By Robert Dean
Carter County Times
I think there’s an unspoken boogeyman we don’t talk about. When you’ve been broke-broke, the fear that poverty could come back never really leaves. It hangs around in the background of your mind. You’re always waiting for something to go wrong. A new bill. A new expense. Something.
You can get a job, a steady paycheck, even a little breathing room, and still be haunted by the memory of counting change for gas or wondering which bill can wait another week. Being broke rewires your brain. Every paycheck becomes a game of Jenga, and you live under the tower, hoping nothing falls. I have an excellent job. I’m one of the few writers who actually make a living. But I’ve known hard times, capital H and T. Even with two checks a month, I still find myself asking, how do I carve this up for rent, utilities, food? All while shaming myself with another question; What do I go to work for if every small indulgence comes with a voice saying you can’t afford this, even when you technically can? You shouldn’t feel morally beaten down because you want tacos or a new t-shirt, but that’s how it works. Bills become an emotional prison.
When you’ve been broke, you nickel and dime everything. You grab the off-brand bread. You fill the tank halfway. You buy cleaning supplies at the dollar store. Not because you’re frugal, but because you’re bracing for impact. You keep a few extra bucks around in case the other shoe drops, or at least until the next paycheck hits. I am very well acquainted with having sixty-five dollars in the bank and waiting for payday like it’s a life raft.
I use my phone’s calculator constantly, asking if I should wait a few days to pay this bill, if I can afford that charge. A broke person wakes up in the middle of the night convinced the sound outside is a tow truck coming for the car. Even with a job, the math never stops. It’s seventy-eight dollars for almost nothing at the grocery store. Forty-three dollars to feed the family at McDonald’s. A knot in your stomach waiting to see the heating bill.
That’s the part people never talk about. Getting out of the hole takes time, and most of us are one big bill away from the whole thing collapsing. Recently, I had to replace the engine in my Hyundai. Five thousand dollars. Did I have that sitting in the bank? Absolutely not. I took out a predatory loan. Now I’m looking at borrowing against my 401K just to climb back out. That’s how it works. You solve one emergency by creating the next one. I know people who travel constantly, who seem to live everywhere at once. They make about what I make. They see fun. I see three days of groceries. I make excuses instead of telling the truth. I’m scared to spend that much.
The mailbox becomes a source of dread. You avoid checking your bank balance because watching it drop, even for normal expenses, triggers panic. Every purchase turns into a survival equation. Forty dollars for jeans becomes two weeks of gas. Four grocery trips. The electric bill. Everything is measured against what it might cost you later. That’s the lasting damage of being broke.
Being broke isn’t just a financial state. It’s a trauma response that doesn’t care about your current bank balance. When someone says you could be better with money, it’s hard to reconcile that in a world of recurring payments where nothing is cheap. You get a raise, a better job, actual savings, but the fear doesn’t leave. You still think this could disappear tomorrow. Because you remember it disappearing before. You don’t trust stability because stability already betrayed you once.
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