How I Survive $20 days
and still manage to feed my kids every night
I wanted to leave a quick letter of empowerment to all the struggle moms (no offense) like me who have a hard time keeping food on the table. Times get hard, yes. I have food stamps, yes. But even with the amount we are given, we still have a hard time a few days maybe a couple weeks out of the month where it is absolutely hard to keep food on the table.
I am unemployed. Ever since moving to South Carolina it has been hard to find gainful employment. It’s either Door Dash and Instacart or work like a mindless depressed slave at a fast food restaurant while waiting for a decent opportunity to come through. So I chose Door Dash and Instacart. There are some days I won’t even get trips and I have to ask friends and family to borrow money that I know I can’t pay back. Don’t worry I’m not that deep in the hole I already owe the landlord.
Most times, every single day becomes a gamble. This is a hard way to live but its not unlike most people’s days. Even entrepreneurs have days like this, where they have to wake up every day and make 300 dollars in their business and its a tough task, that’s not easy and neither is this, neither is life.
I think even if I didn’t have financial issues, I would have other issues. But I always say, I’ll take any other problem but this one, because I believe all of my problems stem from not having enough money.
Even with financial struggles, I’ll tell you this much. I make sure my kids have a meal every night. There is never a night where they don’t have a hot meal. I don’t know how I do it, maybe its my black girl magic, but my kids gon’ eat. I don’t care if I only make $20 that day. A pack of drumsticks is only 5 bucks in this town, a cheap bag of rice is about 3 bucks and a can of corn is 1 dollar, along with a can of green beans. Boom there’s your ten bucks. I use the other 5-10 bucks on gas for the next day… We are in a food desert so there’s a dollar general market that sells little bags of popcorn chicken for 5 bucks and a bag of waffle fries for 5 bucks and we toss that in the air fryer they can much on that for the rest of the night. Some nights I don’t eat and I don’t care either as long as they eat. It’s a hard way to live. I had to cry today because I just, really put myself in a tough position, I had a chance to do something else and I didn’t because I’m a wild procrastinator its a symptom of the depression and neurodivergence. But if i may be honest and have a vulnerable moment, I have been evicted 5 times this year… five. What even is 2024? Now, 4 of those were just one landlord being awful, going to the magistrate every month, 5 days after the rent is late. This current landlord just doesn’t respect sanitary conditions and I won’t have any of that. So there’s my life. It’s in shambles right now but I’m working on it. And uhh yea the struggle is real. Today I put $2.79 in my gas tank thank God I have a car. Then after that, I ran out of gas AGAIN tank on zero miles to empty then I put the $6 I just made on Instacart into my gas tank. Tomorrow the sheriff will be at my door. I’m living thru this shit. This shit is real. I’ll tell more of my story in another post about how i went from $1000 per week to zero.
So, if you’re in your head… and if you are reading this …you are someone who can relate or someone who needs a little pick me up. I want to tell you that you got this, its just a storm that will pass it isn’t meant to last forever. While things can happen that are out of your control, try to control everything you CAN control, because we can do better, we will do better. We will stand tall and strong. We will cry when we need to cry. We will still laugh when times are hard. You do matter, your efforts are seen and heard. You are not doing this for nothing and you are not doing this alone. If any of you ever feel like you need someone to talk to, dm this page. I’m a great listener if any of you moms need to vent.
Eventually once the community begins to grow, We will all come together in support of one another. You see me here writing this and still alive so you know if I can do it, you can do it. Be blessed.