For some reason, I haven’t been receiving comments to my email, so I’ve been missing the fury behind the scenes.
Nicole asked why I am expecting other people to pay for the booster. Well, I’m not. I’ve been crunching numbers for days trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to make this happen this month. It’s either the booster or I find an apartment in town for the rest of my time here. I’m just grateful the company in Texas is helping me spend my money in the right place.
Yes, I had a very good month of July. I also had the July money earmarked for several other things because I have been backed up on other things. The booster wasn’t in the budget so I’m now having work extra hours to make up for it. I have been doing 14-hour days now since about July 15th with no end in sight because of this extra $1,200 expense. Yes, I can cover it. But it is causing me stress that I shouldn’t be experiencing. Just because you can pay for something doesn’t mean you can afford it.
I’m never made such a blatant a public request for help in my seven years full-timing. I didn’t ask for help when I had $4,000 worth of damage after losing my brakes on the Sea to Sky Highway. I didn’t ask for help after my car was totaled and motorhome home being badly damaged after being rear ended in 2012. I didn’t ask for help after my truck broke down in New Orleans in early 2013. I didn’t ask for help when I had breakdown after breakdown coming north in 2013, which was the same time I didn’t ask for help putting down my cat because it was going to cost my entire food budget for the entire month. And speaking of food, I didn’t ask for help in February of 2014 when a client was a month late paying me and I literally had nothing to eat in the house for three days or in December of 2014 when I got dropped without warning by a client and had no income for a month while stranded in a foreign country. Just a few examples of the top of my head.
I’ve hinted at times that I could use some help and been very grateful to receive it in the form of blog donations, a meal out, or a place to park my rig while watching other people in my online community hold fundraisers for other RVers in distress and come out in droves to help.
I haven’t asked for help because I believe in personal accountability and that my budget shortfalls are not anyone else’s responsibility. But you know what? This isn’t a budget shortfall. This isn’t something I could have prevented because I sure as hell didn’t vote for the government that gave SaskTel all this power.
Yes, I chose to live here. But come on, was I that crazy to believe that a community located between the U.S. border and the Transcanada, the most densely populated part of all the other provinces, would not be online at SOME point in the next decade?!
So going through GoFundMe was more of a social exercise and these four ladies who commented on my last post definitely helped to prove my theory:
How many people hear of someone in distress halfway around the world and rush to send them help when there is someone in their own community needing help? It’s as though because we are in the first world, we are so much better off than anyone else that we shouldn’t have the audacity to ask for more.
I don’t blow my own horn the way some people do on their blogs and talk about what I do for other people and how much time I volunteer or how I make it an effort when I am financially able to to take someone else out. I don’t talk about the hundreds if not thousands of hours I have donated to answering the questions of other RVers, although I might have mentioned once or twice that blogging has been at times nearly a full time job.
So pardon me for saying that for once, it’s my turn to get some help. Nobody has ever offered to hold a fundraiser for me, so I’m holding it for myself. Some of you might be lucky to have parents or family to go when times are tough. I’ve been on my own for a very long time. You are my community. And like with any community, there are those who help each other out and there are those who don’t. I’d rather be part of the community. Sometimes you give and sometimes you receive. That’s how it works.
Once again, thank you to everyone who has saved me about 12 hours of work towards paying for the booster.
BTW, yes, it is for work, but I’ll be lucky to be allowed to claim a third of the cost on my taxes.
“….and these four ladies definitely helped to prove my theory.”
I don’t understand. What four ladies and what theory?
The four ladies who started the debate in the comments. And I go on to explain my theory.
Thank you, Rae, for your blog and the courage to ask for help from “friends” when you find yourself in a real bind. I find that supporting friends through a gofundme or similar account allows me to contribute to someone’s welfare knowing for sure how my gift will be used. Good luck!
Thank you, Kathie. I found that the GoFundMe format held me accountable because I have to use the money for the purpose for which I ask for it.
And why the quotation marks around the word friends? I have made real friendships with people through this blog. I’m really seeing this week who is a friend and who is just a reader, and I don’t just mean in terms of who has donated or not. A share of a Facebook post to spread the word about just how ridiculous this situation is means just as much to me.
Rae, you’re right, I probably shouldn’t have put friends in quotes. It’s interesting how the world has change with the internet. You can be friends with people from all parts of the world, from different cultures, with different belief systems, and of different ages than ourselves. I’m 65 and love the ability to interact and learn so much from others via this medium. What a blast!
Kathie, the internet helped me find a whole world of people out there who are like me. I felt very alone growing up because I didn’t have the same values and dreams of the people I lived with. I’ve made my own community through my travels and writings.
I guess I’m just confused about why people think your finances are their business? Fine, they don’t believe in fundraisers or whatever, then they don’t have to donate.
Again, it’s just my opinion.
Well, I’m sort of a public figure and I do talk about my budget to a point, so it isn’t entirely not their business, so it’s fine if they want to chime in, but I reserve the right to be offended by their judgments in general on whether people have a right to ask for help or not.
Yes, it’s been a good month but I just waited, what, six weeks to replace my computer after it was going critical until the money came in? I didn’t ask for help then. Then, I learn about this booster that could change my life right now and keep me from having to relocate for the rest of my time in Canada this fall. Excuse me for getting a little excited and wanting a bit of a boost (pun intended) to help me get it ASAP.
Do you know what I would have been doing if I saw someone else who was in a situation like this, being shafted once again by her government, and needing just $1,500 to make it a little better? I would have made a fundraiser like that and asked 1,500 people to give just $1. It’s nothing out of their budget and yet enough to change a life. But that’s just me. And I remain grateful to those who helped, no matter the amount!
I still maintain that it’s nobodies business. If you choose to share, then, fine, but otherwise, it’s not (their business – JMO).
Also, I guess I don’t get why anyone would get their knickers in a twist when there’s no obligation to donate? I mean, it’s not like you said, gimme money or else (heh).
I’ll never understand people.
There are a lot of people who think they know how the world should work and anything that doesn’t mesh with that paradigm is the wrong way of doing things.
I know Shelagh is Canadian, but I’m not sure about the others. It is sadly a very American attitude to have the every man for himself mentality and to have a Dickensian attitude towards those less fortunate.
The interesting thing is that it’s been proven that those well off are less likely to help those who need help. Poor people donate more of their income to helping others.
You can google it if you’re interested in the stats.
Yup, because they know what it means to need help and to want for something. I can always tell when someone who comments on money issues has never lived paycheque-to-paycheque or gone hungry.
Rae, I do dislike being grouped in your statement “…..very American attitude to have the every man for himself mentality……”. I am from the USA and it does not fit all of us but it does fit people in general no matter where they live and it is confirmed by posts from some of your Canadian followers who could probably help out with a few bucks but won’t for whatever their reason. I can donate through PayPal and I will as I have been abundantly bless for which I am so thankful.
Enjoy your blog!
Sandy, unfortunately, that view of Americans in general is a stereotypical as that of Canadians being polite and it has been proven to me time and time again in my travels. You have every right to take umbrage with being grouped in like that! As I said to another American recently who also bristled at being lumped into such an unsavoury observation, this is unfortunately the view the rest of the world, or at least socialist, countries have of the U.S. when we see a country where people are bankrupted to pay medical bills, for example. There is a basis for that belief, unfortunately. But I know that it is a sweeping blanket statement that in no way applies to the 300+ million souls living in the U.S.
As my best friend Bast pointed out today, it’s often those who have never been in need who often prove themselves incapable of compassion towards those who do. Such is the state of society today, regardless of where you are.
Thank you again! I can’t wait for the blog to get interesting again. 🙂 I might have a touristy type post soonish if I can just manage to get away from my desk for a day!
No derision intended Rae. Great fundraiser for Shannon next Friday in SMA and yes she deserves the best of care.
Hi everyone,
Well I guess I kind of poke the bear with my question didn’t I? I’m from a time and place where you asked for help for a lot of things but never for money. It appears that time have changed, I supposed I haven’t change with it. I still don’t quite grasp that people (I’m not singling you out here Rae) would go online and ask for financial help. Anyway thanks for taking the time to explain.
Nicole
Like I replied to Shelagh, you likely come from a time when people didn’t have to ask for help because the community was there behind them, often in the form of the a church. The hungry family would be passed a basket of food, a utility bill would get paid, a caregiver would be found. I know I’m idealizing, but when I talk to my mother about how things were at my age and how things are now, I really do see a deep disconnect.
And as I also said to her, I see a huge difference between someone who is financially exhausted making a one time plea for help compared to someone asking people to fund her wedding. I’ve been talking about my computer threatening to blow up for weeks and how worried I am that it won’t last until the new one gets here. I didn’t ask for help with that.
I have a lot of real friends from this blog and I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone is. So what to you came out as a money grab, my friends saw as a chance to give me a hand knowing that I’d pay it forward in some other way. *shrugs*
Rae,
Your impression of the past is quite different from my recollection. We were 13 kids in my family. I don’t recall any churches bringing stuff over. Every so often we had to go without.
Enough said on the subject. I wish you all the best.
Nicole
I think one of the things happening here is you do such a good job of not sharing all those other struggles that many readers don’t understand you needing help now. I also agree that physical communities take care of one another in ways that virtual communities have not found a good way of doing. Now that I have discovered you are an Amazon affiliate I will buy through your site when I shop there. I still don’t shop a lot but the people whose links I have been using are all doing OK now so I can transfer that help to you.
Several people have made it clear to me that they understand what happened here. Just one more case of my finally getting ahead and the universe slamming me back down.
I was going to end up spending that money in the next few months regardless in motel rooms. But now that I know exactly what I need to have a hope of decent internet here, can I be faulted for wanting it NOW? *wry gring*
As for Amazon, THANK YOU. I average 150US per month from there so it always pays the bulk of my utilities, so it makes a huge difference in my budget!
Well, Rae when you say Americans you include Mexico, Canada and USA – we are all Americans! 😉 😉
You really aren’t a typical ‘Murican if you can see that! 😉
Geese, some people. I’m approached quite often, in many different ways to give a donation. If I want to, I do. If not I say no or ignore the request. I certainly have better manners than to criticize or insult the asker. I’ve enjoyed reading this blog over the years and figure it’s at least worth the price of a kindle book. Good luck Rae with you fundraiser. Donna
Thank you!!!
*geesh* not geese, unless a Canada Goose is reading. Lol
I normally edit comments with typos, but this is too funny, so I’m leaving it. 😀 And there is a Canada goose reading! 😉
Haha
We have a saying here in Australia – “while they are talking about you, they are leaving someone else alone”. So take it with a grain of salt. In reality, no one twisted our arms to donate – good luck with the rest of your target. .
Yeah, I really don’t care, but I’ve always been a bit of a peacemaker who shuts up and takes it and I rather had enough.
I was already committed to making the expenditure and thanks to lovely generous people, I only have to make up about 66% of the amount instead of the full 100% to pay, so I can order earlier than expected. I am so infinitely grateful.