Irresponsible and LAZY

It's hard to do it because you gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and LAZY. And who's gonna wanna do that? Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. PERIOD.
Bill O'Reilly

People want black and white.

Good and bad.

“You get what you deserve.”

Because if that isn’t the case, bad things can happen to anyone, and who wants to believe that?

We were home owners for over twenty years in two different homes. Then, my husband lost his job of a quarter century, when a 110 year old business closed its doors. Our nest egg, retirement plan disappeared in a ‘short sale’ after our home lost over half of its value.

We were lucky enough to sell…no, wait. ALL of the programs to help people are for those who lose their home to foreclosure.

The first advice we were given was to stop paying our bills, but we were responsible people. So, we paid all of our bills through months of unemployment…until the money ran out. It didn’t take as long as it should have, because even with a severance package, the government took half in taxes. YES… half of our severance.

We THOUGHT we would get the money back at the end of the year.

No, years earlier, when life was great, and NOTHING could go wrong, we co-signed our children’s student loans~three children. That is what good parents do. One has graduated with a good job and is paying her loans back. One has graduated and can’t find a job that earns enough to pay those loans back.

And, saddest of all, the last had to drop out of school, after three years, when my husband lost his job. The loans still come due on minimum, part time work.

The tax return we were planning on to pay our bills, was taken by the government to pay past due student loan bills. The worst part is, thousands were taken and it didn’t even count as a payment. So, they were still counted as behind on their payments.

The system is set up to screw everyone.

We have a new job on the other side of the country. After having lost everything, we have yet to find our own footing. Helping our children out, isn’t even a possibility. We, however, get threats, as well, because, of course, good parents co-sign student loans. We can’t afford money taken for our paychecks with three additional adults and a teenager still living under our roof.

As we balance on maybe enough to survive, I still do guilt spending money on groceries. We can’t think about retirement, when we don’t have enough money to pay next month’s rent and it’s the 31^st.

Young adults are not the only ones caught up in the Student Loan mess.

Just don’t forget, it’s all because we are LAZY.