The Breadlosers

Previously on After Eden: Happiness

Online bank transactions today include postpaid subscription payment to Globe, and a slew of credit cards payments for Mastercards, a JCB and a Visa. The total amount paid was 20K pesos, which is more than half of my take-home income for the month. A few days ago, I paid the entire household's water bill amounting to over a thousand pesos. In a day or two, the Internet and cable bills need to be paid, the house helpers Philhealth membership dues need to be updated, the lady who receives the parking rental fee will be following up for her payment too, and the list goes on. 

Not mentioned in the list of monthly expenditures are the car tune-up cost, the Revo's registration renewal is already long overdue as well, and since the matriarch no longer goes out to do her shopping activities, part of her retirement pay goes to grocery spending. This is separate from the weekly market visits to procure meat, fish, and vegetables. There are 11 mouths to feed three times a day, 7 days a week.

When I started blogging in 2004, I would have never imagined having to carry such responsibilities. Never have I foreseen how our lives would turn out, with my mother relying on me to keep her house running and my sibling, trying to make ends meet while keeping her 4 children's needs attended. It turned out all those woes and lamentations of having to make my 9 thousand pay last a month would pale in comparison, now that the amount of cash that passes through my hands is simply beyond everyone's imagination.

Including mine.

As our cost of living bloats every year, it is simply clear that running our house would mean acquiring more sources of cash. My sister's elder children would turn into teens in a year or two, the younger ones would go to school, and my mother's lifetime savings would finally dry up. And much as I would like to be emancipated from such burden, of having to balance our spending with our means to generate a larger personal income, the likelihood of striking on my own has become a pipe dream that I conjure every time I get fed up with our situation.

"Just hope that you will be earning a six-digit salary by then. Also, try to be extra grateful. Let's state the fact that you're no longer in the red, for now."

At 39, I don't think the previous breadwinners have to make such thoughtful calculations, and with no one to pull us should our backs are pushed against the wall, we are, by all intents and purposes,

Breadlosers.