{"id":37820,"date":"2025-11-05T17:21:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-went-from-making-200000-a-year-to-using-snap-heres-what-i-wish-people-knew-about-government-assistance\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T17:21:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:21:28","slug":"i-went-from-making-200000-a-year-to-using-snap-heres-what-i-wish-people-knew-about-government-assistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-went-from-making-200000-a-year-to-using-snap-heres-what-i-wish-people-knew-about-government-assistance\/","title":{"rendered":"I went from making $200,000 a year to using SNAP. Here&#8217;s what I wish people knew about government assistance."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/690b7d10c007ca8c27384e1f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Hands hols a SNAP card\"\/><figcaption>The author, not pictured, was on SNAP benefits while figuring out her new career. <\/p>\n<p>Mois\u00e9s \u00c1VILA \/ AFP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Carli Michelle Wright worked at a high-power law firm and made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.<\/li>\n<li>She quit for the sake of her mental and physical health.<\/li>\n<li>While working part-time between careers, she turned to SNAP for assistance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with meditation teacher <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.meditationcircle.co\/meet-carli\/\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Carli Michelle Wright<\/em><\/a><em>. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>During my second year of law school in Chicago in 2018, I discovered meditation, breathwork, and yoga as a way to help me be productive and study; I believe it helped cure my anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n<p>I started my job as a lawyer in January 2021. I went to work at what was, at the time, one of the largest law firms in the entire world. It was a very prestigious position, and my starting salary was $200,000. It was the most money I had ever seen, and no one in my family had ever seen that much either.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The job took a toll on me mentally and physically<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I worked that job for a year, but it was really stressful. I worked 80-hour weeks and pulled all-nighters a couple of times a week. It was during the pandemic, so we were still at home. It was isolating.<\/p>\n<p>I started to feel my depression and anxiety creep back up, and I knew I had to get rid of it. I couldn&#039;t risk my sanity for the sake of money.<\/p>\n<p>I moved to a smaller firm and made a little less, but I was still working 60-hour weeks. I ended up leaving the firm and went to a meditation retreat in Spain that changed my life. I had a groundbreaking spiritual experience there that told me to let go of this career.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I decided I needed a pivot<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I came back to Chicago and lived off my savings and credit cards for several months as I tried to start a business teaching meditation, breathwork, and yoga. I still had my apartment lease and all my living expenses, as well as student loans.<\/p>\n<p>I moved out of my apartment when it became too expensive and lived on friends&#039; couches. I worked as a receptionist at an office and would sometimes sleep in the office overnight. Eventually, I moved to Los Angeles to live with a friend and worked at yoga studios there part-time.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I turned to government assistance to pay for food<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I was making about $25 an hour part-time, but it wasn&#039;t enough to support me. I turned to SNAP for help with getting food. I was on it in Illinois for about a year, and then reapplied in California. You must renew it every six months; they will verify your income to ensure you remain eligible.<\/p>\n<p>I was on it for about a year in California. Los Angeles is obviously very expensive, and I was living with a bunch of friends at the time to keep costs low.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I am no longer using SNAP benefits, but it helped me through a tough transition<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I felt shame at first because society looks down on assistance. But after thinking about it, I realized that I&#039;ve had a job since I was 15 years old, and I&#039;ve paid into this my whole working life. I&#039;m 34, so it&#039;s been quite some time. I shouldn&#039;t feel guilt or shame. When people fall on hard times, they should have a safety net to help and support them, and lift them back up to where they want to be at equilibrium.<\/p>\n<p>Once that one financial piece was taken care of, it took a load off me, both physically and emotionally. It&#039;s supposed to be uplifting, not demeaning, and to be treated like you&#039;re disposable and undeserving \u2014 people deserve to eat.<\/p>\n<p>This January, I got a part-time job teaching children&#039;s wellness at a TK through 8th-grade school. I teach them mindfulness and emotional regulation. I am also an entrepreneur, with my dream job of coaching meditation, breathwork, and yoga. I am no longer on SNAP, but I am grateful it was there when I needed it and helped get me where I am.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author, not pictured, was on SNAP benefits while figuring out her new career. Mois\u00e9s \u00c1VILA \/ AFP Carli Michelle Wright worked at a high-power law firm and made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. She quit for the sake of her mental and physical health. While working part-time between careers, she turned to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}