‘Financial Help’ Archives
Ebenezer Land
By DWIGHT HOBBES “Affordable housing...is a misnomer of sorts: affordability implies the ability to pay for something given your budget”, think tank Cato Institute noted in a 2016 blog. Anyone of modest means looking for someplace to live who has run into what”™s being marketed as “affordable” can tell you just what a misnomer that is. It begs the cynical retort, affordable to whom? On top of which, rents and income have gone in opposite directions for some time and the contagion certainly didn”™t help, putting people out of work left and right. Ebenezer Park Apartments (photo courtesy of Ebenezer) Enter Ebenezer Park Apts., which doesn”™t solve that problem for everyone, but does give the elderly and disabled, including deaf tenants, a sorely needed break. Starting with the wallet, but, importantly, not ending there. Paramount, it goes without saying, is the difference between dispiritedly perusing ads for places [...]
Are You Letting Expenses Rise to Meet Income?
By MARY ELLEN KALUZA I once heard the phrase: Expenses rise to meet income. "Not me!" I thought. But, to be honest, even a pathologically frugal person like me lets expenses rise with income. Case in point: For most of my life (we”™re talking quite a few decades) I watched broadcast television and library videos on hand-me-down TVs. Cable was not in the budget as a single parent. After my nest emptied and I had only myself to support, I envied friends and the great stuff they were watching on internet streaming sites. So, I started to pay for streaming. But, because my TV was so old and dated, I had to move off the couch in the living room to a hard chair in front of the computer screen to watch streaming video. I was okay with that, but my cat was not. We had a lot of disagreements about what was comfortable and what wasn”™t. So I finally paid money for a new TV for the first time in my life. (Don”™t worry - I didn”™t completely [...]
Are You Letting Expenses Rise to Meet Income?
By MARY ELLEN KALUZA I once heard the phrase: Expenses rise to meet income. Not me!, I thought. But, to be honest, even a pathologically frugal person like me lets expenses rise with income. Case in point: For most of my life (we”™re talking quite a few decades) I watched broadcast television and library videos on hand-me-down TVs. Cable was not in the budget as a single parent. After my nest emptied and I had only myself to support, I envied friends and the great stuff they were watching on internet streaming sites. So, I started to pay for streaming. But, because my TV was so old and dated, I had to move off the couch in the living room to a hard chair in front of the computer screen to watch streaming video. I was okay with that, but my cat was not. We had a lot of disagreements about what was comfortable and what wasn”™t. So I finally paid money for a new TV for the first time in my life. (Don”™t worry - I didn”™t completely [...]
