PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
THE REAL COST OF LIVING
We recently returned from the vet’s with the wife’s favorite cat – $200 dollars, and no guarantee the medicine would cure it. Then she had to go into hospital for knee-replacement surgery. You could say that she doesn’t need surgery, but, to her, gardening is as important as eating.
The bill for the last oil change said that the year-old car’s brakes need work. The cost of gasoline and electricity are mounting. The yearly ‘cost-of-living’ increase on my pension was 97cents/month. I feel the financial walls closing in.
Will we survive this retirement tunnel, or finish, begging on the street?
***
Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.
Archon's Den 
A real concern for a lot of people now and in the future, depressingly so. Nice take on the prompt.
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It’s not quite autobiographical, but it’s very real for many 😦
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It hopefully won’t come to that. You could always try busking!
Please click to read my FriFic
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While busking isn’t banned, locally, I’m pretty sure my version would be. The only things that I can play are the idiot, and the radio. 😛
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The world with its ever expensive lifestyle just moves on without sparing a glance to those fall on the wayside. The uncertainty felt by the protagonist has been very well written. Cheers, varad
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Canada is a bit better with social support than many countries, but it’s still very demeaning to lose all that you’ve worked for. 😳
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Oh, hated to like that. So very well written about today’s world. Have felt that crunch and fear all too frequently lately. We’ll have to die before we can retire.
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A fellow blogger recently wrote of a co-worker who finally retired at 78, not from a job she loved . I thought that I was lucky to get out at 65, but politicians are making it risky. 😳
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Those financial walls can close in on all of us… well done! Liked the take! ❤
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I worried that it was a bit personal, but I’m reminded that it’s very universal. 😦
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Great description of a painful reality.
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Too true. Thanx for stopping by. 🙂
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Nicely done, sir. A scenario too true for so many…
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It can get to be very scary – especially when Kathleen Wynn is waving Green Energy contracts around. 😯
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The reality of it all came as a crushing blow.
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Reality does not appreciate even our greatest efforts. 😦
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Children with basements are usually a comfortable solution. Good story! Nan
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Mine would probably have me running a day care, or taking in laundry – oh well, it would be a living. 😉
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At times the world feels cruel, for the richness of some seems to crush others.
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I read of the problems of the super-stars – while I eat my cat food.
Fair is where you take your pig to be judged. 😯
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An unexpected dose of Life With Archon… I totally understand. It never stops, does it?
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Unlike either the son, or grandson, most of my employers paid me somewhat above minimum wage. It’s disturbing to know that, in retirement, politics and commerce can make the step between owning a home and living under a bridge a lot shorter. 😳
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Well written. Worry is etched in the words.
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Thanx. These are worrying times. 😦 😯
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Poor guy … never invested his money early so he could retire on it. 😦
Nice work, Archon! 🙂
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You have to have money to invest it. For many, feeding and clothing children doesn’t leave a lot to live on, especially when politicians waste and lose it. Today’s McJobs don’t pay children enough to be able to support parents. 😦
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True. But, there’s a reason I say what I said — I come from a family who didn’t have a cent to their names (Depression Era). My dad owed $2000 of debt in 1955. Started out with nothing. He got out of it (no govt. help), sent me to college and invested what little (yes, little) he had and he is now a wealthy man. It IS do-able. People really need education as to how to handle their finances and be encouraged that there really IS a bright spot. Heck, I could show you many wonderful resources and tools to help people get out of debt and be on their way to success. There’s HOPE! 🙂
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Very poignantly etched the harsh reality of everyday life.
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Those at the bottom are carelessly trod on by those at the top. 😦
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Well done, Archon. Too many people are living precarious lives as stagnant wages haven’t kept up to the cost of living. You described his anxiety perfectly. 😮
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With a post from a very personal viewpoint, I seem to have touched on a very universal problem.
Thanx for the visit. 🙂
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A point well made. Times are grim at the moment and I can’t see them getting better very soon
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Through hundreds of years of history, essentially, nothing changed. In our modern world, great technological advances bring great social/financial changes, not all of them for the good. 😯
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Or will I have to keep working until I die? That’s the other question.
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We all have our hopes and plans, but only some of them work out the way we want. I wish you the best. If you have enough time left, perhaps contact http://wmqcolby.wordpress.com/ above. 🙂
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This is a very real concern for so many. Cost of living just keeps increasing. Well done.
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If only things like pension increases kept pace with Cost of Living. Even when they do, politicians waste money even faster. 😦 😯
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