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I honestly can't tell if you are being serous or not. $2,000/month entertainment is included in "bare one expenses to exist?" No. That's pretty extravagant. Su
by nommm-nommm 10y ago
I honestly can't tell if you are being serous or not. $2,000/month entertainment is included in "bare one expenses to exist?" No. That's pretty extravagant.
Sure, you are probably going to need 2 incomes if that's the kind of lifestyle you want but don't kid yourself its some sort of bare minimum.
Growing up my family of five (three kids, two parents) somehow managed to live in a two bedroom apartment with one car and played in public parks and other public facilities for entertainment. We wore hand-me-downs and had little in terms of "stuff," we didn't have any room to store it anyways.
I am much happier I grew up without excess toys/objects/items as most of our play was centered around imagination. Children are really good at entertaining themselves if left to their own devices. It also made me appreciate what I did have.
Basically, I didn't grew up even remotely in squalor or anything like that. It would have been nice to have my own bedroom but it wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
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My family now has two incomes/jobs but only one car, we share a car ride to work, one drops the other off in the morning and picks them up in the evening. it's kinda annoying at times. I want to get a second car but every time I run the numbers in my head I can't justify the huge added expense just to alleviate a little bit of annoyance/inconvenience.
So anyways, you can do with a lot less if you actually wanted to. "This is how much I spend" isn't the same thing as "this is how much I am required to spend."
- sheeshkebab 10y ago$2000/month in camps/lessons/kids activities/afterschool care (far from entertainment).
- nommm-nommm 10y agocamps = entertainment lessons = entertainment kids activities = entertainment None of those are some sort of bare bones living expenses. They are nice to haves if you can afford it. afterschool care = not required if one parent stays home or works a different shift.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- vkou 10y agoDaycare is not entertainment. Daycare is what stops Social Services from taking away your kids. (Which wouldn't happen in the 70s, between multi-generational families, and less moral panic about unattended twelve-year-olds.)
- laughfactory 10y agoUh, daycare wasn't on the list. After school care was. Different animal. And yes, I'm going to be normative here and suggest as a society we do an awful lot of offloading our kids into the care of others. And if we're doing that, why the hell did we have them in the first place?
- watwut 10y agoThe alternative is kids home alone. Not even legal in many us areas.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoSince when was the alternative to piano lessons and dance class leaving your kids unsupervised? If you need bare bones supervision for your school age children you can get that at the Boys and Girls club and similar programs. Their summer program was around $1 a day per kid when I went.
- laughfactory 10y agoTotally agree. Besides, in many states kids are allowed to supervise younger kids starting somewhere between 9 and 12. I.e., if your oldest is 9 in Utah, you can indeed legally leave them home alone with their siblings.
- laughfactory 10y agoI'm going to disagree with you hear. The list provided is absolutely non-essential. I mean, are you kidding me? To believe otherwise absolutely astonishes me. We think of it as an extravagance if we pay $50/month for our daughter to take a dance class. $200/month maybe, if all the kids are in a single class of some sort, but $2000?! Not happening, even if we could afford it.