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Thread: Living on $12K a Year

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    Banned Katrine's Avatar
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    Default Living on $12K a Year

    http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...2000AYear.aspx

    This was a link from that wealth article. I think we could all learn a lot from this woman's story, especially for those of us who don't feel we are capable of saving or making ends meet.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mia M
    If a cupcake was tossed at me... well, I'd only be upset if it missed my mouth

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    She's living on 'borrowed time' rather than 'borrowed money'. As she said herself, a major problem with her car, with her teeth etc. will blow her $12k a year plan straight out of the water. It's certainly possible to choose not to pay ongoing costs of 'maintenance' ... for a while. However, eventually, failure to perform necessary 'maintenance' while the cost is relatively small will result in much higher costs for 'replacement' coming home to roost.

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    Banned Katrine's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    True, its not an ideal situation by any means. Rather, it just puts things into perspective a bit about priorities. No way in hell would I go without hand lotion, lol!

    "Have you ever been to American wedding? Where is the vodka, where's marinated herring?" - GB
    "And do the cats give a shit? No, they do not. Why? Because they're cats."-from The Onion

    Quote Originally Posted by Mia M
    If a cupcake was tossed at me... well, I'd only be upset if it missed my mouth

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    BrunetteGoddess
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    I have no doubt that in a year or so, if not sooner, she will just give up on all this and file for bankruptcy. I mean, this seems like an attention scheme and she got her attention from the papers; who has to know she gave up now? I don't buy it.

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by CorsicaFire View Post
    I have no doubt that in a year or so, if not sooner, she will just give up on all this and file for bankruptcy. I mean, this seems like an attention scheme and she got her attention from the papers; who has to know she gave up now? I don't buy it.
    She's just sharing her story about how she's going to do it. I don't see how it's getting her A LOT of attention, hasn't been on the news, and I would never have known about it had it not been from this site.

    I think at best it's an interesting article that could teach crazy spenders how to manage their money a little wiser.
    Formerly Known as "MulattoKitten".

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    Featured Member Katherine's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    I have a subscription to Money Magazine and there was an article a few months ago about a family who lives on extremely little. Not because they have to, but they choose to. They're saving like 50 grand a year at least.

    But some of the choices they're forcing on their kids suck. They pay their son only like a nickel for mowing the lawn. They expect him to learn the value of money like that....?

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    Featured Member AkashaM's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Katherine View Post
    I have a subscription to Money Magazine and there was an article a few months ago about a family who lives on extremely little. Not because they have to, but they choose to. They're saving like 50 grand a year at least.

    But some of the choices they're forcing on their kids suck. They pay their son only like a nickel for mowing the lawn. They expect him to learn the value of money like that....?
    In the meantime I hope they are teaching the son to invest at the very least. Saving money over a long period of time is ok, but people forget that the value of our money is depreciating. $10,000 may be worth only $7,000 in 5 years. Thinking like that is interesting, but its somewhat backwards.
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  8. #8
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Kids shouldn't be paid for doing their fair share of household chores and maintenance. Yes, it's important to teach them about money, but it's also important to teach them about fairness and being a contributing member of the family.

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    Featured Member AkashaM's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    Kids shouldn't be paid for doing their fair share of household chores and maintenance. Yes, it's important to teach them about money, but it's also important to teach them about fairness and being a contributing member of the family.
    Yeah, most definitely. I got SHIT to do work. I grew up in a family business, so everyone had to work to pay the bills.
    I'm getting my Dial-A-Stripper service up and running again. If you are in NYC or NJ and are interested in private party dancing, email [email protected] with your SW handle, contact info, photo (if you have one) & best time to call and I'll get back to you asap.

    If you're having a party and need strippers, email me with the details and any questions you have. Thanks!

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    phhh. met someone who claims he's living on $600 a month.

    he has roommates so his rent is $200 or $300.

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    Kids shouldn't be paid for doing their fair share of household chores and maintenance. Yes, it's important to teach them about money, but it's also important to teach them about fairness and being a contributing member of the family.
    What my parents taught me. Some things should just be expected. Helping out family members shouldn't have to have an incentive.

    Like grades! WTF is with parents giving their kids money to get good grades?! You're EXPECTED to get good grades in my opinion, I never had SUPER great grades but my parents disappointment and bitching made me do the best.
    Formerly Known as "MulattoKitten".

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    Veteran Member josie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Melonie, have you read the book "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich? The book explains how poverty stricken people live on "borrowed time." Interesting read. I recommend it.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    ^^^ I read as much as I could stomach ... the following review will save me being pillaried for making negative comments about a 'well respected' liberal author.

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Katrine View Post
    http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...2000AYear.aspx

    This was a link from that wealth article. I think we could all learn a lot from this woman's story, especially for those of us who don't feel we are capable of saving or making ends meet.
    I thought it was a pretty interesting article. I was a poor college student for so many years, so I know firsthand what it's like to live on such a paltry income. With the crappy retail jobs I had during that time, my income was between 10-12k a year. Granted, I lived with my boyfriend who made roughly the same because he was in the same situation I was and that doubled our income-but that was still approaching poverty line.

    You know what though? We didn't want for anything. We both bought older used cars for cash so we didn't have exorbitant car notes and insurance payments. We were always able to go out to eat, go out drinking, shopping and were still able to pay our bills. I remember thinking to myself then, "if we get by just fine now, how much more money do we really need?" That experience and line of thinking has carried over to this very day, despite how much money we make now. I STILL have an older car I paid for in cash, we live in a modest rental home and are pretty frugal with our money.

    Although dancing provides a great income, I don't want to become dependent on it if anything were to ever happen and I couldn't do it anymore. Plus, we could still swing our bills if I had to get a normal job. On top of that, we are able to save a LOT and I can still take as much time off from work as I need to to travel or pursue things that are fun and exciting to us. It would be completely different if we both had expensive brand-new cars and lived in a swanky house (which we could easily do).

    Yeah, it would be nice to have those things, but you know what? They're not really important to us. We place life experiences, travel, etc., over having a shit ton of material possessions that in the end, really mean nothing. I'm sure our attitudes will change once we get married, buy a home and start a family-but for now the way we're doing things works great, we are very happy, and don't feel schackled down by our jobs.

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    Veteran Member jannisary's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    I noticed one big expense that she is not paying is health insurance. Since she is a university student she is probably getting that through her school and paying for health services through her student fees.

    If you're not a full time student and have to live on around $12,000 a year you are probably not getting health insurance through your employer. Eh...who needs that anyway.

  16. #16
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    I did okay in college making about $10,000 a year (I finished my BA in 2001). I had enough to go out once in awhile, pay my tuition, keep a roof over my head, and keep up with living expenses. Of course, to make that amount I had to work about 50 hours a week, so my grades suffered; I graduated with a 3.25 but it could've been a lot higher if I wasn't skipping class to sleep so often. I was also fortunate enough to live in a city with a VERY low cost of living, and I attended a shitty local university even though it was my last choice, just because the tuition was good. (I got into Tulane, my first choice, but the partial scholarship I was awarded still left me with more than I could afford, and I didn't want to graduate with debt.)

    When you're not in college, it's much harder to do, especially with the health issue that jannisary mentioned. A big part of my budget nowadays is healthcare - birth control, inhalers, checkups - that were free in college. I also live in a more expensive city now and I can tell you flat out there is NO WAY you can survive on $12K in Los Angeles unless you cram 30 people into a 1BR apartment and live on handouts. This $12K a year plan depends greatly on location.

  17. #17
    Lola Rose
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    I think, If the family can afford it, why not give children insentives to do well. I got money for good grades, it was almost the only money I got that was all mine, no one to ask what I spent on what, and it was important to me. My parents tought me that school was my "job", and so they paid me for it. I graduated with a 3.85 unweighted, 4.0 weighted, so I suppose it "paid off"! I doubt I'd have had the self motivation to do so well w/ out the $. Hey, money is a big motivator to me.... I am a stripper, after all

  18. #18
    PhillyDancer1982
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    She's living on 'borrowed time' rather than 'borrowed money'. As she said herself, a major problem with her car, with her teeth etc. will blow her $12k a year plan straight out of the water. It's certainly possible to choose not to pay ongoing costs of 'maintenance' ... for a while. However, eventually, failure to perform necessary 'maintenance' while the cost is relatively small will result in much higher costs for 'replacement' coming home to roost.
    Melonie, I agree with you 100%! I was just telling my friend Bob about how true that is. That scenario actually happened to me a few years ago with my car...I couldn't afford the small repair, so I kept driving the car, and then half a year later the entire engine went kaput...costing several times more than the small repair woulda cost! But at the time that it had only a small repair, I didn't have any money for it so I didn't have much of a choice at the time.

    Also, it is important to see a doctor and invest in health insurance. I thought I was saving money by not buying my own health insurance...until I had to spend all this money on doctor visits for chronic strep. So anyways, I agree with you.

    And by the way, this article comes at an interesting time...just the other day, I was making a budget for myself and listing all of my expenses and things that I could do without. Then just out of curiosity for my own humor, I made a budget for how much it would cost per month to forgo my apartment and my car loan, and to live outta my VW van while still keeping current on student loans and credit cards...allowing a little bit for emergencies and misc. expenses, it came to about $900/month! When I worked full-time retail, I only made ~$880/month! That is just sad...

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    God/dess fancygirl's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    the funny thing is that there are great clinics out there for people with not a lot of money. Because I didn't have health insurance I got struck down for a little over a month with a pretty hardcore bacterial infection. If only I'd known about the clinic that i eventually ended up going to, I would have been able to work.
    I worked initially that month and I remember two parties where I HAD to work. They'd been prebooked, and I need the money. But I couldn't BREATHE.
    They ended up going fabulously, but then a week or so later, the infection (unrelated to the parties) took a turn for the worse. I laid in bed for a solid week, only having about an hour or two at night to feel like a semi-normal person.

    Everyone has their own little horror stories, but my point is-- yes, insurance is important, but even if you don't have it, there's ways around that. Unfortunately sometimes you don't find out about these options BEFORE getting sick, and you waste a lot of time just hoping you'll "get better."

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    Veteran Member josie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    ^^^ I read as much as I could stomach ... the following review will save me being pillaried for making negative comments about a 'well respected' liberal author.

    http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cf...%20and%20D.htm


    Hmm, I thought you would enjoy it. It's an entertaining book at least. Oh well, I tried.


    Totally unrelated, but of curiosity, have you ever studied "true cost" economics? From a poltical perspective you might not like it much. Still, its a fascinating new theory of macroeconimics.

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    i hated 'nickeled and dimed' because that lady did not in fact bother living like an actual poor person. she never stayed anywhere long enough to find out exactly what life as a poor person REALLY is like, nor about social networks that can often allow people to survive and sometimes a fair bit more while making very little.

    it was rich-liberal slumming and especially hypocritical. just having her, oh, i don't know, spend a year paying off a 300$ payday loan would have resulted in a much more honest and interesting (and persuasive) piece of propaganda.

    as for the woman in the article living on 12k a year, she lives in seattle, washington, land of endless social services. she's already leeching-- er, using some of them according to the article.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    ^^^ yes re 'true cost' economics. However, the validity of the 'true cost' theory is directly proportional to the agreement by foreign govt's / economies that the theoretical costs of exploiting foreign resources is the same as for Americans exploiting domestic resources - which clearly isn't the case for China, India, Vietnam, most of Africa etc. In terms of 'real' costs versus theoretical 'true' costs, right now Americans 'really' DO have to pay those costs for exploiting domestic resources, while they 'really' DON'T have to pay similar costs to exploit the same resources in foreign countries ! As such, the 'true cost' theory is little more than environmentalist propaganda in terms of 'real world' competitive economics until the point is reached where a 'New World Order' can exercise jurisdiction over every gov't on the planet and thus equalize the 'real' costs of exploiting the same resource anywhere on the globe. Politics aside, that's the economic bottom line.

    However, in this thread, those same 'true cost' economics could apply in another direction in an actual 'real world' situation re a 'real' person living on a $12k per year income ... i.e. the cost to other federal taxpayers of paying for the $12k person's Earned Income Tax Credit, the cost to other state taxpayers of providing social welfare benefits like subsidized rent and utility bills and free food and medicAid / mediCal for which a $12k person would clearly be eligible, the cost to other city taxpayers of funding money-losing hospital emergency rooms and clinics etc. Of course let us not forget about the costs to other taxpayers at all levels for paying the salaries of 'public sector' employees whose jobs revolve exclusively around administering those social welfare programs ( and whose salaries and benefit costs vastly exceed $12k per year !)

    !
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-12-2007 at 12:38 AM.

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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Eh. I mostly live on $5-600/month. That way I don't have to work much, and I can save a good part of what I make.



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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    ^^^ I read as much as I could stomach ... the following review will save me being pillaried for making negative comments about a 'well respected' liberal author.

    http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cf...;20and%20D.htm
    That guy's recommendations are useless. While I think the premise of Ehrenreich's book is overly obvious -- of course it's hard to get by on minimum wage -- at least she was talking about the problem of the vast number of American poor, the very existence of whom seemingly shocked the country after Katrina -- they were surprised people could be literally stuck in lethal situations because they are POOR. I seriously doubt privatization would have changed their situation -- and that of the majority of the American poor -- one bit.

    12K a year can get you by assuming that you have some kind of backup, but any serious injury or life event would completely screw you without a solid social network.


    By the way, Melonie, what's up with the quotes? I have always wanted to know why you use them so frequently and what you think they signify. Your posts read like Zagat's.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Living on $12K a Year

    By the way, Melonie, what's up with the quotes? I have always wanted to know why you use them so frequently and what you think they signify. Your posts read like Zagat's.
    I suppose it's journalism class shorthand to avoid spelling out ... costs which are claimed to be true but which actually don't exist outside of the USA - a person who is not really poor but in fact is a slumming rich liberal who is trying to make a political point - the real world where anybody who earns less than $20,000 per year is eligible for not only a cash back federal tax credit but also for a cornucopia of social welfare program benefits instead of actually having to survive on their under $20k earnings alone.

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