Reply #210: I will give you a sampling... [View All]

$1200 mortgage/tax payment
$1000 daycare/month
$300 for car payment
$130 for gas (house)
$250 for car gas
$80-120 for electric depending on the season
$80 for cable (to work from home)
$12 for tv cable
$500 a month for food (for family of four)
$200 a month in insurance (life car ..etc)
$500 a month in health insurance
$200 a month in child college fund
$1200 a month in retirement fund money...(my husband and I have NO PENSION..we must sock away cash or starve in old age)
$120 cell phone bill (this is for my husband's job but can't expense it)
$30 garbage/sewage


Now this doesn't count when the tires on the minivan go....and other expenses like my son's $200/a month braces bill...and other incidentals like the $100 a month in copays for my and my kids asthma medications...but it gives you a sampling...

We aren't rich...and we worry all the time because we live very very close to the bone...and yet we see people who are living so large and we think we are doing something wrong.

We also know we are very lucky right now...but we also know that we might not make as much later or one layoff would change the equation entirely...