Money

I’m not sure how folks are doing it nowadays. With rent and even mortgages upward towards two grand, the world is sucking them dry. The housing and rates have boosted through the roof. Living pay day to pay day trying to get by is ridiculous. Homelessness is abundant in every corner. It is sad, and even in a home, doesn’t mean you have it beat. House poor happens too, all the money going into paying bills and trying to exist. Staying out of the red can mean no extras at all.

People are afraid of a budget. Putting it on paper makes it real, but living in the dark is dangerous. If you go to your online banking right now and bring up the previous month from the first to the end, it’s there in black and white. Get a piece of paper and note all the regular withdrawals of what comes out automatic every month. That is what you need to exist. That isn’t even factoring the various things that you need to survive, like food and gas. I remember totalling groceries as they went in the cart, there was no extra. A hundred bucks buys squat, if you don’t have a surplus of items already, you are struggling. People are having to choose what they can live without.

Minimum wage was raised to 14.75 an hour, that is 1793.60 a month if you work a forty hour week and taxed twenty four percent. If your rent is over a grand… not leaving much for food, gas, bills or fun. They measure housing costs versus what you bring home to determine if you can get a mortgage. This gross debt ratio used to be thirty five percent, God love you if you qualify. They don’t factor that you have been paying 1600 a month for three years in rent and still managed to save a down payment. I don’t know what the answer is, get good at juggling? I looked it up, a circus clown makes forty thousand a year! Keep your balls in the air!