Sounds easy, yeah, a piece of cake. My wife and I pull in almost 100k a year, we have 3 kids in school. Ok, I’ll just
jump to another job and make more money. I’m only buying the basics, plus selling crap on e-bay to help offset the extra gas money. One of my kids is Autistic and has meds each month. Walk a mile in my shoes bro.. don’t judge me.
Sorry, its just hard for me to understand. We make about that much exactly, and have one child plus huge student loans, and we save about $1,400 per month after all our expenses.
Granted, we live in a proverbial “armpit”, so I’m sure the cost of necessities are much higher for you. But how do you define necessities? Both our cars have about 140,000 miles, and we haven’t done any work on our house for 5 years, but that’s the way I want it ... I’d rather invest in future security.
My husband alone makes close to $100K/per year and I still have to work part time or full time to make ends meet. We have 4 children, and at one time all 4 in catholic school with monthly tuition payments of close to $700/month. Now, with only two it’s around $450/month but in two years we’ll have college tuition. I drive a car that is 13 years old and my husband drives one that is close to 10 years, so no car payments for the last 5-8 years. We;ve taken 2 family vacations in the close to 18 yrs. we’ve been married and each time it was because my parents basically paid for them. We live in a nice home, in a wonderful neighborhood and pay close to $10,000/yr for property taxes (and in my area, that’s low). North Jersey property taxes are even higher.
The economy is in excellent shape, despite how difficult it is for my family. My husband keeps telling me, if we lived in other states we’d be rich. If we lived where I grew up, we’d be considered wealthy.
I don’t even know what gas prices are nor do I care. I have to drive, just like I have to buy milk and other products so I don’t look at the price tag.
Our savings is non-existent and that’s really our fault. However, we don’t have huge credit card debt (I’m one of those women who doesn’t buy on credit and believe if I don’t have cash then I don’t need it, just like my mom taught me).
My parents grew up during the depression and I remember their horror stories well. This country is no where near the Great Depression and forgets just what it was like to be really poor. We have the richest poor in the world.
I’m not judging you. I know how difficult it is to live in this State but it’s not because the economy sucks.
I moved here because the area was better, the schools were better (which they aren’t anymore).
As for your autistic child, I do understand since one of mine was learning disabled and since we went to Catholic School the resources weren’t as available to her so we did the private tutoring thing for 7 years. She fortunately was declassified 3 years ago. Granted, autism is different but services, free services are available including meds.
We don’t rely on gov’t services, never did never will per what my parents taught me. We live above our means so to speak because we live in an affluent area in a single family home, our choice. We can’t furnish our house or fix everything, or provide our kids with everything they *want* but we provide them with everything they need, materialistically. They’re learning to work to earn income (the two teens).
I understand your frustation with the high taxes in NJ since I live here too. However, the economy is in fantastic shape.