Yay, Public Assistance! (sigh)

One week ago today, Sarah and Maggie (and Bubs) went on WIC, the public assistance program also known as Women, Infants, Children that provides food vouchers to the women and children of low-income families.

First off, let me say this is great. Sarah used her and Maggie’s first food checks/coupons on Wednesday, and got two gallons of milk, a dozen eggs, three boxes of cereal, three cans of juice and two containers of formula for free. I was already counting down the days until I could switch out Maggie’s formula for whole milk, saving us from buying the $25 cans every week and a half, so this was Christmas come early. I also don’t have to worry about budgeting for milk, eggs, juice and cereal and forcing Sarah to limit her intake in favor of less expensive/less healthy alternatives. Getting all that food and nourishment (about $50-60) for free was an absolute wonder and freed my mind of many burdens.

Yet, there is this little twinge in the back of my mind I can’t fully explain. My whole adult life, I’ve been all for getting things as cheaply as possible, or free if I could pull it off. In college, I swiped so many paper napkins from restaurants that I had plenty left after I graduated. When I lived in Sandusky, Ohio, my friends and I worked out this scheme on Wednesdays where we’d hit one bar for the hour it served $1 Red Stripes; go to another for 50 cent chicken and $1.50 tall drafts; and finish out the night at our favorite hangout where we were always comped a drink or two, basically a whole night of drinking and eating for $10-$15.

I also have no problem going on MassHealth, which is what Medicaid is called in the commonwealth. My family basically is dumping the burden of its healthcare costs on the taxpayers, but I take no issue with it. In Florida, I was giving $250 out of my paychecks each month to get the Naples Daily News medical insurance, and I’m still paying down Maggie’s delivery costs nine months later. Now, I’m paying next to nothing and don’t have to deal with paying thousands thanks to loopholes in medical coverage. Whenever I do feel a twinge of guilt about being a leech on the medical system, I like to think that our medical bills are being covered by someone who has been collecting the Social Security payments I’ve been shelling into the system since age 16 (and will likely never see when the system goes bankrupt) or by someone who blew their welfare checks on lottery tickets only to hit the $50-million jackpot. Now, I know the reason the American government/taxpaying system is so large, complex and burdensome on the individual is because of people like these (and me), but that is not why the WIC assistance bothers me.

It’s the “low income” designation. To be eligible for WIC, a family of four can’t earn much more than $35,000 per year, which is not quite double the poverty level. Now, $35,000 a year is a lot of money, even in a place as expensive as Massachusetts or Florida. When I first started earning $35,000 per year (about three years after graduating college), I thought I was a billionaire. Yet, when you’re supporting two adults, one infant, one growing fetus and three dogs, $35,000 spreads thin.

Let’s face it, “low income” is the polite way of saying “poor.” Low income is the phrase I wrote into endless columns of newspaper copy, so I wouldn’t get angry phone calls from public assistance coordinators fearing that potential clientele was turned away for fear of being branded as poor. Does accepting public assistance make you poor? I don’t know, probably. We’re accepting public assistance, and I don’t feel poor; but it’s certainly that realization putting the twinge in my brain.

When you’re young and picking your first (and possibly only) career path, there are so many choices and so many reasons to choose anything. I took a longer time than most to choose my field, waiting until my third year at The Ohio State University to finally declare journalism as a major. When narrowing down the multitude of career tracts, I almost immediately eliminated anything where money is the ultimate goal (business, law) and explored areas where financial struggle came with the program (philosophy, sociology, English). At 20 years of age and having parents that paid nearly all my expenses, it was easy to choose passion over money because I had no idea what financial struggle really was. Journalism is a fairly well-paying profession; but it’s not the kind of money-making venture where you can have a family of four with a stay-at-home wife and expect to have riches flowing out of your pockets.

Had I pursued a more lucrative profession with an MBA or a law degree, maybe I could have absorbed a bad real estate deal and wouldn’t have realized what financial struggle meant for me. That it means not taking trips for friends’ weddings, slashing your family’s Christmas budget, wondering if your children will have to pay for their own college education, battling with your wife over the way to spend your limited resources, doubting your ability to pay for a second child.

The worst-case scenario at this point is asking my father for money. My parents have already provided plenty of money in my adult life, but it’s either been for expenses most parents would provide if they could (college tuition, funding for the wedding, gifts for Maggie) or giving a little extra to provide added enjoyment to something that was already taken care of (honeymoon, vacations, anniversary celebrations). Plus, Sarah’s parents and grandparents already help out by sending packages and whatnot — as I already pointed out in Making Rent, barely, November’s expenses would have been much harder to cover without a generous anniversary present from Sarah’s grandparents — so I don’t know what the big deal is to ask my father for money, should it ever come to that. Yet, there’s something about going to my parents and saying “Please help out, I need this for rent, electricity, etc.” that feels a lot like failure.

As big of a pride-swallowing, ego-busting move that would be (like taking WIC and MassHealth, on a much larger scale), I still wonder that if eight years ago, knowing this would have changed my decision to pursue passion over money, if I would have just been an investment banker and gotten it over with. It’s impossible to say because when I make a decision, I make it with all the information available at that time and do what I can to avoid looking back and evaluating that decision based on its consequences.

Eight years ago I decided to pursue passion above all else, and I’ve reaffirmed that decision by leaving a newspaper job I hated to find something better in Boston. My passions have changed over time, and my family now takes precedence over writing and journalism, although that is still very important to me. I believe spending time with my wife and daughter and having an upbeat attitude is more important than slaving away to generate money for an upscale lifestyle. Pursuing that passion is worth all the pride swallowing and ego swallowing out there.

Happy Thanksgiving

Sarah and I spent our second Thanksgiving in Massachusetts today — Maggie’s first — and it was spectacular. Sarah made the turkey dinner, I helped out with the cranberries and stuffing, and Maggie was her usual wonderful self, although the little one managed to sleep through the meal and didn’t each much of her breakfast or dinner when she was awake (she has a cold). Perhaps next year I’ll teach her that on Thanksgiving you stuff your face until it feels your stomach will explode.

Our first Thanksgiving was spent in Boston on our honeymoon. Sarah felt sick, as she was pregnant with Maggie at the time, and we spent most of the day at Mass General Hospital. I got the turkey dinner from the hospital cafeteria. After her release for what turned out to be a false alarm, we had dinner at an upscale Faneuil Hall restaurant, although we opted out of the turkey meal in favor of steak.

I’m all for family gatherings and have wonderful memories of sitting around with my parents, brothers, grandparents and cousins eating turkey, but this year’s Thanksgiving was my favorite. No rushing around; no sleeping in someone else’s bed; no craziness; just the three of us relaxing, eating and enjoying each other’s company. No disrespect to my mother, grandmother or aunt, but Sarah’s turkey from today was spectacular.

It’s in these moments that nothing else matters.

Making Rent, barely

If you recall from my Quantity vs. Quality entry, I wrote that financially things were a little tight, although we should make rent easily as long as I had one article published from the Boston Globe in the last two weekends before Thanksgiving. Well, if any of you are regular checkers of the Published Works section of www.bradkane.com, you’ll notice that I didn’t have anything published in those two weeks except for my three briefs, which earn $75 per week.

Still, we made rent again this month, for the fourth month in a row during this Great Boston Experiment. With the money I had already earned and what Sarah pulled in from her part-time job at The Gap, we were going to make it, but I would have had to wait on paying the Internet/cable/phone bill for a week, which wouldn’t have been terrible since Verizon doesn’t charge a late fee. Even more fortunately for us, Sarah’s grandparents sent us a very generous anniversary present (on a side note here, I never knew that you gave a couple anniversary presents; I always thought that was strictly a husband and wife gig. I certainly never gave anybody an anniversary present). With their gift, we’ve made rent again this month and paid all the bills on time. We didn’t even have to dip into the grocery budget and use the credit cards.

My Globe Northwest editor has been holding onto a couple of my stories for several weeks now, so that’s why I didn’t have anything run this weekend. This is fairly common for stories to be held, so we just have to view our finances on a month-to-month basis instead of week-to-week and wait for my stories to eventually run. I’ve got four on file ready to run with the Globe with another two set to come in around Thanksgiving (plus several more ideas I’ve yet to work on), so I’m confident we’ll make rent in December once again.

It is now clear to me that making rent and simply paying expenses every month is no longer the challenge of the Great Boston Experiment.  The ultimate goal of the experiment is simply to be happy together, so the next goal for me is to get to the point where Sarah can stay home full-time with us. She’ll be doing that soon anyway as this pregnancy progresses, so we need to find a way to make up for the income she produces from The Gap. The Globe will never be much more than a way to meet expenses (just like the Naples Daily News), so as I’ve been saying since the beginning, I need to branch out to writing for other publications.

An editor and I from the Improper Bostonian exchanged e-mails about a week ago, and he seemed interested in my writing for them. They ultimately rejected my two story ideas because they had already been done, but I still find this promising. If I can pitch them something they like within the next couple of weeks, that’ll be huge. It’ll move me away from depending solely on the Globe (which is a great publication to write for, but not enough ultimately). With another publication on my resume, that’ll make it easier to branch out into even more publications; and ultimately I can work on my long-term goals in writing, which are still a little unclear but tentatively include writing fiction, books and maybe running my own publication.

Goodbye, Netflix

After almost four years and more than 420 movie rentals, I bid farewell to Netflix this past week. The direct mail service was always at the top of my cut-list should financial misfortune ever befall me, but it’s amazing how much those little red envelopes became a part of my life. Honestly, I paid the $20 per month fee longer than I should have, but it seemed so easy when it was simply assessed against my credit card each month without word or thought from me.

As a lover of movies, particularly the quirky ones that typically fly under the radar, Netflix was the perfect service for me. The only rule was I never rented a movie I had already seen. Those red envelopes — three at a time, as fast as I could view them — introduced me to a whole world of film I would have never seen. My favorite was renting TV shows and watching the entire series from start to finish. With the help of Netflix, Lost, The West Wing, Tears of the Sun, Deadwood, Entourage, The Sopranos, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Eastern Promises and Rome, along with many others became integrated into my knowledge of today’s culture.

The greatest experiences I ever got from Netflix — and well worth the hundreds I paid over four years — were to watch the greatest movie and the greatest television show of all time. I might have watched Citizen Kane and The Wire without the help of Netflix, but it seems unlikely. As a journalist named Kane, I know it’s seem strange I’d never seen the acclaimed movie. To be honest, I only got it from Netflix on a whim, and it took me a couple of weeks to get around to watching it (my usually turn-around time was about three days). It turned out to be the best movie-watching experience I’d ever had. The Wire, on the other hand, I never would have watched without Netflix. At the insistence of several friends, I rented this sprawling, novel of a TV show; and it took my knowledge of what a TV show could do to a whole new level.

Enough of my whiny remembrances about my lost video service (my rentals seriously decreased anyway after Maggie was born). It is a $20 per month I gladly sacrifice for the greater good of our family. After catching part of a TV show or watching a movie preview, I no longer get to say, “I’ll have to get that on Netflix;” but it’s OK. There’s more important things than little red envelopes.

One year and one day

The Great Boston Experiment is about many things: striving for something better; removing the bonds of societal expectations; adventure in a strange land.

But above all, it’s about love.

Sarah’s love toward me, taking the chance on me to make something better and happier for all of us. My love for Maggie, wanting to help raise my daughter without restrictions, being bound to a job I hate. Sarah’s love for Maggie, knowing that a happier, more involved father makes for a better all-around family. My love for Sarah, willing to take these risks so I can be the best husband without unfairly burdening her by bringing my anger about my job home. It’s our love for each other, depending on each other when times get bad, celebrating the good times and being that steady force in tumultuous times.

On Monday, Sarah and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. A year and a day ago, the two of us said our vows and walked down the aisle toward the greatest adventure we would ever take. And I have to say, it’s been wonderful.

At no point in the past 12 months did I doubt that Sarah was the best woman out there. There’ve been plenty of fights, yelling, screaming, throwing of objects and everything that goes with two differing personalities adjusting to life 24/7 with each other. Sure, there’s been plenty of great times, too: the birth of our precious daughter, picking each other up when the other is down, shared good experiences like Disney World, the comforts of home and family life.

But it’s in the bad times when our love is at its most pure. There’s nothing left unsaid between the two of us. We share openly without fear of the other abandoning our relationship. When we’re screaming at each other about something big or small, it shows our passion. We could easily slide into the convenience of life and simply leave these potential arguments alone for the sake of not being bothered or saving ourselves the unpleasantness of a fight. We care enough about each other to scream our opposing viewpoints, no matter how irrational or unfounded.

At the end of the fight, there’s always forgiveness, understanding and love. Sure, there’s remorse; I’m still regretting a meaningless, drunken fight I picked during a trip to Disney World, but there’s always love. I could never imagine finding someone I not only loved being with, but someone I could argue with to no end and still love.

Without question, this has been the best one year and one day of my whole life.

The ups and downs of the move

Brad has been bugging me to write a blog post since the Great Boston experiment started. I hesitated only because I had no clue what to write about. So I thought I would tell you about how some of my experiences with this move has changed me and my life.

I could not wait to move to Boston, a big city tons of history and culture just a completely different life from old people country in Southwest Fla. But when we got to Marlborough, which is about 45 min away from the city, I was so disappointed the place is dead out in the country. No T, the subway in Boston I love to ride, no busy streets with musicians playing on the corners and no Souper Salad, the restaurant I got addicted to when we visited Boston in May. I thought we might be getting some sort of city life, but no luck, not even a little bit. I also had to get a job, which really sucks not because I have to work but because I have to leave Maggie. I hate doing that; it’s really hard when this child grows inside you for nine months and then for the first 6 months of her life you are with her 24/7. I really miss my time with her; I feel like I am missing out on her life, and I find it so hard to leave each day. But I am really glad Brad is home with her, and he gets that time to bond with her. He is such a great dad; Maggie is really lucky to have him as a Daddy. Hopefully, I won’t have to work too much longer, or maybe I could get a job from home. I would love that.

I have had some good days. My birthday was awesome, Brad had a great day planned for me. He took me to a great sushi restaurant in the city. I now love sushi; it really has to be the best food ever. Since I am pregnant I still cant have the raw fish, but the baked sushi is still great!! He also took me to a improv comedy theater, and Maggie really enjoyed it. I liked it, too. We ended the night at Burtons, which a steak and seafood place. It was great; Maggie slept through the meal, so we ate in peace.

I have also enjoyed all the times we have gone into the city. I can’t believe we live so close, but still far away from such a cool place. Hopefully, things will get better and I will get used to living in Mass, but who knows what God will throw our way. I know he has a plan for us; and even though I am having a hard time, I see how much happier Brad is, and that really makes everything else not matter. He is working his dream job and loving it. He gets to spend quality time with Maggie, and he smiles so much more these days. That’s all that really matters is that my hubby is happy with his life, and he deserves that and so much more.

Bad economy makes everything suck

After reviewing some of my posts and the general feel of this blog, I wanted to make a point regarding my former employer: The Naples Daily News was and is a great newspaper staffed with very capable journalists — some more than capable — that has fallen on very hard times.

When I started there in 2005, the Naples Daily News was a cutting edge paper committing to excellent journalism on a day-to-day basis, in special projects and in the digital age. The booming Southwest Florida economy, which was basically the real estate and construction markets, gave the newspaper plenty of money to work with, and it reinvested that money into making its product better. The company added reporters, editors and other journalists; tried to expand its coverage area north (something that is very difficult for newspapers these days); and launched two innovative new Web sites. It was a great place to work, learn and grow.

When the real estate bubble burst, the company’s income plummeted. As editorial employees left (Web editors, reporters, photographers) they were never replaced, and the remaining editors and reporters did what they could with what they had. In that situation, it gets difficult for everyone, and more people depart from the company for greenier or happier pastures. My immediate boss, Tom Hanson – a natural journalist if there ever was one — could have done something really special in the boom years, but was left trying to slow the sharp decrease in quality as our resources were slashed.

When the economy slows and depression hits, everyone has to hunker down and cut their expenses to the bare bone. The Naples Daily News was no different. The problem for me was as the company cut expenses, I was losing any opportunity to grow as a journalist and began regressing as the company and I became more desperate. I left because I didn’t want the poor economy to extinguish my passion for journalism.

Luckily, it hasn’t.

Quantity vs. Quality

Today was a great day for me as a journalist.

The best article I’ve written in a year debuted today in the Boston Globe’s Northwest edition. This story, about disabled firefighters trying to return to active duty, has been praised by my superiors and colleagues at the Globe and has been well read. Something like this will raise my stock at this prestigious newspaper and ups my reputation as a journalist in New England (helping me as I need to branch out to write for other publications). This also enhances my interaction with the community I’m covering, Medford, and should lead to my producing better stories overall.

Not only that, but it feels great. Too long at my corporate job at the Naples Daily News (and before that at the Sandusky Register) was forced to sacrifice quality for quantity, slaving away to fill the daily newshole with barely passable stories while letting the better stories pass me by. Since I started writing for the Boston Globe, my article-to-article quality has increased tenfold, but today’s story is a whole new level.

I can’t even express the joy that comes from throwing myself headlong into a complex, difficult to report issue and coming out with a clearly written, well researched and thought-out piece. While I usually work on two or three articles per week, this topic was my sole focus while I worked on it. I even slaved away at making sure the many issues were easily expressed in the story, staying up until 5 a.m. on a Monday to make sure the wording and flow were just right.

But as great of a day it was for me as a journalist, it was a bad day for me as a provider.

As a freelance reporter, I get paid by the story, not for my time and not on a salary. It’s not like a job where the paycheck comes if I write one or 10 stories a day (or spend all my time reading trivia on IMDb). I get paid for what I produce, which is exactly what I want out of my professional life, but it also makes things difficult at times. Like I said, I usually work on two or three article a week, so even at a minimum, we’re talking $500 for a week. I threw myself headlong into the firefighter article for two weeks, so at most, I’m getting $350 for those two weeks, which isn’t enough when we’re no longer living on credit and need to pay for rent and groceries. Our only other income at the moment is my $75 per week for writing Globe briefs and the advertising revenue from The Midwest Review blog, which totalled 27 cents last month.

It’s funny, or maybe ironic. I used to hate the powers at be in Naples because they stressed quantity over quality because they had to slash editorial personnel to make up for decreasing advertising revenue. Now I find myself having to choose between producing quality journalism and forcing out quantity to pay for my family to live.

Luckily, there’s a happy medium for me as a independent journalist. I was able to get out another article into today’s Globe Northwest edition (another quality piece about a costly sewer expansion), and I have two more waiting in the wings to be published. As long as one of those two runs within the next 10 days, we should pay our remaining November bills with little difficulty. Even if it doesn’t, we should make rent this month, although our family meals might go from $1 steaks to rice and beans. Trust me, a steady diet of rice and beans makes for a cranky pregnant wife (and I’m not too wild about it either).

This is the great thing about being an independent journalist as opposed to a staff reporter. When the powers that be stressed quantity over quality, my only options were to comply or risk the bosses’ wrath when I rebelled. As a freelance reporter, my say is the only say in the matter. I can choose to focus on a great quality piece, or I can hustle out a couple of good-not-great stories to drop a few more dollars in the bank account. Trust me, there’ll be a steady diet of both, but pushing quantity once in awhile to pay the rent is much better than quantity always pushed on me to make up for the insecurities of a corporation.

In your obituary, it lists the deeds you’ve accomplished in life, and the people you accomplished them with, your family. It doesn’t list your savings account balance or the contents of your credit report.

Life keeps going

It was cold today. Maggie was fussy last night and didn’t sleep much today, but she didn’t lose that smile. I got approved for four more articles from the Boston Globe and spent the rest of the day reaching out to other publications. The mail didn’t come, but it’ll be here tomorrow. We ate our meals, as usual.

This is the thing about the walls closing in financially; it doesn’t really matter. Yeah, since we learned that we have almost $0 left available on our credit cards, we’ve had to be more conscious of where our money goes. We lose some luxuries here and there, which frankly for Sarah and I is going out to eat. We have to rely more on richer family members for some items, which of course I hate. Still, money is meaningless; well, it isn’t meaningless because we need it to provide our home, the gas for our car and other stuff, I’m sure. Money, though, is secondary in our lives.

I’ve always been very sensitive about money and debt. I tend to dwell on the numbers more than I believe I should, and am prone to freakouts and breakdowns over running expenses. I now I need to control our family spending better, but maybe this latest financial shutdown is good for me. No money police have come crashing through our door. No one has showered us in shame over the difficulties we’re having. The only real pest is the mortgage company keeps calling for cash I don’t have, but at this point it’s more entertainment to me than anything.

Here’s what I’ve learned about money: it doesn’t define who you are; it only effects your happiness as much as you’ll let it; and no matter how much you have, life keeps marching forward.

Disaster: Credit Crisis

The Great Boston Experiment was dealt its first major blow on Saturday when we learned our credit card company had taken away all our available balance. This move wasn’t entirely unforeseen, but it was still a crushing blow as we are still trying to set ourselves financially.

Two years ago in Southwest Florida, I got caught up in all the housing boom hype and figured I try to make it rich like everyone else. For the five years leading up to 2006, the average value of a home in Lee County increased 30 percent annually, and I figured I could buy a condominium, sell it off easily in one or two years and make a killing. So, stupidly, I followed the poor advice of a realtor friend and bought more house than I could afford in August 2005 on a mortgage plan that would keep my payments low for two years, and I would sell it off before the rates skyrocketed. Of course, then came the housing crash of 2006 in Southwest Florida and then again in 2007 and 2008 as the market was flooded with excess supply and the price of homes dropped. I listed the condominium for a year with two separate realtors and never had one person show an interest in purchasing. So, in August 2008, the month before my mortgage payment was going to double and be 75 percent of my income, I decided to stop making payments. We lived for mortgage free for one month, and I used the extra crash to put a deposit down on a rental in Massachusetts. We moved in September.

The mortgage company has called and called, trying to collect their lost money. Now, I feel terrible for not living up to my financial responsibilities, especially since I also stopped making my quarterly payment to the condominium association (bastards that they were). However, the mortgage company has not been helpful at all in trying to resolve this crisis. I’ve offered to just sign the deed over to the company in lieu of a foreclosure, I’ve applied for a mortgage refinancing, I’ve asked for a temporary reduction in my monthly payments, I’ve even explored trying to short sell the condo to recover some of them money I owe; at each turn, the mortgage company says no. American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. seems hellbent on either me paying in full or foreclosing on the condo. Unfortunately, there’s no way I can make the payments in full (even if I still lived in Florida and started working two jobs), so we’re on the fast track to foreclosure.

This brings me to the credit card company. The mortgage company must have issued a collection on my credit report or something because the credit card company reduced my available balance right away, leaving me with $40 of credit left. This is actually understandable and mostly expected, although the timing is terrible. The credit card company figures I’m going to end up owing a large amount to the mortgage company, which even the sale of the condo after the foreclosure won’t pay off, and the mortgage company will end up going after me for the remaining balance. My only remaining option will be to declare bankruptcy, which while eliminating my mortgage debt will also erase my credit card debt. The credit card company is just trying to cover its losses.

Unfortunately for me, the timing couldn’t be worse. While we’re making decent money right now just from articles for the Boston Globe and Sarah’s part-time job, we were still putting balance on our credit card. It’s our own fault too for living a lifestyle that was beyond our means. It was much worse in Florida, but we would spend money on stupid purchases like going out to eat and other things when we should have saved. Two of our three credit cards were essentially maxed out, and the third — the one that had the reduced available balance — was the one we were relying on. I knew when that balance ran out or when bankruptcy eventually came that we would have to cut down on our lifestyle significantly, but now seems like the worst time for this to happen (as if there’s ever a good time for this to happen). Maggie’s first Christmas is coming up, and I wanted to make it memorable for her and Sarah, especially. There was a wedding both of us desperately wanted to attend in Florida at the start of December, but now we don’t have the money or the credit to afford the flight. Plus, it’s Christmas coming up for both Sarah and I, and both sides of our family wanted to get together over long weekends in December to share in the joy of the holidays.

Life goes on, obviously, as we are simply working to pay off our monthly bills (just like we were in Florida, just like I was before I got married). Still, it’s difficult to know that I can’t give Sarah and Maggie the lifestyle they deserve. Even if I was living in a fantasy world created by credit, it hurts all the much more to have the bubble burst. As the provider of the family, it pierces my ego and self-esteem to know I can no longer provide in the way I want. Soon, I might have to abandon my dream of an independent writing career, or at least augment it by getting a secondary job. The need to branch out beyond writing for the Globe is all the more clear, although the transition is difficult right now.

The one saving grace in all of this is Maggie. The little almost 8-month-old, is content just playing on the floor, watching the TV remote light up and pulling herself up on the table, caring nothing for money or financial trouble. No matter what, she smiles that lovable smile; and that makes me happy.