Pay Day!

After what has felt like an eternity of having an embarrassingly low balance in my bank account (like, so low I probably couldn’t buy a cocktail anywhere downtown), it’s pay day! Every other Wednesday always feels so good. My tank is full again. I have re-entered the land of the living.

As I learned last year, having a strict “no credit” policy results in some estimating and guesswork that for the most part, works just fine, but occasionally, leaves me scraping by for a week after paying off a fatty bill or going out to a happy hour that turned into several. This particular week, it got pretty low. 

While I’d like to pretend that I opened the sole item of canned food I have in my barren cupboard in an effort to eat better (the author of the 4 Hour Body  and everyone else who knows anything about nutrition always says to eat more beans and legumes), I actually ate this for lunch on Tuesday. Yep. But it’s not as tragic as it looks- I heated up about half the can in the microwave, added salsa, salt and pepper, and ended up with a palatable (and cheap) meal. But it’s pretty embarrassing for someone who makes a decent living, like me, to have to do this.

Which leads me to a related issue that I think might illustrate how difficult it is for poor people to stop being poor, especially when they're prone to disorganization. Bear with me. So Monday night, I really needed a glass or two of red wine after work. I had remnants of other booze in the apartment, like some gin and tequila, but I just wasn’t feeling it. It’s damn near freezing every night lately, and I needed that warm, dense, intelligent goodness that only red wine can really deliver. Due to not having gone food shopping in weeks (but I can now!), my wine fridge was pretty vacant. The lone bottle still chilling was a $32 bottle of Sangiovese that I bought the last time I went wine tasting in the Solvang/Lompoc/Sideways region. It’s an Italian varietal that’s grown in the Santa Ynez Valley, and it’s delicious. I'd been saving it for something more purposeful than a post-work wind-down in my pajamas with pita chips, hummus, and my latest Netflix as company. Yes, I had been.

So on my way home from work Monday night, I decided to stop at Ralphs on Western and Hollywood and use my last $10 to buy a more reasonably-priced bottle of wine (knowing I’d get paid on Wednesday and could eat the beans on Tuesday). But at the check-out, I got carded. I opened by wallet. My drivers license wasn’t there, and I remembered that I had put it in my “going-out purse” that matched the outfit I wore Saturday night, and that this purse was either back at my apartment or lodged in an unknown region of my boyfriend’s house. In that moment, I looked totally old and worn out in my black pea coat and dark-rimmed glasses, and still, the woman wouldn’t sell me the bottle of

wine. I supposed this is a flattering thing to have happen on the precipice of my 30^th birthday, even though I know that the checkers are supposed to card anyone who looks like they’re not eligible for medicare.

I sighed, used my $6 Ralphs rewards coupon to pay for the hummus, and left.

When I got home, I couldn’t find my purse, or my ID, and so I cracked open the bottle of the Undici, and enjoyed a glass with Fantastic Mr. Fox. 

R.I.P. Undici

How does this relate to poor people? Well, if I had my shit together, I would have bought cheaper wine last week to have in my fridge for situations like Monday night. However, I couldn’t afford to buy any wine, cheap or not cheap, last week. When I went to buy cheap wine, knowing I was close to pay day, I was sabotaged by my own carelessness, which I imagine plagues everyone from time to time. I was therefore forced to open the bottle of expensive wine (yes, forced!), which only hurts my wallet in the long run. 

The lesson is that being too poor to afford to do things right results in incurring bigger long-term costs. If you can’t afford regular, basic maintenance on your automobile, it will break down faster and lead to expensive repairs. If you overdraw your checking account, you get slapped with a $35 fee. If you can’t afford a down payment for a house, you waste your money paying rent for your entire life to someone else. If you can’t afford to buy a $100 package of 5 spray tans, you have to buy individual spray tans for $25 each. I could go on, but you get the idea. If you start from behind, it's especially hard to catch up, and if you're mildly or chronically disorganized on top of it, forget about it.

I could take this analogy even further by explaining that the debacle with my ID card represents the red tape and bureaucracy that poor people face when trying to do the right thing… but I think it’s best I stop.

Brewing coffee and good humor.

I have some good news to share too- I exercised twice already (Sunday and Tuesday), I used a coffee mug all week and even MADE my own coffee to save money, I attended my second MPA class and did (most of) the reading, and finally, I paid a visit to my credit union to start getting my financial ish in order so that I never have to sacrifice good wine in moments of weakness again.

What I did was simple- I had already opened a free checking account with the credit union last year, and I’ve been diverting a tiny amount of each paycheck to the account. I walked into the bank on my lunch break, sat down with Brenda, the friendly and capable account manager for 15 minutes, and walked out with the following accomplished:

-       my debit card now has a code I can remember

-       over half of my pay check will be diverted to my credit union account starting at the end of the month, which gives me time to switch all my automatic deductions and account info for online bill pay

-       $100 from each check will be sent to a “Christmas” account. I will be charged $10 as a penalty per transaction if I withdraw anything from it before November.

Divorcing Chase can’t happen overnight, but this was the equivalent of one of us moving out and separating our books. It felt fabulous.

Behold! Honest banking!