Follow-up to a Struggler's Budget: Part Two

Yoni has kindly shared some more information about his situation. I did particularly watch with a careful eye at what the posts would be like, and sure to form, some of the commenters couldn't resist complaining about the expenses. Given what I read, I do wonder about the impact from having your salaries cut by $25,000. That's $18,000 after tax, or more than the amount that they are short on tuition. I think that there are always helpful tips that we can give each other (coupon clipping, for example), but I am not sure that they make a $18,000 difference in a person's annual budget. So here are some additional pieces of information from Yoni.

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We are a two-income family. Not going to discuss what professions, but after taxes, this is what i bring home. it may well get better in the future, but this is the story today. Recession has hit both of our salaries and taken us to where we are. we tried once to find a solution for a housekeeper or babysiter that could let my wife leave very early in the morning and return much alter in the evening, but it was too expensive and wouldn't have made my wife much more money. It was hard to find someone who wanted to work only from 7-9 and from 4-6 every day. that meant less pay for my wife because she cant take a better job in her field. my wife is flexible with her work hours at a more accomodating job. that's just to be home for the older ones. the baby's childcare costs is covered a different way and isnt in my budget. if it was, i think the cheapest place we saw was 8-10 thousand a year..

No amount put into 401K
Medical Insurance through work
The family does look for sales and coupons when they shop
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The house was between 410 and 460 thousand dollars. it is not a mansion. I am not interested in giving more information because I don't want to even give people a chance to identify us. when we bought our house, it was more than affordable given our combined salaries. we also wanted to get out of our apartment which was too small for 4 people and we already had 5 people. got a good mortgage at the time, made a good downpyament. I think refinance rates are lower now, but can't afford the costs to refinance. 

The family has two cars, neither is a luxury car. One is financed, a used car. the other is a relatively newer minivan, but our lease price is far more affordable than trying to scrape together the thousands necessary to buy a slightly older van and we didn't want to buy a much older van because of the risk of breaking down and losing the money put in. It was cheaper for us to come up with $300 a month than it is to come up with the lump sum payment, especially with our paycuts

Food budget is based on food and a lot of things bought at stop and shop, glatt express, pathmark or shoprite. includes paper goods and things like that. going to 5 different stores just to shop every week is not something we do. we buy economically in a few stores and use a discount store too. we do our best. we dont eat out and we dont have fancy meals during the week. shabbos is not takeout.

we do give tzedakah. i didnt include it in my budget tho.
health drugs medicines etc. does not include the medical insurance from work. its copays drugs, flu shots, things like that

appliance and toy purchases actually seems low. it's just a budget, but when something breaks like a dishwasher or air conditioner unit, all of those expenses to fix it and maybe buy a new one go in there. i dont remember if my lawnmower went in there, but i have one and mow my own grass. wish I could afford a gardener, but it's not in the cards.


specific message for the person who thinks I have an iPhone, HBO, and steak: I hope you don't lose all of your money someday. do these people really think that i purposely spend my money on other things, just so i can get a bigger scholarship?

specific message for the person who thinks that it's somehow better if i know that my scholarship is really tzedakah. I know. I know my scholarship is tzedaka from other full paying parents. But what my situation sounded similar was that i'm still paying a sizable amount of tuition. is it full tuition? no. does it cover the cost of my children to go to the school? probably not. but i'm paying something.

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I hope that answered some of the questions from yesterday's comments. I thank Yoni for sharing this with us, and as I mentioned when I started the blog, I welcome and encourage other Strugglers to contact me to share their stories. Forget about the Chumps. They just want to complain about you; I want people to understand our situation, so please send me an email at "strugglingwho", I'm on gmail.

A Struggler's Budget, Part One

Introduction (authored by Struggling Who) : Welcome to the financial information of a Struggling Who, who we'll call Yoni. (name changed to protect from Chumps), someone who makes daily and monthly decisions that absolutely affect his bottom line the same way we all do. Yoni has a wife and three children, 2 in a legacy BC school with the third not far behind the first two. I have not pressed Yoni with a lot of detailed questions about the list and amounts he gave me, and the one modification I've made here is that I received all of this information in piecemeal from Yoni and have reorganized it into an easier to follow format, including my own personal assessment of how some of the commenters want to see it.  I have organized the expenses by rank of how I saw them, from most important and non-discretionary to least important.

Obviously, we can argue on each of these points how compelling the evidence is or how much Yoni is spending on each item, but I'm not sure that knowing whether Yoni purchases brand-name soap or generic soap is going to change the landscape for him. I am not publishing this information for the Chumps to nitpick on each item. We're not going to demand that Yoni change his spending habits immediately and file a revised budget with the Chumps' community watchdog group, just to satisfy the masses. But I did want everyone to get a sense of what a Struggler's budget looks like, although not all Strugglers are this detailed. It certainly looks better than mine.

All numbers are monthly numbers, and are rough approximations of the average monthly expenses.

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Paycheck (after tax)	6,900
Gifts/ Interest / Other	20
	6,920
Mortgage and Tax	2,761
Food	1,000
Electric, Oil, Utility	325
Gas and Repairs	100
Car Payment	625
Car Insurance	110
Commute	150
Cell / TV / Internet / Phone	140
Health, Dentist, Drugs, Doctor	200
Shabbos/Yom Tov Supplies	50
Clothing	75
Gifts	20
Life Insurance	50
Appliance/Toy Purchases	50
Maasar	-
Miscellaneous	20
	5,676
Extra Money	1,244

Yoni and his wife bring home about $83,000 a year after taxes, but spends about $68,100 before camps and luxurious spa visits for the wife (which as all Chumps know, is a basic requirement for a Struggler's wife). This also includes no amount given to charity, and also does not include tuition payments for the yeshivot.

So let's discuss!