Please consider this---we had some big-time steel mills here in Cleveburg. LTV went belly-up; many of the people who had been saving used that to stay afloat; many others lost a great deal because their retirement system (hooked up to LTV) went belly-up, as well. My own father-in-law, who had retired, lost a large % of his retirement due to this. How do you plan for this? You have to understand, that some people, through no fault of their own, live "on the edge" economically.

Chrysler has a stamping plant here in town (Twinsburg) and it has been rumored that it will close. I would imagine that those who have been there a while could and should have saved something. What of those who just began? What of those who are new to the work force and haven't had the opportunity to save for an emergency fund?

In the third year of teaching, I lost everything I had except for the clothes on my back (LITERALLY) to an apartment fire. I could have sued the man whose negligence contributed to it, but what would I have received? As the saying goes, "You can't get blood from a turnip." I was without clothes, a place to live, food, even a bed or a sleeping bag. I received some aid from the faculty---but, as the saying goes, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." And, I did have renter's insuarance, but it didn't cover everything. I thought I had a decent policy, but, well, live and learn,...

I was in my third year as an educator, and I hadn't made enough to save---let alone the fact that I didn't even have a pot to pee in. It does happen. I know, I have been there.

TSC

 

I've been generally pretty pissed at the International Red Cross/Crescent, but I think the American Red Cross is still a quality organization.

Grim

 

I will never donate to the ARC again because:

After 9/11, Howard Stern took it upon himself to raise money for the families of those murdered by the POS islamic terrorists. The ARC did the same. HS basically told the ARC that he would match their donation to the families of 9/11 $ for $. When it was time to hand out the $$$, HS revealed he had raised some huge amount of money. If I remember correctly, it was like 14mil When he challenged the ARC to put up the same, the ARC refused to say how much was collected & also refused to reveal how much they donated. To this day, the ARC has never admitted how the money was handled. Millions of people donated their hard earned cash to go SPECIFICALLY & ONLY to the families of 9/11. Again, the ARC has never explained what amount was raised & where it went. The story was largely ignored simply because HS was involved & as a general rule, the media hates him. To date, he has raised/donated more money to the familes of 9/11 than any other person/organization. For the record, I don't listen to HS or watch his TV show. I find him to be slightly annoying & as funny as a hang nail.

I understand the ARC has lots of overhead costs. They have offices worldwide & maintain a large infastructure. I fully understand they need money to keep the organization running. I simply want them to say where the money went. Everyone knows they used it to modernize their operation so in reality, they have no reason to hide this info. The fact they do is what I have a large problem with.

Sorry for the thread-jacking.

KC-10 FE out...

 

While I understand your frustration with the Red Cross's lack of info after 9-11, the American Red Cross has very few, if any, offices outside the USA. They don't have a large infrastructure outside USA. Their overhead costs are roughly 9%, which isn't bad.

Grim

 

Insurance is like a hospital gown.
You only think your covered.

Your whole life policy should be called Whole Death, it's sure not going to do the policy holder any good if they have to use it.

I choose a Term Death policy, I decided that I can handle my own savings and get better returns as well as easier liquidation in the event that it is needed, with less penalties if I have to use it.

Anyway enough jokes and side tracks, back to the topic.

Imagine this, being 20 years old, a wife and 1 kid plus a mortgage and half a million dollars in medical and legal bills.....
Ireluctantly post this do to pride and I dont want it to appear that I am whining.... but here is my story, from when it went from horrible wrong to the unthinkable.
I was like referee54, I was 24 years old, had 2 kids, (accidents happen) WOULDN'T TRADE EITHER OF THEM FOR THE WORLD!!! They just were not in the plans!
Anyway I was upside down on all my bills except mortgage, my net worth was negative numbers deep in the red. We were living not by pay check to pay check, but by waiting on next months paychecks to get here to pay bills. We got set back by the birth of our first child, some serious complications almost lost momma and my first daughter at the same time, both almost died. 1 weeks stay in the ICU and ran up over $500K in medical bills. We had 2 medical insurance policies through work, we both worked at the same place. A large international garment manufacturer. We naively trusted HR's judgment in choosing the insurance company. Well lets just say, to make a long story short, that I ended up with over $400,000 in medical bills landing in my lap. That one bill accounted for 90% of my negative networth. I could have and should have filed medical bankruptcy right off the bat, but I am a proud man and once again Pride wouldn't let me, I tried to pay it.

We did file lawsuits on the insurance company, adding legal bills to the mix. That insurance company do to several other instances got their insurance licensed revoked by the state, they were no longer allowed to do business here. Then later they went bankrupt themselves. Now here I sat with over half a million dollars of medical and legal bills and no where to go with them. 4 years later still in the midst of all of this, the company down sizes, little did we know that they were preparing to close their doors and move to Mexico. I was one of the first to get cut. My severance package lasted about 2 months, trying to pay all of these bills, put food on the table and prevent any repossessions, we didn't have anything saved do to all of the prior crap.

That is when we decided we had to file for medical bankruptcy, there was no way I could find a job that could even pay 1/2 my bills that I was paying. I was willing to flip burgers, didn't and wouldn't have a problem with that. But when you can buy 3 of the managers cars for the price of yours, (not that mine was great) they tend to not take you seriously. Even though I couldn't sell the car, I wanted to, I didn't want and couldn't;t afford that payment any longer but I couldn't because I was upside down on it.

I survived another 9 months on unemployment with out any other support, while I was looking for work as I said I was doing any odd job I could to make money. There was just no work to be found. Not because of lack of trying. We were rolling pennies to pay bills and buy food. Digging in the couch cushions most weeks hoping to find some.

To be continued.......

 

Continued......

Now I sit 11 years after the start of the story and still have not received any reimbursement for the medical bills I did pay on or the legal bills that I acquired trying to get justice. Mean while I have prevailed, I now have bills arranged so they are easily manageable with most any income. I have a positive networth that exceeds the previous negative..... I can liquidate items to dump bills if need be and over all don't have near as many bills either. I also have a nice padding of savings, worse case scenario I can sell everything and buy a smaller house, and live debt free only paying the non debt bills and food for the rest of my life off my current savings and profits. Not at the quality of life we are now accustomed too, but we could survive.

However if my wife hadn't of ignored my wishes, if she wouldn't have went and got us the aid for 2-3 months then this story would have been so happy. We'd be in the streets begging for money and food.

So the lady someone mentioned that they seen getting into a Mercedes after using food stamps and was upset about that...... You don't know her story. Just because they have nice things, does not mean they are "set". Just means they have more bills and many times they are on the verge of losing everything, much worse off than any of us.. There is a better than average chance that she was upside down and couldn't sell the car after her or husband lost their job. It was their last hope.
Not saying that there are not those that abuse the system, but my guess would be that most people driving a Mercedes, they typically have allot of pride and probably took allot to make them humble enough to ask for the help. Then even more to use it.

Sorry for the long story, I felt I needed to tell it.