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Yes and no. There is a huge scandal here about the number of people retiring with those pensions or disability pensions who then go on to do the same job elsewhere for a whole other salary.</p>
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<p>I don’t blame you! He goes out for lunch every day and eats like four pizzas and then he comes home and eats everything I intended for leftovers… unless I make something with any vegetables in it at all, whichcase he refuses to touch it and my leftovers go bad before I can eat them all. Picky eater and bodybuilder are a terrible combination. </p>
<p>Were it not for the fact that he consistently helps me in the kitchen and would notice, I’d stash food in the fridge before I serve it so he wont know how much there is… I guess I can’t complain about that. :)</p>
<p>Do we have any car insurance experts here? $300 a month for insurance is a lot. Sounds like they have multiple nice cars.</p>
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Two teen-age drivers.</p>
<p>Plus maybe they have had accidents.
Their housing costs are low however, they have a new home for less than $200,000. In our area if you had double that budget you could buy a 100 yr old home that was 1/2 the size! ;)</p>
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<p>That’s what I do.
If I buy anything that both of us like to eat, I put a certain portion in a zip lock bag and put my name on the bag. Same with drinks. If I don’t mark my name on anything, it would be gone before I get to it.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine. My H likes different food than I do, we don’t have a problem that way. If anything I would like him to eat * more*, but he doesn’t like leftovers & I rarely cook the heavy meat meals he would prefer. He asks me to buy certain things at the grocery store for him, but I start reading the labels & I just can’t do it!</p>
<p>Making six figures is a pipe dream for me … not gonna happen in this lifetime. I have coworkers who raise children on less than what I earn. They consider themselves “struggling,” but not poor. Until the past couple years, our household income was less than six figures … and we were definitely not poor! We even managed to save a bit. We would never pay $175 for cable, we haven’t had a car payment in years (used only, and cash), we wouldn’t pay extra on our mortgage if it strapped us, etc. I understand that we would all love to make enough to have all of what we need and want … but it looks to me like this family has all of what they need and much of what they want. How can one feel poor in that situation?</p>
<p>We have the media to blame for distorting “must have” lifestyles. No one should aspire to the lives of The Kardasians, Real Housewives of ____ etc.</p>
<p>They feel “poor” because they are living paycheck to paycheck, are not saving any money outside of their 401k (which they can’t touch for years), they’ve seen their house equity vanish, they have little money for “luxuries”…</p>
<p>Are they truly “poor”? No, of course not.</p>
<p>But they feel like they are running in place, and have to keep running faster just to stay in the same place. And now they are facing much higher college expenses.</p>
<p>I know what the writer is conveying. The problem is that they bought into too expensive a house. They could not afford and have money for other things. DId they buy the cars new? Also does it really cost $7500 ayear for community college in Florida? That seems awfully steep to me. </p>
<p>We don’t have anything left over each month either but that is because of our conscious decision to buy a big expensive house in a high tax are. We then paid for private school. Those two choices pretty much defined a huge hunk of our expenses. We also have “smart phones” for the kids and go out and enjoy NYC once a month, lamenting that we can’t do it more. But we made our choices. I do buy the occasional luxury item. I admit it. But I’ve known many people in our situation crying “poor” at six figures when they are clearly living even higher on the hog than we are. It’s their perspectitve that is a problem. They are defining things that are clearly luxuries as needs. </p>
<p>It’s funny, I’ve had people point at our extravagance in an area and not realize that though we might spend there, we have clunkers for cars, take cheap subsidized vacations only, buy very little, if any, in terms of full priced clothing, furniture, household items. You can’t have it all. I am very aware of where we can cut. I know that we will be hurting in May because our DS is graduating and we want to fly out for the graduation which is going to cost a small fortune with hotel, a nice meal thrown in there. It’s not something that is just going to be absorbed. Something has to go, for us to pay for that since we do spend up to the hilt of the paycheck each month.</p>
<p>I can see the authors point actually. When I first started out, after college, I remember thinking “If I ever make XXX dollars a year I’ll be rich” Thinking to myself that life would be smooth, easy, at the minimum less stressful when there is money left over. Many, many years later I sit at the XXX point and I still have money concerns. Will there be enough? College, retirement, unforseen medical issues? I guess what I am saying is the concept of money concerns or worry never actually leaves us. </p>
<p>I am always surprised by how fast it vanishes, particularly when it comes to the food bill! (Guess we all feel that!!)</p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse and really like that post! We make certain choices, too, which may not make sense for others. We did buy a brand new car when our D1 got her driver’s license. My husband is not a car person and I am driving-adverse, so it was extremely important to me that D have a safe and reliable car because she was always going to do my share of the driving. My son has very expensive music lessons. However, we haven’t had a vacation in about 10 years, need some updating to the house, never go to the movies, plays, etc., but we each have a Kindle and Amazon loves my family.</p>
<p>About a month ago we had a run of minor bad luck that cost us a lot of money. I got anxious at that point because we’ve actually been really poor and I have a real terror of that happening again, even though we have good jobs and don’t live beyond our means.</p>
<p>True story: I have 5 younger brothers, who were all teen-agers at the same time. =) Parents were divorced, and the boys all lived with my Dad. They would eat everything he brought home. If he tried to shop ahead for two days, they would eat it all. So, he went grocery shopping every day on the way home from work. Bought enough for that one day, when that was gone, no more food. Next day, repeat.
He did this for several years. All the grocery clerks (in the 70’s) knew him by name.</p>
<p>To this day, I am always first in line at pot luck dinners. :)</p>
<p>I was so curious about the $1,000/month on food I went back into the original article.</p>
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<p>From the wording, it sounds to me that they’re eating at restaurants, but not ‘upscale restaurants.’ With a family of 4, if that’s 2 times per week at a “Friendly’s” or “Applebees” or wherever, it can really add up.</p>
<p>I’m not judging. We are always close in money, but when we had 3 kids at home and 2 jobs, I absolutely had to have one dinner OUT at a spaghetti restaurant together. It was good mental health. But it cost more than at-home. “Just the basics.”</p>
<p>I also really liked the posts of cptofthehouse and mommamocha</p>
<p>I don’t begrudge a family their life style but I do begrudge them complaining about it. I look at the authors expenses and I’m not surprised they can’t make ends meet on $100,000 per year. They have a long list of things they have that need to be paid for every month. I’m not about to tell someone how they spend their money but everything on this list is a choice and if they don’t like the net result they should make different choices.</p>
<p>I think a person should be really rich before they stop worrying about money. There is no level of income that can’t be outspent and worrying about money is what keeps a person from burning through it.</p>
<p>I also have a teenage son and I can’t believe how much he eats. We cannot keep food in the house.</p>
<p>^ “our food budget just provides the basics for four people” doesn’t give me the impression they are eating out anywhere.</p>
<p>For those of you feeding your family on less than $8/day per person, I’d like to know what you are eating.</p>
<p>melbert,
I can’t imagine how impossible it would be to keep food in the house with 5 teenage boys at home. With 3 sons (2 teens, 1 pre-teen) I have to hide food (particularly snack foods and cereal) around the house. My DH will sometimes do the grocery shopping, pick up several kinds of snacks, then become angry that they’re all gone in a day or two. I just laugh, and say, “Well, why do you buy food, leave in in plain sight, and expect that our kids won’t eat it?”</p>
<p>There is no way I can feed 3 people on 12000 a year…</p>
<p>Fresh fruit and vegetables…</p>
<p>meat…</p>
<p>fish…</p>
<p>These foods are expensive…</p>
<p>I am with notrichenough…</p>
<p>What is the diet…</p>
<p>Oh, I just did your math. Good point. You saw $32 for 4 people x 30 days and got to $1,000. So you challenge my thinking, which is good. I am honestly thinking about our standard week of home foods. I get to add another $8 because we were five people. Hm. I’ll write again.</p>