Many of us faced pay cuts this year amid the highest inflation numbers in nearly 40 years. You expect to see your income increase with a rise in cost of living, however that doesn’t regularly happen. Until the pay cuts, I was still waiting two years for another raise. The corporation is bootstrapped right now and has no additional funds for wages or anything else. In fact, I’m blessed that I haven’t lost our task altogether as several others have in our same department as well. I have to deal with the swings and keep our head up so I don’t lose our mind completely. It’s not easy trying to make ends meet when our paycheck isn’t large enough to cover all of our expenses. Whether I can sustain all of the credit card debt that I’m forced to take on to survive is yet to be seen. But needless to say, I’m acutely aware of how dire our situation is and I’m far from complacent. I don’t want to find myself in a financial quandary that forces me to postpone renewing our medical marijuana card. I was short this month on the $82 required to renew our medical marijuana card with the state government. As a result of not having the funds, I have to wait a month until I’m paid again and go without our medical cannabis card in the process. Thankfully I have enough marijuana to last me until then, however I’d legitimately be hurting right now if I was low on money and weed at the same time. I’d have to go without cannabis in the time being, and that’s taxing for me with our mental health complications.