How much $ Money $ do you need to get by?
By missybal
@missybal (4490)
United States
April 20, 2009 6:08pm CST
I'm curious how much does it take a month for you to just get by? Main reason my husband and I are doing so well we have very few bills and low cost living expenses...
Rent $425 a month which is high end for the area we live in, in Western New York.
Phones $100... one home and two cell phones
Electric $50 on average, I roast in the summer and freeze in winter for it.
No tv bill, no internet bill, no car payment since paying that off, and no credit card payments since paying those nasty things off too. So other than food and extras that is only...
$575 a month...
With food, I shop Salvage food stores and Aldi's for the most part and I grow a vegitable garden every year and cook from scratch a lot so that may cost at the most $100 a month to eat healthy so all and all my cost of living is low.
So how about you?
3 responses
@mrbranan (1012)
• United States
21 Apr 09
My expenses are not to bad. I have about 1200 dollars a month in household expences including groceries. There are myself, my husband, and my three kids so we do pretty good. I get fans and put in windows to help keep the house cool in the summer and we heat with gas that our landlord pays. I also buy in bulk and put alot of things in the freezer. I try to keep as many lights and thing like that off as I can. I would like to know how you get the internet free.
@missybal (4490)
• United States
21 Apr 09
I live very close to town and there are diners and coffee shops that have wifi available for free for people to come in with their laptops. I bought an wifi 37 dbm usb panel antenna on ebay so I can get the internet in my home to use on my desktop. It's about two years old now and still works great. It's high speed and I use to pay $50 a month for internet service in my home, and this thing cost me about $100 to buy.
@sbeauty (5865)
• United States
20 Apr 09
We're masters at getting by on nothing. My husband and I both work part time. We live in a small, rural community where there are no other places to work. Our house payment is over $1000 a month, I'm a creative cook with whatever happens to be in the house. My husband does all the grocery shopping, because he spends a lot less than I do. Our vehicles are both paid for. We got my husband's car new in 1992, and it's still running fine. Our 2005 only has 30,000 miles on it. We're going to have a garden this year. We don't have cable TV, we have geothermal heating and cooling, so our utilities are usually less than $100 a month and we're still very comfortable. We seldom go anywhere or do anything where we have to spend money. And yet we're getting along just fine.
@missybal (4490)
• United States
21 Apr 09
Good to hear! I can't let my husband do the grocery shopping... he always comes home with more stuff, he wants to try everything when it come to food. Our area is the same small rural community where there are no places to work. That's why my husband deploys for the military so much but for what he makes we can live quite well here. The houses around here really wouldn't cost us much more than our rent does now, however we've decided to wait another year and hope to have the money to pay cash for a house. We'll see... thanks so much for the response.
@dorisday1971 (5657)
• Philippines
20 Apr 09
I admire you for not having so much expenses for your household maintenance. I am a bit off for having many utility bills to pay every month. Since I can't cut them off, I just try to make my consumption smaller.
