I lived on $6 a day with a 6-year-old and a baby on the way | Stephanie Land | Opinion | The Guardian
I spent the last of my savings on rent in May. I graduated with a bachelor s degree, $60,000 in debt, and due to have a baby in a month. My older daughter spent the night at a friend s house the night I graduated because a friend insisted I should go out and celebrate. But I felt like I d failed my family, put us in more debt than I could possibly pay off, and I didn t have a job, money or any real assets. Plus, I was hungry, and I d spend the next three months living at $6 or $7 a day.
There s a certain hopelessness in living at this level of poverty that I had to fight daily to overcome. While I d been in school, I had a nagging thought that it d be so much easier to quit all this higher education nonsense and get a full-time job at wages low enough to still qualify for government assistance. I never felt encouraged to improve myself. My worth came only in how many hours I could work in a week, not from the bachelor s degree I d just obtained.
I started an editing job in June, and found an internship with a small stipend. Friends and businesses donated gifts for my older daughter s birthday, just five days after her sister was born. A church organization donated $200 for rent. I managed to buy cupcakes for my daughter s birthday and had to ask for help from friends in bringing meals after the birth. Besides a short visit from my cousin, I was on my own.