Just finished my supper of soup, salad, banana and yogurt .. not hungry, but still missing the chance to decompress with an evening glass of Pinot Grigio. No money in the budget for luxuries ..

What a profound learning experience! Finishing my final day by turning to the No Frills flyer to check out the specials!

THURSDAY, FEB. 14TH, DAY 5 - HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

I'd laugh, if it weren't so painful - my tooth broke (today's challenge). The irony is that I posted something yesterday about the issue of dental care for adults on welfare, so I will phone KDSB this morning to find out if that covers my broken tooth ..

Porridge for breakfast - bringing PB & J (yet again) to work for lunch .. eating the same thing day after day is something I never thought of ..

Not laughing now; I just phoned KDSB and it'll cost $150 to fix my broken tooth. I don't have $150.

So I phoned the dentist and was told that if you are on Ontario Works, you're allowed $600 per year for dental work to relieve pain, which is certainly different from what I heard from KDSB first thing this morning. The receptionist made it sound fairly straightforward, so I called KDSB again for clarification.

NOT straightforward: Apparently the process involves letting your case worker know about the problem, going to the dentist, having them fax a quote to your worker to approve (or not) the dental work that you need. There is no hard and fast rule to determine whether or not it may (or may not) be approved; it is done on a case by case basis, and there is no way of determining how long this might take.

After four days, I'm turning into a recluse because I'm too bummed to go out .. kudos to everyone else in the challenge - they don't have the luxury of not going to work and most of them also have families to add to their work load, but I'm just at home on my own, knowing that in actual numbers I'm $27 in the hole and not knowing how to deal with that virtual stress ..

Once again, I'm bumping up against the rule that says, "Do not let friends or family purchase or supply meals" .. I'm not sure if I've crossed the line because friends came over for our Spanish conversation group yesterday and brought home-made soup and some baking with them, but that soup will be my supper tonight and tomorrow night, because I have nothing else left except bread, peanut butter, jam, boiled eggs, a bit of lettuce and some fruit. I had planned on stretching the fruit and salad over the five days, and I'm just going to make it, but my chicken drumsticks were gone after the first three days. When I started out I had $20 left over that I was going to use today and tomorrow to buy something for supper, but after calculating my household and personal expenses, I realize that $20 is gone, and then some ..

Good news, for a change: I just checked into Ontario Works and this applies to me: "You can earn up to $200 a month without having your financial support reduced. For every $1.00 you earn after that, Ontario Works will deduct $0.50 from the amount of money you receive from us." (like they're giving it to us out of their own pockets! .. ) 

SO .. the huge paycheck from Church ($129.95!) that I received on Sunday is mine, all mine! It makes me think about the positive impact of earning even a little bit of extra money, but the policy certainly doesn't give welfare recipients much incentive to work. Besides, there are expenses associated with working that might basically eliminate much of that $200 ($50 per week ) - transportation, clothes, personal items like deodorant, etc. I wonder how other countries do it?

Might be a good case here for a Basic Income experiment .. oh, wait .. 

Oh, boy .. a great time to run out of dental floss - out of curiosity I checked online regarding dental care for welfare recipients. Toronto Public Health clinics offer free dental services to eligible children and youth (0-17 years) and seniors (65 years and older). It looks like the Kenora District Services Board offers dental care, but no details are available on their website  ..  

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH, DAY FOUR

Today's challenge:

"Everyone is supposed to wear a white shirt for the Christmas concert. Your son does not have one and is worried that he won't be allowed to sing without it. What is your solution?"

This is a tricky one. I have never been a parent, but for almost thirty years I was the teacher asking her students to wear white shirt, black pants for their concert or festival performances.

As a parent, I would start by discussing it with my son - how important is it to him to take part? Would he be embarrassed if I tried to find a solution, or talked to the teacher?

Bearing in mind that I have zero dollars left and can't buy him a shirt, if he wanted to participate, I'd ask around to see if any friends or relatives had something that we could borrow for the concert. If that didn't work, even though it would be super embarrassing, I'd talk to the teacher and explain our problem.

If he's OK with not participating, I'd let the teacher know the reason why (again super embarrassing) and leave it up to him/her to decide if my son can participate without a white shirt.

Worst case scenario (and I'm sure this has happened with some of my students over the years): my son stops participating in an activity he loves because he can't meet the dress code expectations.

There's no comfortable answer to this one for anyone, and the point has been made that, if I weren't on welfare, I'd whip over to Walmart and buy him a shirt (on my Mastercard, of course .. ). We really have no idea what it's like to do without, do we?

I have generous friends who came to visit me to practise speaking Spanish this afternoon and brought muffins, dainties and home-made soup. I know it says in the rules that we're not supposed to let friends or family purchase or supply meals, but these "snacks" and the soup were items they would have brought under normal circumstances, and not because I'm doing the Poverty Challenge, so I hope they're not "illegal"! And wine, did I mention that they brought wine? What a treat! I am thankful for thoughtful friends!

I've also given some thought to the utilities aspect of our "allowance". I am probably spending approximately $10 per day (at least) on hydro, water, cable, phone, cellphone and gas, not even including personal items, so out of my $63 for five days, if $50 plus goes to non-food items, and I've spent $40 on food, I'm $27 in the hole. Depressing ..

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH, DAY THREE

Is it just Tuesday? Seems like longer than just two days doing this challenge ..

I always feel nervous opening the daily challenge envelope, but today it was good news!

"You found $5.00 blowing in the wind. What will you do with it?"

It's definitely a welcome find, because I'm hosting the members of my Spanish conversation group this afternoon and was embarrassed to have to tell them that I could supply the tea, but couldn't afford any "snacks" to go with it. Now, my plan is to buy a package of Robin Hood Banana Quick Bread Mix at $2.47, and serve it at our get-together this afternoon. BONUS! Hope it's legit to expect that the other $2.53 will cover my gas to get there.  Amazing how a small thing can lift your morale!

Speaking of morale, I have to say that I was so apprehensive the day before starting the challenge, that I had, what for me, was a mini-meltdown when something fairly insignificant went wrong, and my poor brother was on the receiving end. A small thing, maybe, but also perhaps a symptom of how stressful it is to live with the constant worry of trying to make it from one welfare cheque to the next.

Wow! A tiring day - I drove to my morning meeting without heat, with 3 out of 4 (!) windows halfway down and made it without freezing to death, but the point was certainly made that not being able to afford to fix the heater in your car when it's -27 C can make things really uncomfortable, to say the least.

Supper tonight was an exact repeat of last night, and just as good, but in order to economize I'm going to be eating the same thing three nights in a row. No wiggle room for variety when you're surviving on $63 for five days worth of food and all other expenses. What I'm able to afford for suppers for Wednesday and Thursday will depend on the challenges I face for the next three days.

My challenges for Sunday and Monday didn't have a $ amount attached to them, but want to be prepared for the next few days, just in case.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH, DAY TWO

Putting on my long underwear and extra socks: my challenge for today:

"The heater in your car is not working and you can't afford to get it fixed.  When you drive to work today, leave off the heat and open the windows half way to experience the cold."

Going to be interesting in -27C ..

I can't believe that I, a non-cook, have actually prepared a tasty dinner!

Sticky slow cooker chicken drumsticks (that were 30% off ), rice that was actually cooked properly (!) and a salad of iceberg lettuce and grape tomatoes with Italian dressing. Dessert was strawberries with vanilla yogurt topping .. now enjoying my evening cup of hot water and looking forward to my bedtime snack, a banana.

I am missing my evening glass of Pinot Grigio, but am pretty sure it wouldn't fit if I tried to include it in my $63 spending allowance.

Tomorrow I will have to spend some time calculating utilities - heat, cable, landline, cellphone, water. I'll need to do a little investigating to get an average daily cost for those items.  (My rent is all-inclusive, except for phone.)

Day One: an eye-opener in many ways!

SUNDAY, FEB. 10TH

An interesting morning; oatmeal for breakfast, and then off to church, bringing my Daily Challenge Card with me to see if I could stir up some conversation.

My Challenge: "You are working a minimum wage job and are receiving a working benefit from Ontario Works.  No one at your workplace knows.  Your colleagues are trash talking "welfare bums". Will you respond to the talk?"

I tried to start the conversation off about "welfare bums" by asking if anyone realized that the monthly rate for Ontario Works (i.e. welfare recipients) was $733 per month, and that the basic needs allowance works out to about $63 for a five day period.  I explained that by taking the Poverty Challenge, I was going to attempt to survive on $63 for a five day period, meaning $63 to cover utilities, personal supplies, transportation, entertainment, and of course, food.

It was difficult to get the conversational ball rolling in my direction, but the direction it DID go in was interesting. What I learned was that the Province of Ontario legislates $9.54 (!) per day for food for long-term care residents, and $18.00 (!) per day for food for inmates in provincial jails. The conclusion: it's better to be in jail than in long-term care!

Shopping yesterday was scary. I'm embarrassed to admit that it's been a long time since I read through a grocery store flyer from cover to cover. It helped a lot to prepare for shopping, so when I went through the checkout line with my $30.00, the total came to $29.00! Whew! I have a menu list made up for the five days, so I'm hoping that's going to work out according to plan!  The conclusion coming out of this exercise is that when it comes to shopping and meal preparation, I've been far too lazy for far too long!