Are You There Congress? It's Me the Middle Class.

I listed a slew of baby items on craigslist this week.  They sold fast.  I looked around the house at the empty space they left behind and found a pair of shoes that had never been worn.  I listed those too.  I've barred myself from Target. The stack of fall fashion magazines I gaze at lovingly for weeks on end, marking the pages with sticky notes, has been put into the recycling bin.  I can't bare to have the temptation around me.

In the last few months I've brought in larger pay checks at regular intervals but the money is not going as far as it did in the past.  I lay awake some nights thinking about our last bank statement and wondering if we really should have purchased that last rental property.  It sucked so much money from our savings that now I'm always nervous.  I know the end of the year is coming up and beginning in January we'll be paying out over two grand to our high deductible insurance plan.  Yes, I now have to pay for my family's health care via my life savings.  So, I clip more coupons.  I buy used clothes for the kids and have let go of my frivolous ways.  I stare at my roots and wonder if I can go another few weeks in between a coloring and cut.  Maybe I should just buy a box of hair dye for $10 and call it day.  The thought makes me cringe but so does the hefty salon price tag. 

Sound familiar?  I'm sure it does and in a way I hope it does because I hate to think I'm alone in this boat of economic and health care woes.  I hear about it daily on the news, on the radio, on-line and in the newspaper (itself having it's own money battles) and yet I have not heard anyone I actually know, or in our economic bracket, talk about such things.  It's as if it is all happening to someone else. 

I live in an area that has been pretty untouched by the hardships that much of the country has seen.  I wonder if that makes it harder and had me in a bit of denial until just now.  Will I have to empty my basement contents onto the want ads just to pay my bills?  I've been longing for more space in my home but this wasn't what I had in mind.  Now when I get an item to review I think, "Oh good! One less thing I will have to buy."  Each item I sell on-line goes in the pot towards higher priced groceries, my health insurance and to pay off bills. 

I know I'm not as bad off as others because I do have some savings and I'm still contributing towards my retirement but I thought when I got to this point in my life I would at least feel more secure.  I thought that my health care plans would improve not deteriorate.  I'm so sick of the nickel and diming of it all.  This issue needed to be taken care of sixteen years ago.  A whole administration ago.  I know I cannot be alone.  I just had to get that out there. 

Original DC Metro Moms post.  Victoria blogs daily about her exciting middle class, writer existence at The Mummy Chronicles and Mummy's Product Reviews.