On Frugality, and Poverty Thinking. Louis Shalako.

The Empty Chair, Charles Spencelayh.

Louis Shalako

Frugality.

 

I’m afraid to spend any money.

Going from the Ontario Disability Support Program onto senior’s retirement benefits has resulted in a raise calculated at $589.00 per month. That is seven grand a fucking year, more than I had last year, ladies and gentlemen. All I have to do is live one more year.

And I’m afraid to spend any money—

I need a new pair of shoes. I need a winter coat. I need new pillows, I need new bedsheets, I need winter socks, the proverbial woollies, although they’re more likely to be cotton and polyester blend these days. I need a new pair of winter boots, new underwear, and a new sweater…

My microwave is a wreck. My pots and pans are shit, the dishes and utensils, mismatched crap from forty years past. The list is seemingly endless, and I just can’t bring myself to even start.

I need a new shower curtain, I need new towels. I do not have a table and chairs in my dining area. We could throw that on the fucking list as well. I would like to have a cat, and yet the thought sort of scares me for some reason. But, if I get a cat, or a dog, well…then I would probably need to get a bigger bed, don’t you think…??? The master bedroom is empty, just empty. I’ve never used it for anything. It’s just there, and yet that might make a pretty nice little office, or I could set up a bench and start building model airplanes or something crazy like that…if only I could bring myself to begin.

I'm the only guy I know who has an empty room, an empty closet...empty cupboards in the kitchen.

I’ve always seen this place as temporary, maybe even precarious. Sooner or later, it has to end, right.

That all seems pretty logical to me, and I am nothing if not logical.

Perhaps a little too logical, but then I’ve just come off of thirty fucking years of pain, poverty, deprivation, depression, and quite a bit of bureaucratic and criminal harassment, including the police, the courts, the psychiatrists, a few neighbours and their droogs, and yes, even the fucking social workers.

There were times when it seemed everyone and everything were against me—and it all seemed pretty damned logical at the time.

It was logical enough.

It’s a kind of poverty thinking on some level.

It’s pretty easy to look down on yourself when you’re cutting your own hair, and washing it with dish soap, and brushing your teeth with baking soda, and making sure to grab a new toothbrush next time you’re at the good old Sally Ann (Salvation Army. – ed.) asking for another handout of groceries. When your coat stinks and the shoes on your feet smell like dead baby goats.

It is pretty easy to look down on yourself when everyone else in town seems to be looking down on you too—what the hell did those people ever know, but it really is insidious over the long term.

It’s not like I have never looked down on myself, and it was valid enough at the time, ladies and gentlemen. Every so often, you are right, after all. It’s a little something we call shame.

Might want to take a lesson from all of that and maybe try and do better next time.

***

What in the hell are you talking about...???

People talk about quality of life and I have no idea of what they are talking about.

For a gallon of white ceiling paint, and a gallon of a nice, sunny yellow colour, what they call Brenchley Peach, I could begin repainting my apartment. I’ve been here almost ten years in this unit, I am a smoker, and the ventilation has never been very good in these old walk-ups. Baseboard heating means aerial convection drags the smoke, the bacon grease hovering in the air, the moisture and humidity from the shower and boiling the kettle, it drags all of that right up the walls.

What would it take? A hundred fifty dollars and a few tools to get started, a small step-ladder. It’s the mental barrier, perhaps lugging all that shit up three flights has something to do with it.

It’s not like I couldn’t pay some kid twenty bucks an hour, we could do a room in one day or less, once you get started…right? Half a day is a more reasonable estimate.

And I still can’t quite bring myself to do it. For one thing, it’s a big job, one that has to be finished, albeit on a room-by room basis. One room at a time, right, start with the easy ones and work my way up to the bigger challenges…

And I will probably never do it.

It really isn’t about the money, although there is something to be said for having a little cash in the bank.

Where in the hell would I ever find the guts or even just a shred of optimism.

It is poverty thinking and it may take a while to overcome.

People get a little too used to being poor, and they think it will never change.

In which case, why fight it.

Right?

 

END

 

Poor old Louis has books and stories available from Google Play in ebook and audiobook format. His books are fairly inexpensive, mostly because he’s never had the nerve to charge a proper price—go figure.

(Louis has given away hundreds of thousands of ebooks and audiobooks over the last fifteen years, presumably in some forlorn hope of getting someone to love him. – ed.)

“We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor.” Poor People Don’t Plan Long Term. (The Guardian)

What is Poverty Mindset?

Thank you for listening.

 

 

 

 

 

Moving On to the Next Phase. Louis Shalako.

This is an Ootek boat.

Louis Shalako

I am moving on to a new phase of my life.

It's about time, too.

After almost thirty years, my life on ODSP, the Ontario Disability Support Program pension, will end. I will have my freedom from restrictive guidelines, and never have to report my income, mileage and expenses, insofar as it relates to employment or business or any other form of income, ever again. I will still have to do income tax returns, but I am doing that now—and they don’t ask to look into your bank account each and every month, either.

As far as that goes, I have some basic skills in book-keeping and accounting, hanging onto all relevant receipts and stuff like that. I was already running it like a business.

Within a month of my 64^th birthday, an envelope landed in the mailbox. It was a handful of forms and a few sheets of instructions. It was not real dense and there was minimal fine print. The social workers downtown had the forms mostly filled out—there were some options, a few questions, and a date and a signature.

...yes, I am sure they'll be glad to see me go.

I have applied for the Canada Pension Plan. Over the years, I did make contributions, although not so much while on disability. I applied for Old Age Security, and then there is GIS, the Guaranteed Income Supplement. There is also ‘GAINS’, which I take to be the Guaranteed Annual Income Supplement, which you do not have to actually apply for.

Okay, I already get the Trillium Benefit, a provincial benefit. I already get the HST rebate, a combined federal/provincial sales tax rebate. I am already getting the Climate Action Incentive benefit. Last year I got a one-time housing top-up benefit of $500.00. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that from any and all levels of government. There is some kind of Canadian Workers Benefit, but so far I haven’t seen anything from that. The government has at least been talking about dental benefits for seniors, I don't know too much about that, but almost anything is good, right...

I do still have a part-time job, making pizza dough, and the minimum wage will rise up to $16.65 per hour on October 1, 2023.

There is a labour shortage, and I do have other skills, including construction and demolition, stuff like that. A person could drive cab or work private security, where the wages and benefits are not that good, but having some kind of existing base income is very helpful in this regard.

If I’m not careful, I’ll end up making twenty-five bucks an hour, making myself indispensable in pretty short order, and probably running the place before long…a local weekly news outlet recently advertised for a full-time journalist. I have to admit I thought about it, but I did not apply.

The family business comes first, essentially, whether it's much of a choice, that is a good question which I cannot really answer, not even to my own satisfaction sometimes.

***

I suppose I have a few options and that is always good—my mother just bought an old camper trailer for what, six grand or so. Her and the step-dad have already taken it camping up at the Pinery, although I don’t know about living in such a thing year-round.

For that, you might be better off to consider Florida…as far as all these pensions and supplements go, we will find out in due time.

There is some uncertainty, and no one knows when the landlord will get a brainstorm and try and get a few of us out of here due to rent control and their own natural inclinations.

I have no control over that, but running out and buying a new car, a trip to Mexico, or buying a fucking sea kayak or something dumb like that, will just have to wait for a while…right? Let’s see what happens first. Okay, so the plan is to do nothing...just sit and wait and see what happens for a while.

We're not making any sudden moves here, ladies and gentlemen.

Odds are, it will all add up to roughly the same as the ODSP pension, and in that sense it represents a basic income, in terms of myself and other senior citizens, who presumably have earned it in some way, shape or form.

I figure I have, that is for sure.

 

END

Louis Shalako has books, stories and audiobooks on Google Play.

See his art on ArtPal.

Check out this other story here.

 

Thank you for reading.