Nouveau Pauvre

I am almost positive everyone who reads my blog has heard of Nouveau Riche...I am coining a new one today {see title}!

Have you ever read a book or a magazine in which people who are considered to be nouveau riche are criticized?  They are always the butt of jokes for a certain set of the population.  They can be the butt of jokes for people with old money, for intellectual snobs, or even for poor people, as in "they got a little bit of money and now they think they are somethin!"

We all know some people who came upon money, but {might} not really have any class...etc.

I really don't care either way to be perfectly honest.  If you have money...spend it and be however you want to be!  

I am finding myself in a new set of the population...as in I think it is just arising.  I am going to call us the nouveau pauvre.

Here is how it works for us.  

1.  Our parents had decent jobs, but they both had to work and be frugal etc.

2.  We went to college and got good jobs.

3.  When we were growing up we got a lot of what we wanted (not go carts and four wheelers and shit, but a hand me down members only from time to time).

4.  I personally got to travel all over the world as a young person.

5. We had braces and a car when we turned 16.

Now we work all the time and here are our circumstances:

1.  We run out of money every month.

2.  We only cook meat once per week.  My reason is that I think meat sucks, but if I wanted to cook it more I could not b/c it is very expensive.

3.  When a big expense comes we have no money to pay it, so we need shit like loads of dirt for the driveway or a new roof and we have no money.

4.  traveling anywhere is basically a pipe dream, except to my parent's beach house b/c i get to go there free.

5.  We have credit card debt.

6.  We have a car payment.

7.  The other car is 15 years old...which we love it, don't get me wrong!!

You might be thinking, this makes no sense...Susan must be spending money somewhere that she does not realize what she is doing....

Oh no!  If one inspects my bank statement each month my money is spent at the grocery store and buying gas and insurance and funding a dance lesson (just one).  There is never an "other" expense category.  There  is no willy nilly spending.

So,, I have stopped thinking of myself as belonging to the middle class.

I now fully embrace that I am part of the new group--the nouveau pauvre.

We did all the sh*! we thought we were supposed to do...not necessarily with an end in sight all the time, maybe we were on automatic pilot for a lot of it, maintaining...

but here we are, and we are barely bailing water.

I have to ask my Mama and Daddy for money, and after a while that gets embarrassing.

Have you ever read Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle?

That is what I feel like when it is raining in my house.

If you have not read that book, do.  It's a good one for knowing about US History.

The difference in us and the people who have always been poor--I can only assume b/c I have never been poor, but it might have something to do with expectations?? maybe?  

I live in one of the cheapest places to live in the country --poor ass eastern NC, I have a Master's degree and a good job, and my husband does too.  So, no, I never expected to be this strapped for cash every year, every month, and every day.

I am, however, growing used to it.  Thank God Yoga With Adri3n3, b/c it is free and I can try to at least breathe and find peace in my new {and seemingly permanent} station.