Budgeting | Imamother

amother

Sat, Oct 26 2013, 11:31 pm

I'm posting anon because I am going to get flamed for this, big time. I could be making about 4k a month but not much more. So I cut an hour off my work schedule, make 3k, and qualify for more than 1k worth of family health plus and food stamps. I KNOW people will shame me here for taking advantage, blah blah, but I don't agree because if I made 4k then I would be deep in a red hole, it takes more than that to pay for your own food and health insurance on top of other expenses (NY area). I am not living a rich life, we're in school with the hope of having a better income after graduation, but right now this is the only way we can avoid debt. Unfortunately our welfare system is structured with a huge gap between qualifying for help and being able to make it on your own.

Sorry no better advice. I crunched the numbers for my family and this is the best I came up with.

amother

Sun, Oct 27 2013, 12:03 am

amother wrote:

before the bashing session begins, I just want to say IMO much better you should take benefits from government then getting into dept and relying on our already overburdened tzedakah organizations to bail you out.
I am not being sarcastic. I am serious.

amother

Sun, Oct 27 2013, 5:34 am

I'm making 4K in Israel and while I'm making it, I still need to budget carefully, be frugal, shop sales and so on. I can pay my bills but I look for clothing for the kids on Ebay. I can't imagine how someone can do it in NY. (Family of 6 - 4 young children.)

punktfarkert

Sun, Oct 27 2013, 10:03 am

amother wrote:

A lot of people are in your boat. The only shame is a government hands out free insurance to people in a certain income bracket - and then makes them pay $1000 (!!!) per month when they make $5 more per month. If they had some sort of sliding scale, where you could work the extra hours and pay $100-$200 per month, I'm sure you'd choose that option and pocket the rest of the $1000 you'd be earning.

amother

Tue, Nov 05 2013, 7:43 pm

We're a family of 5 (but my baby is little so I thought I might post :-)

We figured out every last detail (including taxes and ma'aser and yomim tovim) and realized we need to bring in a bit more than 7K/month plus paying down credit card debt to survive.

This is with shopping discount, used, sales, etc etc. We own one car, have one kid in school, rent for 1300 a month, and pay all our insurances. After pricing all groceries I found that I really can't go below $100-$200 a week without my husband going hungry :-))

hope that helps.