Doing More With Less
Or, how I found out that we’re poorer (comparatively) than we think we are.
My son has been in speech therapy since he was three years old. At 3, his pediatrician told us that she felt he should be evaluated because he wasn’t making sentences with the level of complexity they would expect at his age. We had him evaluated by the school system, and he started going to a special education preschool here that is part of the public school system (which, at 4, he still goes to today). Being part of the public school system, it is a free program.
This past week, our pediatrician, at my daughter’s 2 year old checkup, also wanted us to have our daughter evaulated. But at 2, the process here is different. In my state, we have a private agency that is subsidized by the state based on the income level of the recipient families. I wasn’t excited about paying for services, when my son had received them free since he was older, but I was okay with doing so because my daughter needs help developing her use of speech. So I called the agency, and they came to do the evaluation.
And we talked about cost. Their fees are a sliding scale based on income. I basically at the outset said “We probably don’t qualify for anything, we make decent money.” The fees go from free to $120 per session (with many stops inbetween) and I was already crying inside when I heard that, and hoping maybe we did in fact qualify for some sort of discount.
And then they gave me the income breakdown, and with about $3000 to spare in annual gross income, all said and done, we qualify for free services based on our income. Free. If our income was a little higher, we’d have to pay $3 a session. They took a copy of our 1040 from last year, and we were signed up for the free services.
And here I was all this time thinking that we make plenty of money, I was just not using it wisely for a long time. And now I feel like we can achieve anything financially we want if we work hard enough for it, even with an income I guess is lower than I thought when compared to others.
It is all about perception, I guess.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
You can also: Stumble It! Bookmark Submit to Reddit Submit to Tip'd
November 5th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I have for a long time been curious about what your household income is as a way of gauging whether I could be putting my income to better uses or if I am doing as well as could be hoped based on a smaller income. Of course I understand that is a private matter…
November 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
My 13 month old is also going fo speech therapy through the provate agency in our state. OUr incomes must be a little different because we have to pay $6 per session. Hmmm…. I don;t FEEL that rich
still, when it comes to our kids, almost any amount is worth it.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Brandon - My spouse isn’t comfortable with the idea of me discussing his compensation, in case at some point someone from his employer finds this blog and figures out it is about us. lol. But the cutoff for having the services for free here is 250% of the Federal Poverty Level. So from that you could figure out our approximate gross income (which is both of us not just him of course).
Sara - $6 is good though, I wouldn’t have been upset by $6 (although I do enjoy free). I almost had a heart attack at the idea of $120/session though
November 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Unless the therapist is doing this as an act of charity, it isn’t “free.” It is paid for through taxes. You and your fellow taxpayers have paid for this. My high school chemistry teacher used to tell us, “The first rule of chemistry is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. It gets paid for somewhere. You have to balance the equation.”
November 5th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
@Annie - free to me, no additional out of pocket costs beyond what I already pay in taxes.
As a chemistry tutor I’d argue the chemistry analogy though. lol.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Glad you all qualified. Earlier the better!
November 5th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I’m glad your children are getting help. I’m happy to think that my taxes are being used to support programs like this.
PS - I love your blog.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
LOL. I understood that you meant “free to me,” I just think that it is important to step back and look at the big picture of the services that we receive through government agencies–my family has lived on a salary that was under 175% of poverty and would be qualified for numerous programs for most of my 23 years of marriage, but I want to acknowledge that taxpayers provide those. My third child benefited from in home pre school speech therapy paid for by taxpayers. ;o)
LOL again because I am the daughter of a PhD Chemist father, a B.S. Chemistry Mother, and have a PhD Chemist eldest brother–none of them had a problem with that analogy–but my degree is elementary ed. and math–so I’ll have to leave it to all of you Chemistry experts to hash that one out. ;o)
November 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
My BS is in Biochem but my PhD is Genetics - so I’ll let the true chemists have fun with the lunch analogy. I’m just a hack
The point of the post wasn’t really about the “free”ness of the services. That’s a whole other discussion that could be an entire series of its own posts to hash out. The point was more that in some cases, we’re as rich as we think we are. Perspective is an odd thing. I’d have never imagined my family would qualify for any sort of aid at all.
The fact that in my state services aren’t automatically tax-subsidized (as public school is) whereas in several other states, it is from birth or even from age 2 vs age 3 as it is here, is a whole other post as well.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
so of course I had to find out what the FPL was for me… and under their guidelines, I too would qualify at 250 % of FPL…actually I’m under 200 %
But - as I’m debt free, it feels like I am rich!
Like you said - a matter of perception…. and if you feel like you make plenty, you do! Perception again!
If you have ‘enough’, then it is enough.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I discovered the same thing in March. One of my children is in therapy and they have a sliding scale deal too. We pay $25 a month for whatever we need. The lady did a double take when she looked at it and checked again. I feel like we make very good money, especially for a teacher’s income, but with 6 people, I guess it isn’t that much. I am very grateful for the sliding scale.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Yah, I just found out that on my public school salary my family almost qualifies for reduced fee lunch!
I’m a speech pathologist and I blog about lots of speech ideas if you are ever looking for more ways to help your little ones at home.