It's May already? When the fuck did THAT happen? Oh well.
I'm officially pissed off at the Illinois Dept. of Human Services. Fucking idiot working at the local office screwed us over this month.
Here's the deal. We usually get like $300 a month in foodstamps. My dad pays child support VERY sporadically, so it can hardly be considered income. He'll go months without paying, then suddenly we'll get checks for maybe a month. Once that month comes, my mom has to report it to the DHS because, to them, he's making regular payments. This is where everything spirals downward. He started paying in February or March, and my mom went to report it. In April, our benefits were cut by a third. Making it through the month with $300 in food money is hard enough, but $200? That's basically $100 to feed each of us for 30 days, which comes out to about $3.33 a day. Divide that into three meals a day, not including snacks or other extras, and we each get $1.11 per meal. That doesn't even put sales tax into consideration. My mom goes to the food pantry twice a month, and while some of it is pretty good, a lot of it is barely edible.
To be honest, I didn't even do the math until I typed it out. Now I'm even more pissed off and upset than I was before. My mom is on her last extension of unemployment benefits, and her job choices are limited due to injuries from a slip and fall-- a lawsuit which STILL has yet to be settled, over three years later. I'm going to start being a full-time college student soon. My dad either doesn't realize or doesn't care how he's affecting us. We're never quite caught up on our rent, and even though our landlord has been really nice about it, we can't expect her to always be so gracious. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of helping us out, especially my grandparents. I don't want to end up getting evicted and having to move again. I want to have a stable fucking home for once. I'm so sick of us being poor like we've been my entire life. This is so fucking discouraging.
Anyway, back to my original issue. My dad went over thirty days without paying again, and my mom reported it to DHS mid-April. The guy said he couldn't reimburse us for April, but that our benefits for May would go back to normal.
We checked at midnight.
$200 again.
Fuck our lives.
Edit: I'm giving them more credit than they deserve by rounding the totals up. Regular is about $293 a month and adjusted is $193. Plus, May has 31 days.
We both get $3.11 a day for food.
That's about $1.04 per meal.
Tax not included.
I'm officially pissed off at the Illinois Dept. of Human Services. Fucking idiot working at the local office screwed us over this month.
Here's the deal. We usually get like $300 a month in foodstamps. My dad pays child support VERY sporadically, so it can hardly be considered income. He'll go months without paying, then suddenly we'll get checks for maybe a month. Once that month comes, my mom has to report it to the DHS because, to them, he's making regular payments. This is where everything spirals downward. He started paying in February or March, and my mom went to report it. In April, our benefits were cut by a third. Making it through the month with $300 in food money is hard enough, but $200? That's basically $100 to feed each of us for 30 days, which comes out to about $3.33 a day. Divide that into three meals a day, not including snacks or other extras, and we each get $1.11 per meal. That doesn't even put sales tax into consideration. My mom goes to the food pantry twice a month, and while some of it is pretty good, a lot of it is barely edible.
To be honest, I didn't even do the math until I typed it out. Now I'm even more pissed off and upset than I was before. My mom is on her last extension of unemployment benefits, and her job choices are limited due to injuries from a slip and fall-- a lawsuit which STILL has yet to be settled, over three years later. I'm going to start being a full-time college student soon. My dad either doesn't realize or doesn't care how he's affecting us. We're never quite caught up on our rent, and even though our landlord has been really nice about it, we can't expect her to always be so gracious. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of helping us out, especially my grandparents. I don't want to end up getting evicted and having to move again. I want to have a stable fucking home for once. I'm so sick of us being poor like we've been my entire life. This is so fucking discouraging.
Anyway, back to my original issue. My dad went over thirty days without paying again, and my mom reported it to DHS mid-April. The guy said he couldn't reimburse us for April, but that our benefits for May would go back to normal.
We checked at midnight.
$200 again.
Fuck our lives.
Edit: I'm giving them more credit than they deserve by rounding the totals up. Regular is about $293 a month and adjusted is $193. Plus, May has 31 days.
We both get $3.11 a day for food.
That's about $1.04 per meal.
Tax not included.
Hope everything turns out well!!