Pink Slip

I'm done.
My last hope has fallen.
The last family that I mentor on making the leap from the 'hood to the middle class has just seen their primary bread winner receive her pink slip.

This woman has only a high school education and has worked for the same refinery for the past thirty years.
She just bought a new home in a middle class neighborhood two years ago.
She had never NOT lived in the ghetto - in spite of having a $130k a year job in the second cheapest market in which to live in America.

I convinced her to keep her old home and to rent it out for a price that would cover her mortgage payments, insurance, taxes and maintenance.
I convinced her to stop eating out at restaurants twenty meals a week.
I convinced her to consolidate her credit card debts.
I convinced her to sell her time-share. (Well... really, to just stop making payments.)
I convinced her to buy the best quality products she could afford and to take care of them.
I convinced her to only buy the clothes, furnishings and products she really wanted or needed(and not just because she liked how they looked).
I convinced her that it didn't matter how much she made if she never had anything to show for it.
I convinced her that just because she had the money to buy something - that didn't mean that she could afford it.

All this came to an end today.
Her three grown children are so dependant on her that they will be of little help to her in keeping her home.
Two of her grown children have been fired from their jobs in the last month for not producing at work.
Her grown children treat her new home like it is a resort that offers free; maid service, cook, laundry service and free financial grants in aid.
She caused her family to fail because she demanded little of her children - and getting what she demanded (little) in return.

Now she plans on walking away from her nice, but not extravagant, home.
Now she plans on going back to her old ghetto home.
Now her grown children are nowhere to be found.