Sunday, August 16, 2009

Difficult Financial Situation

My husband works at Walmart as a maintenance associate. He makes almost $8 an hour, and works an average of 32 hours a week. I'm thankful that he's willing to do this work for our family, along with being a full time student.
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I'm also thankful that he has a job in these times, but Walmart is thriving in this economy. He brings home about $980 per month, being paid bi-weekly. So, we are living on less than $1000 per month.
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Every other month that has five Thursdays, we get three paychecks. This happens about twice a year. Unless we have an overdue car repair, this money goes into savings or investments. Our living expenses remain at under $1000 per month even in these months.
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We have two boys, age one and three, and another baby on the way, due October 7. We are paying for the upcoming birth out of pocket; it is less expensive as we are having an at-home midwife. There is a lot more to be said about our health and insurance status, but I'll get into that in another post... or maybe several more.
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Our finances are stessful at times, but I get a certain delight out of making the best of our lives with what we have. So, now I am sharing my delight in a blog.

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7 comments:

Scrappy quilter said...

Wow, I'm impressed. I've bookmarked your blog for future reading. We live on approx. $1600 per month (Canadian) with 5 adults in our home. Soon there will only be 3 of us, however our income will drop to just over $1100.00 per month. However we have no debt and are mortgage free which really makes a huge difference. Great job on living what you live on!! I'm totally impressed.

Saving for 4 said...

Wow...my husband and I live on a little more than $2,000 a month and are now getting out of debt and saving towards our house. I had thought that I couldn't get by with that much, but now I see that it is more than possible. I'm extremely fascinated to learn how you can stretch your dollars so far. Thanks for the inspiration! I look forward to reading more!

The Pittsburgh Pair said...

I'm curious about where in the country you live and your tax bracket. I see that working 32 hours per week at $8 an hour would equal $256 per week or $1024 per month.

You said that your DH brings home $980 per month (during most typical months). Are you only paying $44 per month in taxes and any other paycheck deductions?

That seems incredibly low to me. That would include federal tax, state tax (if applicable), local tax (if applicable), Medicare and SSI? How have you been able to get this so low?

Isn't 12,000 per year in the 10% tax bracket for federal taxes? I'm honestly wondering (not flaming) how you keep your taxes so low.

Emily said...

$980 is not the consistent income, depening on whether he works Sundays, gets bonuses, and back pay from raises, it fluctuates between $900 and $1000. The $980 was the number from his last two pay checks when I wrote the post. I probably should have gone back and averaged out more months. I think it would come up lower.

We are in the US, Maine, and pay Medicare and SSI, but we don't pay state and federal. From last year's taxes, we paid $65 per month in Medicare and SSI. We don't pay state and federal because those would come back to us in full at tax season anyway. Does it make more sense now?

Anonymous said...

Wow that's amazing, Go You! I'm very inspired and I can't wait to read more :)

Anonymous said...

There are 5 months between now and this time next year where there will be five thursdays in the month. I don't get how you figure there are only 2 a year??

Emily said...

Well, if there are five Thursdays, he gets two paychecks on one five Thursday month, three paychecks on the next five Thursday month, then two, then three. So, there are about two, maybe 2 1/2 would have been more accurate, months per year when he gets three paychecks.

As I said in the post, "Every other month that has five Thursdays, we get three paychecks. This happens about twice a year."

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