Double Your Income, Pay Off Your Debt On ODSP/OW. Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako

Over the last three years, I have almost doubled my income. Without being facetious, I can honestly say I’m getting up near the poverty line. This is by taking a part-time gig and working it, semi-scientifically, as a business. After so many years on ODSP, this is a remarkable achievement, as the basic provincial disability pension runs about thirty-five to forty percent below the poverty line.

In the last year, I have reduced my credit card debt down to approximately zero. Last year, at about this time, I exceeded my $1500.00 credit limit by a couple of dollars. Basically, you check the balance online…see that yesterday’s purchase at the liquor store hasn’t gone through yet…nip down there and grab another pile of booze while you still can. The same goes for smokes and gas as well—

Groceries, even, if you’re not getting too many hours at work. And let’s be honest, that happens sometimes.

There is a $25.00 penalty for that, so that I owed, at that time, about $1,527.00. Now, even on that debt, at 28 % APR, the monthly interest doesn’t seem too bad. At the time of the monthly statement, it’s twenty-five, thirty bucks, forty dollars at most. What’s forty dollars times twelve? Multiply that by twelve months and it seems a bit more significant.

That’s a half a thousand bucks, real money when you’re lining up at food banks and wearing God-damned rags all the time.

Now, in order to avoid ‘overpayments’, due to the fact that on ODSP, one can only earn up to $200.00 per month without penalty, I have reinvested ‘excess profits’ back into my business. 

This is money you cannot live on, presumably, this is why the ODSP accepts it.

This involves the purchase of anything from new keyboards, a new monitor, or a reconditioned computer. So, each and every month, I was jamming some new purchase (hopefully a reasonable one in the sense of developing a business), onto the credit card.

At the end of the month, I paid as much as I could scrape up. Even so, somehow, I must have been chipping away at that balance. Two days before the end of the month, (March), I owe $148.00 on the credit card balance. The other factor is the fact that I did not buy anything for the office, for the business, during the months of January, February and March. On ODSP, the guidelines state that all expenses are to be charged to the month in which the purchase was made—it’s not a year-end sort of deduction, such as any other business in Canada might enjoy. A regular human business person could buy a case of toilet paper for the business, and the revenue people really don’t care in which month the purchase was made.

I actually went a bit over the allowable limit for those three months, a calculated gamble.

I have a reason for taking that risk—

So, in the course of about one year, I will have taken my credit card balance down to zero. I will be paying that last bit off Friday morning, a little after dawn, in other words.

What an interesting feeling it surely is—

To have actual control over one’s finances. To have mastered something. Maybe that’s what it is.

Okay, the monthly interest on $148.00 is not much, a couple or three bucks. It’s not going to make a big difference in my life, however, once the balance is down to zero, I can make a major purchase. I want a drafting table for the business. The base might cost $184.00 and the top, a separate item, $132.00. I can make that purchase over two months, use it as an allowable business deduction, and avoid ‘overpayments’ or charges against my Ontario Disability Support Program benefits. Which, after all, is still the major source of my income. 

If I pay off one hundred percent of the charge at the end of any given month, then there is no interest due at all. This is the ideal, and what every first-time credit-card holder brags about, after all.

So, as things presently stand, clients may earn up to $200.00 per month, after allowable deductions. The new provincial government has announced that in future, clients will be able to earn up to $6,000.00 per year, i.e. $500.00 per month. For Ontario Works, clients will be able to earn up to $300.00 (OW means welfare), the rate of claw-back after that will be seventy-five percent. Presumably the same goes for ODSP. I just haven’t seen that in writing. 

I haven’t been able to find anything as to when that takes effect.

In terms of business planning, it’s still up in the air.

Assuming November 1, just as an example, then the first ten months of the year represents $2,000.00 in allowable income, and the last two months of the year another $1,000.00 of allowable income. This seems like a fair way to deal with a transition year, going from one set of guidelines to another as it were.

I could earn up to three grand, and never have to keep a receipt, mileage log or anything.

Thank you for reading.

Louis has all kinds of books and stories on Amazon.

END

About that Crummy Old Shit-Box. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

If I bought a brand new minivan, it would cost me $33,000.00. If we assume that I would own the vehicle for ten years, that’s $3,300.00 per year, based on purchase price.

I bought a minivan for about $3,300.00. It is thirteen years old. The body was good and it had low mileage. If I own it and then dump it after one year, that’s $3,300.00 per year based on purchase price, and ignoring other costs.

I paid cash for the vehicle. The insurance is running about $65.00 per month. It used to be $85.00 per month, but bundled with tenant’s insurance, the price is twenty bucks or so lower. 

(Either that or the tenant’s insurance, to the tune of one million in liability, is essentially free.)

On the crummy old vehicle, the ‘replacement cost’ in the event of an accident would be $3,300.00, however, I don’t have collision on the vehicle. I don’t have fire, theft and vandalism on the vehicle. This represents a risk—a bet. A gamble.

As long as I’m covered for liabilities, that’s what is important. A shit vehicle is a couple or three grand. Liabilities can run into the millions—

On a brand-new vehicle, one that is on some payment schedule, a bank loan or other financing, one of the terms of the purchase or lease (certainly from my perspective) would be to have ‘comprehensive’ insurance. As a driver, I have forty plus years of experience, no at-fault accidents, no DUIs, and my last speeding ticket would have been about 1998. A perfect driving record, and yet the insurance on a brand-new machine would have to be at least double—say $1,200.00 per year, maybe even more. Maybe even a lot more. The replacement value is ten times higher, we must bear that in mind.

Now, when buying a new vehicle, the interest rates seem pretty favourable—zero percent for the first few years in some cases, from some manufacturers. Then there are bank rates and ‘alternative financing’. Some of those rates seem pretty high—five to seven percent is bad enough. I mean, we are talking $33,000.00 after all. With compounding on unpaid debt. And there is the warranty. A five, six, seven year warranty. My vehicle had no warranty whatsoever. There are times I wish I hadn’t bought it, but I can keep dumping anti-freeze down the hole and try and get my ‘one fucking year’ out of it—put a litre of oil in there once in a while, and just try and ignore the clunking of the stabilizer links and the chirp and squawk of the drive belts.

https://www.greedyrates.ca/blog/understanding-canadian-car-loans/

Am I saving any money, bearing in mind the gallon of anti-freeze going in there each and every month? A litre of oil, every month or two? And what about that halogen bulb I put in there for twelve bucks, or the new rad cap for ten bucks? (And it really didn’t fix the problem.)

There is such a thing as peace of mind. If I was really nuts, I’d put twelve or thirteen hundred into cylinder head gaskets. I’d have them throw a good used radiator in there from the scrapyard, and hell, I might even get another year out of it, unless she throws the belts (noisy fucking things as they are) or I get pulled over in a random safety check or something. But here’s the thing. What if they pull the heads and discover hairline cracks around the combustion chambers due to overheating? (I would still be paying for the cylinder head gasket job. Now, throw in a couple of good used cylinder heads?) I mean, what are the odds. 

The previous owner dumped the vehicle for a reason. And if they got caught out on the highway or something, their first clue that something was wrong would have been that temperature gauge. Either that or steam coming out from under the hood.

A big green puddle, maybe—that was my first indication.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t want to get into it in the first place. If I can keep it going for a year, and then maybe find something else, who knows—maybe I can still sell it to some other poor basterd, for a thousand or fifteen hundred or whatever. To the right buyer, it might make a good ‘winter-beater’ or a work truck, or just a spare or emergency ride or something. The thing only has about 150,000 km on it, and they are known to go to 300,000 or more with proper looking-after.

So, if we throw down $33,000.00 for a vehicle and another $12,000.00 over ten years for insurance, and then follow through with all scheduled maintenance, including tires, brake jobs, tune-ups, etc. on the new machine, we could easily be spending over $50,000.00 to drive what begins as a brand-new vehicle but ends up ten years old and worth about one-third (or less) of the purchase price.

Subtract $11,000.00 from over fifty thousand dollars, do something with depreciation, and this is the true cost of driving the vehicle. This is not taking into account fuel, mileage, or any special accessories or customizations.

Honestly, I wish my math was better sometimes.

END

You guys know I got some really great books and stories on Amazon, don't you?

(He's saving up for another shit vehicle, ladies and gentlemen. - ed.)

Thank you for reading.

 

Salvation Army Complicit In Deceit.

Louis Shalako

Okay. I was reading, and speaking with commenters on a Salvation Army post. I had a question. Why doesn’t the Salvation Army mention that social assistance rates are appallingly low. Why can’t they come out and say that the Ontario Disability Support Program benefits are thirty-five to forty percent below the poverty line? How come they don’t advocate for a higher minimum wage? Why is it that they seem to forget the landlords are taking anything up to seventy percent and beyond in terms of disability pensions?

Comments came thick and fast. I don’t think they were all that pleased with me, but then the bourgeoisie never questions their own assumptions. Food banks, and food drives, are ‘good news’ stories. Always have been, and always will—unless someone breaks their little fucking bubble.

So. They have their reasons not to get too specific. One person mentioned 'separation of church and state', another mentioned that any charity that can issue a tax receipt is barred from political activity. (Which has never stopped the Fraser Institute from making political statements.)

This is why the Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, or St. Myles of Yappi over at the Inn of the Good Shepherd, cannot criticize social programs in the province and in this nation. It is a Catch-22.

You can feed the poor—you can accept donations—but you must never mention that the causes of poverty are structural, you must never say that social assistance rates are appallingly low, must never acknowledge that disability pensions are thirty-five to forty percent below the poverty line, or that the minimum wage should be raised, or that the landlord is taking seventy percent in rent.

In other words, if they want to keep their church's tax-exempt status, keep your mouths shut. 

So: in that sense, in the sense that this is an agreement, a bargain with the ruling classes, these entities are complicit in the deceit.

Yeah, it’s a fucking bargain all right.

#mystery_solved

Top of Form

Here's a journalism thing. Canadian journalists 'don't make the news'. If a statement is made, it must be attributed—it must be attributed to someone else.

And if that someone else feels constrained by laws and tax-exempt status, then those statements of fact never get made.

When I say the causes of poverty are structural, this is one of those structures.

Oh, and just for the record, David Chilton (The Wealthy Barber), is incapable of writing intelligently on this subject.

#fuck_off

Here is the original Salvation Army post on Facebook.

END

A Workable Plan for the Reduction of Poverty In Ontario.

A Submission to the Government of Canada on the Subject of Poverty Reduction.

Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.