Latoya Dyer

This morning, I had a meltdown. I was just like—I don't know. There are days where you don't even know if you're going or coming, and I feel like, what impact am I even making as a person? For those days when I feel like that, I call my mom, and I call my cousin, and they kind of reassure me like, “Girl, you're okay. You’re just a little overwhelmed. Maybe take a break” to regroup myself, to get myself to be more grounded. But really, truly, you don't really have any support. I just push through my day.

I get up at six, get my kids up, drop my 13-year-old off to school, come back, and get my middle daughter up so she can get ready for middle school. I exercise, come back, drop her off, and go to work. Around mid-afternoon, I pick the little one up, come back, cook dinner, help with homework, and then try to spend some quality time with my spouse, go to sleep, and then do it all over again. The stress level is high because you yourself don't really get a space or time to relax or even take a break for yourself mentally or physically.

[With my spouse,] we battle them together as a team. I know some people will be like, “That person needs to get a better job. They need to make more money.” Even so, with those types of things, it is still hard. My partner's been through three different jobs for better advancement, and it's still hard. As you understand, it's two people with their own personal baggage, history, and their own finances that now has combined into one. And to include another four people is a lot. So it is challenging, but we're just trying to get it to be stable.

I don't have any family close by. I moved from the Caribbean here. The majority of my family is in St. Thomas, and then my dad's side of the family they're more in New York. My closest relative that I have is my sister, but she lives in a county that's three hours away. My aunt lives eight hours away in Atlanta. I really don't have anybody that's close by that I can run to and just be like, “I need a break.”

When we got the benefits [during the pandemic], my partner was not working, so it was just solely me. So it really helped my family. I used most of the stimulus payments to help with my credit and help pay off some of my bills that I had. I was having issues with my car. We even bought new furniture for the girls’ room. I was thanking God every time.

I feel like nowadays, we're just working to pay bills. It's almost like we're robotic. We know we're going to get paid. We know all of our money's going to go towards a set of bills, and it's like you don't get to enjoy none of the fruit of your labor. So, when I got those funds, I was able to take a trip with the kids. We went to visit my dad in New York. I was in a more restful state of mind, not having to worry. “Okay, how am I going to find the money to pay this bill? Can I pinch from paying the light bill all the way and then put it towards the water bill? Then, maybe when I get paid next week, I can put the rest on.” It's like I'm doing algebra just to try to pay my bills.

Really, when I say that, it made me feel more human; it is just being comfortable to know that you're able to pay your bills without having that anxiety hanging over your head.

I was very stressed [before the pandemic-era aid] because of my mortgage payment. I have taxes after I bought the house, and my mortgage went up. I had to try to find a way to pay it off so I could go back to my original monthly payment. I was stressing. I couldn't afford to pay my mortgage because, at the time, it was really, really high. I was like, “I don't understand how I jumped from this to that.” And then you have to pay the taxes on it in order for it to come back down. Then all the other common stuff that goes on—buying groceries, the [things the] kids want to participate in. They have Kona Ice at school, or they have a fundraiser, and they want to be a part of that, or they want to stay after school to be a part of extracurricular activities. It was really, really hard. I mean, it's hard now. I'm not even going to lie. We don't even get any assistance anymore. So the stress level is there and it's just like you want it to go away, but it can't unless you are able to financially take care of the things that are hindering you.

Routines Have Been Grounding Amid The Chaos of Daily Life

I walk after I do my exercise in the morning to calm down. I garden in the back to kind of have my own little peace and quiet sometimes. I have vegetables and fruits. I am not really a flower person, but I do love to plant. So I have all my pineapples and mango trees and passion fruit and eggplant and squash. We grew cucumbers this year and watermelon. I am thinking about growing pumpkins just in time for October. I tell my partner if anything happens, I can eat from my own yard.

My kids love cucumbers. We actually made pickles with the ones that we grew this year. They were happy about it. They came out pretty okay. I told them that maybe next year when I grow them again, I’ll grow a different kind to see if we can get a different texture out of the cucumber. They were still firm and everything. They were good. But my kids love vegetables and food. I don't have a problem with them with that, but I think it's more along the lines of they're so accustomed to mommy cooking. “Mom, did you make the spaghetti? Mom? Where's the chicken and the rice?” They're always looking for food.

I hate to go grocery shopping. And I went yesterday with the intention to pick up three things, and I came out with nine, and I was mad because the price of how much the nine items cost. Florida's expensive. To shop for my family alone would cost me, I would say, a week, probably like $300 to $400. I have a big family, and I actually only spend $200 because that's all I can afford. There are times where I have to tell the kids, “No, we can't get that cereal.”

The summer with the EBT, I was able to have food for the kids and not have to worry about them in my ears, “Mom, I'm hungry.”

Now, I buy a lot of the Walmart brand just to cut corners. It’s a lot cheaper than buying the name-brand items that I normally would get. I buy a generic cereal for the kids. I don't get the Reese's or the General Mills. I try to see whatever cheese they might have on sale, or I go to Publix and see if they have the buy one, get one. I try to find places where I can get one if I buy one, I can get another one for free. And then, I cook everything so my kids don't eat too much frozen food. The frozen foods that come in bulk are almost like $13 to $14 for a box that's probably just going to feed them for one day, which is not good enough for me. I need to cook dinner one day, and that could last.

My items really have changed since we lost the food stamps [following the end of pandemic aid] and I buy less because trying to get more, you end up spending more. You got to be really mindful and watch the prices and calculate what is going to come up to by the time you get to the register. I try to do a lot of fruits and veggies. I had to scale back. Those are getting expensive too by the pound. It is a lot of budgeting in it. Sometimes, you don't get the things you want. You got to get the things that you really need. I can get peanut butter, and I know they'll have peanut butter and jelly. They can make sandwiches, or like can I afford to get the deli meat this week? It is hard. You just have to strategize and figure out what's going to work.

Medicaid Was Crucial to the Family During COVID-19

We got Medicaid for the kids during the pandemic, too. They weren't behind on anything, but being like COVID and everything, the date to see a doctor was far out. It was hard for me to find a doctor because not everybody was taking Medicaid. You have to hunt down the doctor to find out, and then you have to change the provider to them. But the date is so far-fetched. I could have called her for an appointment in January, but I don't get one until August.

When I went to take my daughter to go get glasses and—they're not on it anymore, but when they were, [we heard] “Oh, she's too young, and we don't accept Medicaid.” Then you go, and you call somebody that's on the list, that they tell you to go on the website only to find they’re no longer taking Medicaid. I don't understand if it's government funding, but it's bizarre to me. So you're just making it even harder for the parent to go around and try to find a provider that's going to take the insurance? You know what I mean? That was my hardest challenge because I was trying to do it before school starts so she can get a pair of glasses because she couldn't see far away.

We live in Deltona and it's not as vast as Orlando. I have to drive to Sanford. Or, I have to drive to Orlando to get somebody to see them that's going to take the Medicare.

Now, I pay for [private] insurance [through my employer] to cover my family so that when I go to the doctor, I still have to pay? So then, what's the purpose of me paying it monthly? You would think with me paying it monthly, it means that I don't have to pay anything when I go to the doctor, and everything should be covered. But no, I'm paying monthly to then have to still pay when I go to the doctor's office, then I pay for my prescriptions and then I pay if I have to go see a specialist. I feel like it is not really beneficial because I'm already losing, I'm paying for it monthly and then still have to pay again when I go to the doctor—and sometimes it's more than what I'm paying monthly for the insurance. So, I feel like Medicaid should be for everybody, and that can stop all of the gouging.

It's just hurting people like us who are willing to work. I mean, I understand other people's circumstances who might not be able to work, but the folks that are working to try to live their day-to-day, it's harder for us in the middle. There's no green pastures for us that are in the middle. You know what I mean? We feel the brunt of it on both sides.

You have the wealthy and then you have the poor and you just have us in the middle. We're the working class and we're trying our best to be sustainable, pay our taxes, be a proper citizen, do all the things that we're supposed to. Sometimes you just feel like you're being punished just for doing those simple things. You have inflation and then there's no ease to the inflation. The governor can help but he won’t.

The government shouldn't just resort to just giving families the stimulus. You can put that money toward your mortgage and stuff, but they should think about other ways that they can help people. I felt like they gave it, and then they just took it away so quickly without waiting for people to get back to normalization because I felt like we were so—I don't want to say dependent, but we were so sure that we were getting those funds and we were putting them in places that were beneficial to us. And when it stopped, it kind of hindered us. It wasn't a gradual way for us to reach financial stability.

I actually would like for the people who we do elect to be in these high places to care about their citizens, period. It don't matter what class you're in—rich, poor, middle, wherever you fall. I just want them to really advocate for the issues that we, the citizens, come to them for. I feel like Medicare should be for everybody. I get so upset about this medical thing. I still feel like they should give the child tax credit. It's going to help a lot of families.

My dream for the kids is I would really hope that they can grow up in a world where there's peace, love, and unity, and everybody can get along, with no discrimination against gender, religion, or all the big biases that we got. And for it to be where everybody's sustainable, and life isn't as hard [for them] as it is for me. I just want the best for them. I want them to indulge in whatever path or life journey they want to go on and pursue whatever dream they want and be successful at it.

For me, I think my dream is that eventually I really want to own another home. One that has all the components that I really would love with vast amounts of acres so I can really plant in abundance and live off of my land and eat off my land. And I just want to be happy. I just want to be happy and not so stressed.