Well it's time to tighten our belts---Christmas was already going to be based on necessity, now I'm wondering and worrying more about what will happen next year.
Two of my kids are in college and basically are the working poor just squeaking by with scholarships, federal loans which are next to nothing but help, and part-time jobs (2 in one child's case) that take away from studying. One will be a senior and will need to enter grad school to continue education. With current changes, that will be impossible since grad students can't hold separate jobs outside of their graduate duties--how would they now be able to pay down new taxes?
I have another which may be able to be in a special high school dance program, but that will cost us minimally $3,000 out of pocket (more like $5-7,000 though when all expenses are added up). Since will attend regular HS and dance program is more like gym and electives it's not like we could even use school vouchers.
Other child might be accepted into the training dance company and that will round to nearly $1,500 when all expenses are added together and not including any extra dance classes or costumes.
All of that doesn't include the summer programs the girls need to take, one of which is required. These programs can run $1,000s per week. Always looking for scholarships, but the mandatory one doesn't have one and although considerably less than the other programs it is close to $2,000 for both girls to go calculating all expenses.
We have no idea what will happen to Tricare health care, but other companies will be increasing their rates. I would hate to change to the other Tricare retired option--our care would be lessened to one emergency visit without pre-approval (which means no one would get care unless life or limb is threatened) and then we'd have to wait until all active duty appointments are taken care of before we can try to get one. My hypothyroid treatment would stop because the military doctors don't test for the specific type I have, thus the reason I suffered from it for years even though I was "tested" several times. My kind requires a different test that the military does not use. My allergy treatment would also stop--when I tried several times with military doctors in the past they said I am allergic to too many things and there is no way to treat for that. They only gave me Allegra and Flonase. I currently have 2 shots every month of serums mixed specifically for my allergies, have preventative asthma medication and monthly shots, a nebulizer, and am taken seriously when my chronic sinusitis acts up. I have also been given B12 shots and antivirals which no military doctor has ever seen fit to give me. Since seeing my current doctor I have been in the best overall health since being affiliated with military doctors (only exception is last fall, but I brought on the circumstances which lead to illness). maid of honor wears in fuchsia color
I just don't know what the future will bring, but it doesn't look good...possibly 2 dropouts, no dance programs and thus no career training, and a parent whose health will make life difficult in the sense to trying to avoid stress and other items that lessen quality of heath to point of needing to visit a doctor who will not do anything until health is so severely impaired that any normal activity is impossible.
Even cutting back severely and getting lucky to no longer be a stay at home parent--I think the future will still be very bleak for all 6 of us. The later years are supposed to be something to look forward to, but now my older kids are even afraid of the future. They worked so hard to fulfill their dreams and now their opportunity to do so is being pulled out from under them.
Why work hard, why learn things, why be an involved citizen if in the end it is meaningless because the 1% of population that holds the wealth runs the country and all they want are dumb sheep to do manual labor for next to nothing and are trapped in that caste with no way for them or their offspring to rise up out of it. Soon all sense of society will disappear and the 1% will begin to suffer and will as a result pull more from their workers to the point of causing shortages in necessities, but only for the working class. Sound familiar---Soviet Russia. That is their ultimate goal---to rule over the average citizen in every aspect of their daily life. That is the future our children will soon come to see as normal. Not at all what the founding fathers of our nation set out to create. Is it the end---the death of the Grand Experiment?