Dear Darling Ones,
One of the benefits of being poor is the insurance, or at least it is right now. Who knows what the future holds for poor people insurance? Probably nothing. The only thing America hates more than black people, anyone not generally white passing, LGBTQIA+, and women, is poor people.
This country hates poor people because, like the good capitalist robots we are trained to be, we equate wealth with intelligence, hard work, and moral superiority. Only stupid and lazy people are poor and they deserve to suffer for their stupid laziness. Naturally.
When I was younger people were often surprised to learn I grew up in poverty, a thing I mostly kept a shameful secret, because I was so smart. As if I couldn’t be poor and smart.
Well, here I am again – poor and smart.
Believe it or not, bellyaching about poverty is my point today. My point right now, in this moment, is about how I am content and happy and it’s due to my poor people’s insurance.
My insurance has a bunch of incentive programs to make their clients “healthier.” Through this Healthy Benefits program they’ll “pay” you for doing things like getting a mammogram, getting your A1C checked, and other things I can’t remember because I don’t think they pertain to me.
The more cynical corners of my mind think they offer this program because they think poor people are too dumb to do this. Really, it’s probably a good investment. The healthier their clients are the less they have to pay. It always comes down to the dollars.
As a poor & frugal person I got my mind on the dolla dolla bills too, y’all.
My idea when I first discovered the Healthy Benefits program was to use the money for co-pays and prescriptions. Seemed like a good idea to me. Only thing is that was not allowed. The Benefits had to be used to by “healthy” food at specific stores. Because, of course.
Since I can’t drive anymore this made using my Benefits tricky. In fact, a bunch of my money expired before I could use them. I didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with it, Not so this year. This year I made it a mission to use that $80 (I got $50 for a mammogram and $30 for my A1C).
After much digging through the shitty Healthy Benefits website and even shittier app I learned I could use Uber Eats and their ridiculously inflated pricing to get groceries delivered. I have been in battle with Uber Eats for weeks because every time I tried to place an order the app said it could not use my S3 Healthy Benefits card right now.
Why? I don’t know. I even called the Healthy Benefits support line to see what I was doing wrong and they were literally like, “we’re here to help people add the card to their Uber Eats wallet.” Not so helpful to those of us who know how to work phone apps.
For someone with zero patience, I am also incredibly stubborn. I have been trying to place that order and get it to charge that stupid card every day for like two weeks. Today it worked. My frugal persistence paid off!
I was able to get all the Thanksgiving food for our tiny Thanksgiving. It’s just me, Sister #4, and our mom. The West Coast fam stays over there for Thanksgiving.
The amount of pride I have right now is incalculable. I’m so happy I get to pay for and prepare dinner for my fam. My mom and Sister #4 do so much for me and never complain about it in front of me. So many appointments (four in December) and checking the mail and taking out the garbage. They’ve never once asked me for gas money or anything like that. And while I cook and bake for them all the time (last week was chicken soup with homemade biscuits and scotcheroos), this is special because it feels like I got all the food for free.
The only thing I love better than paying less for stuff is not having to pay for it at all.
Yay!
Poor but happy,
Jodi