Survival and Sacrifice: The Financial Portrait of a Single Parent
I will never forget the terror I used to feel in the checkout line at the grocery store. Would my card clear? If it didn’t, what would I do? I would look at my items on the conveyor belt and decide what to put it back, if necessary. But sometimes, putting an item or two back wasn’t enough. Sometimes, my debit card didn’t clear and I couldn’t buy anything.
More than once, I left the store without my groceries and without my dignity, shame burning on my cheeks because my account was so overdrawn that my card had been suspended. I would mumble a lie to the cashier about being right back and then return home empty-handed to scour the pantry for something to feed my children for dinner. To dig through the diaper bag for one last overlooked diaper. To tiptoe into my son’s room after he’d gone to sleep and empty his penny bank into my purse. To lie awake at night with tears staining my pillow, because the weight of providing and the guilt when I failed was more than I could bear.
“When you are a single parent, you rob Peter to pay Paul, but Paul is the electric company and Peter is your son,” says Heather, a single mom. “You balance debt,” says Angela, another single mom. “Some people balance assets and investments, but single parents are constantly balancing debt.” Both of these women are college educated and hold full-time jobs, and yet, like most single parents, there is always more month left at the end of the money.
According to U.S. Census Bureau, out of about 12 million single parent families in 2014, more than 80 percent were headed by single mothers. The median income for families led by a single mother in 2013 was about $26,000, one-third the median for married couple families. “Food insecure” describes 34.4 percent of single mother families, and one third spent more than half their income on housing, which is generally considered the threshold for “severe housing cost burden.”
Unless you have looked your child in the eye and confessed that there is nothing more to eat, that the heat won’t be on until Monday or that he can’t go to that party because you can’t buy a gift, you cannot imagine the magnitude of the daily strain that a single parent carries. “Food insecurity” and “severe housing burden” are the way of life. The poverty rate for single-mother families in 2013 was 39.6 percent, nearly five times more than the rate for married-couple families. Single mothers earn income that places them well below married mothers on the income ladder. I always worked full time and also added freelance work and side jobs whenever possible to make ends meet. And yet, I remained a card-carrying member of the working poor, overqualified by most guidelines for government assistance, but too broke to afford basic necessities on a consistent basis. Financial desperation brought me to my knees more times than I can count, but it’s in those bleak moments where a single parent discovers strength, resilience, resolve and creativity.
“Ask any single mom and she can tell you the staples of a pantry that last the longest, make the most meals and cost the least at the store. She can tell you how many days you can go without paying a bill before the service is suspended, and single moms are the only people who don’t have $5.00 in change between their couch cushions because they used it last Thursday to pay for their kids’ lunch,” says Heather.
But scattered amongst the hardships are also miracles. Rita was a single mom for seven years. She is college educated and always had a stable job as a teacher but still struggled financially. “My ex-husband has an on again off again (mostly off) way of paying child support. Sometimes I got it, most of the time I didn't. When the kids were little, I was paying $1,200 a month for daycare and $1,200 a month for my mortgage. That left very little for anything else.” But she remembers times when things just somehow worked out. “With money, I honestly don't know how I did it. My surviving financially had a lot to do with many little miracles, like unexpected checks in the mail at a time when I really needed it.”
Rita goes on to talk about how she learned to ask for help. “Before becoming a single parent, I didn't want to ask anybody for anything, but you learn that you have to ask for help a lot. I had to lose the pride and ask for help when I needed it.” She went to a food pantry a few times, where she could get everything she needed for $25. “You just learn to build a network,” she says. “Even if you're shy, you have to reach out. It becomes a question of survival.”
Survival. As a single parent, I learned that in order to survive, financially and otherwise, I would have to be resourceful and I would have to ask for help. I learned to ask about scholarships without shame. I applied for and received countless scholarships for everything from pool memberships to church functions to sports fees to summer camps. I built a network of other single parents who could swap childcare, clothing and other services. I learned to barter—I was a decent photographer so I would offer photo shoots in exchange for things I needed. I bartered for a year of dental care for me and my son and countless haircuts and oil changes. I took my son to several major sporting events through bartering, trading photo shoots for tickets I would have never been able to afford otherwise.
I became an expert on paying as little as possible for things. I shopped consignment sales for used clothing in name brands, so that we didn’t look as poor as we were. I resold all of my kids clothes as soon as they were outgrown, rolling the money I made into the next season’s clothes. I accepted any and all hand-me-downs, and anything we couldn’t use, I resold to buy what we needed. I was constantly cataloging every item in our house, mentally assessing its value. A few times over my 10 years as a single mom, I had to sell things to keep the lights on and gas in the tank. My family teases that if something isn’t nailed down, I’m willing to sell it. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. Possessions weren’t just possessions—they were lifelines. They were potential cash.
Always and somehow, my family and I made it. We did not starve and we always had a home. But the strain of that life is carved into my very being now. I will always feel proud of my survival and sacrifice and grateful for the immense support I had from a multitude of sources. Help is available, but you must ask for it. Find a debt counselor and enroll in a budgeting class. Shop at Aldi. Search for blogs about low-cost meal planning. Join a community of single parents. There are so many resources beyond government assistance available if you are willing to reach out. As a single parent, no one but you can put your house in order and release your family from the immense weight of financial insecurity. You can do it.
Financial help for single mothers in Missouri: SingleMotherGuide.com/financial-help-for-single-mothers-in-missouri/
Financial help for single mothers in Kansas: SingleMotherGuide.com/financial-help-for-single-mothers-in-kansas/
Low-cost financial services: Apprisen.com/counseling-services/financial-services/debt-management-program
Economic empowerment classes: ElCentroInc.com/latino-family-services/financial-education/
Erin Jones works at the Kansas City Art Institute and is also a freelance writer and portrait photographer. She is currently working on her first book - part memoir and part single parenting survival guide.