How many people here live paycheck to paycheck?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a mortgage of $450k on a $750k house, but DH lost his job and my salary barely covers the mortgage and daycare. Everything that can go on credit cards goes (groceries, gas, etc), but we still don't have nearly enough at the end of the month and are eating through our very meager savings.

Bad solution: kid comes out of daycare, but then DH can't look for a job and we lose our spot. Worst case scenario: we sell the house and cash out.

We're in a shitty situation with the job loss, but I sleep at night knowing we have $300k in equity in the house. If we didn't have these two options, I'd be panicking every day. I truly feel for people who are going through tough financial times with no help and no resources.

I'm sorry -- I hope he gets another job soon and that this is just a blip for you guys. Job hunting can definitely be a job in itself so I can see why you don't want to pull the kids out of daycare (not to mention the disruption to their schedule).

You guys need to take the child out of the daycare. He must look for jobs very early in the morning and then late at night. Now, if he has to network and meet during the day, then that's a different story.

If he needs to go to networking meetings - hire babysitters. He won't be meeting 40 hrs a week - even paying for 5 hrs of babysitting is cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never have--even when I was waitressing and paying my own way through college. I always found living situations that were well below my means and then continued to have roommates ten years out of college. I understand when job loss or medical bills cause someone to have to live paycheck to paycheck. I don't understand people doing so rather than cutting back their expenses (such as by renting instead of buying, renting out a room from their house, having roommates if single, living in a smaller house/apartment, etc).

+1
People on this thread are living lifestyles they can't afford.

+1

I grew up in the shittiest, poorest appalachian town. Some people who lived paycheck to paycheck had a good excuse (medical bills, family issues, disaster) and those were the people who got back on their feet in time. Most of the time, there isn't a good excuse, it was fueled by character issues people don't want to address (disorganization, laziness, unwillingness to change bad habits, untreated addiction and subsequent jail stints). I don't have sympathy for people like that. They would take and take and take and still be in debt 10, 20, 30 years later. Relatives bled each other dry so they could fritter away money on cigarettes and HDTVs. Friends I know from high school go out drinking and then lament not having enough for diapers or rent.

It's great if you're from some comfortable suburb and you can pretend everyone is the same and some people are just unlucky and that's why you're living paycheck to paycheck, but the truth is, you largely make your own luck and you have to hustle, vote for people who fund education and believe in a working wage, and you have to cut the fat in your budget to the bone. Sometimes you still get the shaft (thanks for the most part to Americans thinking the ultra-wealthy have no obligation to fairly support the government and society and should be remunerated as highly as possible without an attendant tax burden). If you're a good person, hopefully someone will help you until you get back on your feet and then you help someone else who deserves it when you can.

If you didn't have some disaster that caused you to be in the red, you need to examine your life choices and make some painful changes. You are the reason you're living paycheck to paycheck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do. HHI around $250k. I won't cut retirement, but will the 529s. After having kids I have no money.

If you are contributing to retirement, you are not living paycheck to paycheck.

Hmm, I dunno. DH and I contribute to retirement and a tiny amount to 529s. (The latter we just started, 9 years into parenthood.) But we don't have emergency savings and we run out of money every month. Our CC bill is approaching 9k. We earn 160k together, which should be fine, but we live in DC. I think we still qualify.

Holy cr@p 9K - are you charging daycare or tuition on your card?

DH and I charge EVERYTHING - even $1.99 at CVS for rubber gloves so we know how much we spend each month. Most months our cc is $4 - 5K. A really bad month might include airline tickets or vacation reaches $9k - and our HHI is 7 figures.

Well, it's easy to not have a balance when you make ~100K per month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never have--even when I was waitressing and paying my own way through college. I always found living situations that were well below my means and then continued to have roommates ten years out of college. I understand when job loss or medical bills cause someone to have to live paycheck to paycheck. I don't understand people doing so rather than cutting back their expenses (such as by renting instead of buying, renting out a room from their house, having roommates if single, living in a smaller house/apartment, etc).

+1
People on this thread are living lifestyles they can't afford.

+1

I grew up in the shittiest, poorest appalachian town. Some people who lived paycheck to paycheck had a good excuse (medical bills, family issues, disaster) and those were the people who got back on their feet in time. Most of the time, there isn't a good excuse, it was fueled by character issues people don't want to address (disorganization, laziness, unwillingness to change bad habits, untreated addiction and subsequent jail stints). I don't have sympathy for people like that. They would take and take and take and still be in debt 10, 20, 30 years later. Relatives bled each other dry so they could fritter away money on cigarettes and HDTVs. Friends I know from high school go out drinking and then lament not having enough for diapers or rent.

It's great if you're from some comfortable suburb and you can pretend everyone is the same and some people are just unlucky and that's why you're living paycheck to paycheck, but the truth is, you largely make your own luck and you have to hustle, vote for people who fund education and believe in a working wage, and you have to cut the fat in your budget to the bone. Sometimes you still get the shaft (thanks for the most part to Americans thinking the ultra-wealthy have no obligation to fairly support the government and society and should be remunerated as highly as possible without an attendant tax burden). If you're a good person, hopefully someone will help you until you get back on your feet and then you help someone else who deserves it when you can.

If you didn't have some disaster that caused you to be in the red, you need to examine your life choices and make some painful changes. You are the reason you're living paycheck to paycheck.

I think the OP set the tone in the first posting insinuating that only people who have inheritances live comfortably. that is such BS. Somethings are life circumstances but a lot of people also make really short sighted and dumb decisions. I had roomates in a shitty rent controlled apt in DC until I was 34. Used every first time homebuyers program around and bought in a shitty neighborhood that I knew would get better. Got another roomate to pay half the mortgage. SOld 7 years later and cleared 220k in profit. I never got pregnat until I was finsihed with school and married to someone equally stable either. No credit card debt either. Its not rocket science people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a mortgage of $450k on a $750k house, but DH lost his job and my salary barely covers the mortgage and daycare. Everything that can go on credit cards goes (groceries, gas, etc), but we still don't have nearly enough at the end of the month and are eating through our very meager savings.

Bad solution: kid comes out of daycare, but then DH can't look for a job and we lose our spot. Worst case scenario: we sell the house and cash out.

We're in a shitty situation with the job loss, but I sleep at night knowing we have $300k in equity in the house. If we didn't have these two options, I'd be panicking every day. I truly feel for people who are going through tough financial times with no help and no resources.

I'm sorry -- I hope he gets another job soon and that this is just a blip for you guys. Job hunting can definitely be a job in itself so I can see why you don't want to pull the kids out of daycare (not to mention the disruption to their schedule).

You guys need to take the child out of the daycare. He must look for jobs very early in the morning and then late at night. Now, if he has to network and meet during the day, then that's a different story.

If he needs to go to networking meetings - hire babysitters. He won't be meeting 40 hrs a week - even paying for 5 hrs of babysitting is cheaper.

Can you work with the daycare and see if they'll let you go part-time until your husband finds a job?