take down and fold, all human powered.
If one wants to grow their own food and has no way to work the ground, then one must use a shovel to turn the soil taking three times or more the time it would to simply till the soil with a good tractor or rototiller. If one does not have the means to get a good hose, or sprinkler system, then it is a time consuming task of hand watering each and every plant and row.
Then there are the miles of biking or walking to collect enough returnable cans to try to get enough money for milk or bread or whatever for the next couple of days or other means to try to earn a couple bucks for the needs of a household.
Sometimes if there is no other means for bathing this means heating huge canning kettles of water to carry to the bath tub for bathing or washing clothes. As a child I even remember our well pipe going out once where for awhile we had to lug 5 gallon buckets of water 2 at a time back and forth all day from the neighbors barn (which was not all that close and an uphill return!) to keep enough water in the house for toilet flushing, drinking water, and enough for bathing , dish washing and laundry for a family of 5. This was TIME consuming and energy draining.
I could give many more examples but I am sure you get the point. The truth is, it can be hard to break out of this because so much time is required in order to simply survive. Not only are huge chunks of time required but the whole ENERGY drain on your body, and mind can be tremendous, leaving you with none of either one at the end of the day in order to use for income generating ideas.
It can be a catch 22 where you know you would be better using time to make money and getting money working for you but so much time is given to working the job to pay the bills and all the time consuming projects of making do that it simply is not available by the end of the day when one falls exhausted into bed for a 4 to 6 hour coma, just to start a new day all over.
This for many, is a day in the life of the working poor.......
For the Poor this almost seems like some fictional story, some fantasy, some unrealistic concept that is always just out of reach. Time is not typically a friend to those in poverty, the poor working class, that we are always told needs to be used more efficiently. Why?
The main reason is that time really is not a friend to the poor working class because everything tends to consume so much MORE time than the average persons time. It works against us, leaving us exhausted at the end of the day. Everything we tend to do winds up being time consuming, laborious work that can drain you right to your very wary bones.
When an average middle income or above person has a job, they get in their car and drive to work taking 15 minutes of their time. Many times when a poor person has a job, the car is not all that reliable and when it brakes down they have to bike to work taking an hour of their time. If they are not fortunate enough to have a bike, they are reduced to walking taking 2 hours of their time.
Everything takes longer, requiring large chunks of precious time and often requiring far more physical exertion than it really should. If you need clean clothes and can not afford a washer or a trip to the laundry mat, then one is reduced to spend a back breaking hour or two washing it all out in a bathtub, hand ringing it out, then hanging it up to dry to later take down and fold, all human powered.
If one wants to grow their own food and has no way to work the ground, then one must use a shovel to turn the soil taking three times or more the time it would to simply till the soil with a good tractor or rototiller. If one does not have the means to get a good hose, or sprinkler system, then it is a time consuming task of hand watering each and every plant and row.
Then there are the miles of biking or walking to collect enough returnable cans to try to get enough money for milk or bread or whatever for the next couple of days or other means to try to earn a couple bucks for the needs of a household.
Sometimes if there is no other means for bathing this means heating huge canning kettles of water to carry to the bath tub for bathing or washing clothes. As a child I even remember our well pipe going out once where for awhile we had to lug 5 gallon buckets of water 2 at a time back and forth all day from the neighbors barn (which was not all that close and an uphill return!) to keep enough water in the house for toilet flushing, drinking water, and enough for bathing , dish washing and laundry for a family of 5. This was TIME consuming and energy draining.
I could give many more examples but I am sure you get the point. The truth is, it can be hard to break out of this because so much time is required in order to simply survive. Not only are huge chunks of time required but the whole ENERGY drain on your body, and mind can be tremendous, leaving you with none of either one at the end of the day in order to use for income generating ideas.
It can be a catch 22 where you know you would be better using time to make money and getting money working for you but so much time is given to working the job to pay the bills and all the time consuming projects of making do that it simply is not available by the end of the day when one falls exhausted into bed for a 4 to 6 hour coma, just to start a new day all over.
This for many, is a day in the life of the working poor.......
Thankfully I don't seem to come into the category of The Working Poor. But I do find time running through my hands quicker and quicker as I grow older, so now that I am not working I will be spending it wiser.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a thoughtful post....
You notice that Maureen? As a kid time takes forever and a day but when you reach a certain age it just speeds up and goes faster and faster with no way to just SLOW things down! LOL life is funny that way!
DeleteI've thought about this before. A lot of frugal bloggers go on about baking your own bread and raising chickens and all that; I wonder how realistic it all is when you're riding home from your job on the city bus and carrying clothes to and from the laundromat---where you have to watch those clothes if you don't want them stolen---
ReplyDeleteLOL Shannon, I write about chickens and bread baking he he and it does take a little time , some things I think you have to factor and think if for yourself a frugal pursuit is worth your time versus what you get out of it. Some frugal activities just are not worth it but this all depends on the individual , their lifestyle, what they have going on and what will work for them.
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