Do you live paycheck to paycheck?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Yes or no?
In light of the recent shutdown it seems that some people are scrambling trying to figure out how to pay the monthly bills. Do you feel adequately prepared in the event that you might suddenly lose your income or do you live paycheck to paycheck? I'll start... I'm a single mom of 2 under 2 (toddler and infant). My gross is about $67K per year. No, I do not live paycheck to paycheck. |
Anonymous
| No. |
Anonymous
| please define pay check to paycheck. |
Anonymous
| Yes. HHI 200k. Not gov employees though. Husband awful with money, I have my own stashed away. |
Anonymous
For example, if you don't get next month's paycheck will you still be able to meet all of your bills for the month? mortgage, rent, food, utilities, etc. |
Anonymous
I'm a single mom of one 4 year old. Do you live in the DC area? |
Anonymous
|
We sometimes live paycheck to paycheck due to our primary bread winner being on a commission-like structure. The money will arrive, but it ain't today. As such, we have been unable to cobble together sufficient savings. We have up to a $4k emergency fund sometimes, but we don't right now. In a year or two, we'll have a low-key windfall that'll put us on a really good track. But yes, we live paycheck to paycheck right now.
We're not government - we do this all the time. It's annoying to hear friends who make a combined income of $150 or 200k+ talk about how they can't deal with a 2-week shutdown. I'm sure it's tough, I know it's tough, but it's tougher for their secretaries and mailroom employees. It's tough for us. |
Anonymous
Op here. I live in Alexandria, VA. |
Anonymous
| Yes. Part of it is bad money management on my part, part is due to unemployment, part is due to student loans of $1100 each, so a total of $2200 student loans per month. |
Anonymous
|
Yes, we do. And no we wouldn't be able to pay our bills if we both suddenly lose our income.
Thankfully, neither of us are affected by the shutdown. (Our tight budget is primarily because of expenses related to paying oldest DD's college tuition). |
Anonymous
|
Not entirely, but no income coming in doesn't make life easy. We have been through a loss of MY income for a short time before, and we cut much of our savings to get through that period. Luckily, I'm not the primary breadwinner. My income allows us to save for retirement and college and such. My husband's income pays the monthly bills. If we lost HIS income, we would be digging into savings accounts and could make it a couple months before we had to start using retirement money. It wouldn't be pretty.
And, to be fair, I consider us lucky to be able to say all we really have to do to tighten our belts for a short time is cut savings and be more vigilant about our daily spending habits. Most people do not have that luxury. A good portion of americans have zero savings. |
Anonymous
do you have child support money coming in? An extremely cheap rent/mortgage? I feel like there is more to your story. |
Anonymous
| I am about 3 months in savings away from being paycheck to paycheck, but I don't work for the government. |
Anonymous
| In the sense that we cannot pay our bills? No. We have about 6-8 months savings. However due to the high cost of daycare for two, we are temporarily spending about what we earn and not increasing our savings. One of us is definitely unpaid (civil service) and one of us wiil be working at least PT (federal contractor) so we will definitely be dipping into the emergency fund for the shutdown. HHI of $200K. |
Anonymous
| We lived paycheck to paycheck when we had kids because well, kids are expensive. We don't anymore. |