Recipient: Marilyn Benn Occupation: Dialysis Technician Responded On: February 1, 2005 Bill Received At: Walgreens 3920 West 79th Street Chicago Originally Dropped At: Neighborhood Grocery Lotus Street and Harrison Avenue Chicago On: January 25, 2005

 

Marilyn Benn's Comments

Does your generation view money differently than your parents' generation? If so, how?
I wasn't taught about money. No allowance. No anything like that. If you wanted to go out, you got, at that time, I think, ten dollars was really a big deal. I had to learn about money the hard way. You got it, you earned it, you lost it, you remembered next time to do better with the money you had.

Do you feel your generation is doing a litle more to teach the younger generation about money?
Yes, I do. My girlfriends and I, we're getting older now. It's like you come across so much money in your day-to-day. Because we travel, we do a lot of things. And the kids have to earn the money for their spending money. So between them appreciating the fact that they're parents are taking them on a trip, they have to earn their own spending money. Because there's a give and take here.

Same thing with my kids and savings. They have savings accounts. They've been to two banks. And they know how to fill out a deposit slip and know how to collect their money. They know when they have over 35, 40 , maybe even $100, they start to get a little bit more excited so … And then once they get the money out they see that it has really gone down, they fight to get it back up to 100 or $150.  

How do your kids earn that money? This is for going on trips? Or what is that money for?  
They will go down to my mom's house. They will clean out her garage, cut her grass … They'll do extra things … Oh mom, let me wash your car or you know I give them $20 to wash my car … For spring break they had painted my uncle's garage. He gave them $50 and then they saved it because they know we're going to Disney in July … so they were like, “We need our own money.”

Exactly. Because I'm going to feed you. That's given. The law, you know, says I have to feed you. But all that extra stuff? No. I don't do the extra stuff. Christmas is earned. Yeah. This is my son. He turned 16. This was his last big Christmas. Technically no. You will earn it from here on out because if you want the big ticket items and stuff like that, you have to earn that.

Up to sixteen you get the christmas presents and then, go to work?
You have to earn those things. Yeah. Because the older you are, the more you want, the more expensive the things become. So these play station games, these, what do you call it, X-box games, these are 60, 70 dollars a pop. I don't have … I get up too early in the morning to throw my money away because of these other things.

In the United States, if people start out in a very low-paying job can they still become quite wealthy if they work hard enough? Yeah, because I feel that education really is the key. You start out at the bottom of anything. I don't know a lot of people that does not start at the bottom. You have to start at the bottom to appreciate what the bottom is to know that—I don't really like it here.

Circumstance is life dictate and lead people in a different ways so that they don't get out. But a lot of them … I know a lot of people that have gotten out.

Me, myself, I've gotten out. I started out as a phlebotomist, a CNA … I took the CNA class because I needed patient care experience. But I knew I didn't want to be a CNA, so I went to school for phlebotomy. I was drawing blood. I realized that was not stable enough for me. So now I am in dialysis. And I think I have reached my plateau in dialysis. So I'm moving on. I'm starting school April 16 for entero-diagnostic technician, so I can go someplace else and do sleep studies or stuff like that because I'm getting to the age of retirement. I did not realize that I had not planned enough for my retirement. I thought that my husband was going to take care of that. No. That's not true. Oh, hell no.

This job that I have now, they're not preparing me for retirement. They're really not. I need to invest into my own plan. So yeah, I had to go outside to try to start a retirement plan. I got a Roth-IRA through a bank and you save and you nip and you tuck. You nip and you tuck. I turned 39 Easter Sunday. And I have to work another 25 years to even hit a plateau to say that I think that I may be comfortable. I have to invest wisely. I have to take myself at 39 much more seriously than I did at 29. At 19. My daughter asked me yesterday in the car … She said, “How do you feel being 39?” I said, “ I feel like I wasted a lot of time.”

Are people fairly compensated for the kind of work they do?
No, they are not. Cashiers. Teachers. Waiters. Cooks. Just about everybody in the service industry are very much underpaid. Because you are dealing with personalities. They want you to give them your best. But they're showing you, THEIR LEAST.

If you can't give it in salary, you need to give it in incentives. And that will keep people going and thriving. Because a cashier cannot afford to go back to school, if she wanted to. A cashier couldn't afford to go if she or he didn't have a help mate, to help them. So technically, no.