We have this great family story.
When Big Little Sister was three or four years old, Deus Ex Machina worked for a company that made the equipment used by the CD manufacturing industry to put the shiny metal on the discs. It was a fascinating process, and the machines were pretty cool looking, too.
He was, rightfully, very proud of his work in assisting with the engineering of this machine, and so he brought us into the facility for a tour so that we could see it in action. It was impressive.
A few days later, out of curiosity and to see if Big Little Sister understood what he did for a living, he asked her, "Do you know what Daddy makes at work?"
Without skipping a beat, she blurted, "Money."
I think about that ... a lot ... because money is something that I don't make a lot of, and sometimes I feel the weight of a society that doesn't value people who don't earn a wage. I've heard it in exactly those terms from more than one person, who intimated that my value - or lack thereof - was connected to whatever I could make in dollars. I make very few dollars, and so I am not worth all that much, to our society, according to those people.
The fact is, though, that I make a lot of stuff, like:
- this lunch bag (which are going for $6.50 on Etsy);
- these masks (compare to these @ 3 for $12);
- clothes, using recycled/upcycled clothes and my own patterns (5 pack of men's boxer briefs = $34; women's knee-length A-line skirt = $17.97; skirt pattern $9.65);
- breakfast every morning (gluten-free bagel with organic, cage-free eggs and provolone cheese = $9)
- and dozens of other things I do and make on a daily basis.
Just those things listed is $73.12 worth of goods.
The minimum wage in Portland, Maine is $15/hour. Someone working for minimum wage would have to work almost five hours in order to pay for those items I make.
In the doing of those things, in the "making", I SAVE money. If we subtract the cost of the breakfast sandwich, I saved $54,47, because I didn't pay for the materials to make any of those items. It was all recycled.
It got me thinking. The fact is, my being a full-time housewife saves a lot of money (overall), because I can do things, make things, sew things, iron things, plant things, grow things, clean things, cook things ... that we would, otherwise, have to pay someone else to do.
The average annual income for an hourly worker here in Maine is $39,327. Assuming that's full-time, the average hourly rate in Maine is $18.90. When I was working outside the home at a local community theater, I earned less per hour. My job as a fact-checker pays more per hour, but I don't and won't get as many hours as I worked at the theater. So, there will be less money.
But if I am home more, then, we save more, because I can do all of those things that we might end up paying someone else to do, and there are no job-related expenses (like gasoline for the car I needed to travel back and forth to work, which I don't need for that purpose now, because I don't have to drive to work).
Today, I made Deus Ex Machina a breakfast sandwich ($9), packed his lunch ($7.50), did some housework ($40/hour), and ironed work clothes ($3/pants; $1.50/shirt). The total "saved" today was $61. A person making the average hourly rate here in Maine would have had to work three hours and 22 minutes to pay someone to do what I did today.
Oh wait! I also did some sewing ...
... but that will be another blog post.
I challenge you to calculate how many hours you must work to pay for some basic products and services. Then, consider if your job costs more than you could save, by doing those things yourself and not earning a wage.
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