How much are you living on annually? - Page 4

[Mylie]

I hear you Satori...

I would be in heaven making 30,000 a year....but alas....


I make a little over $1,000 a month like you...And that is working two jobs..
:

[Rebecca]

Originally Posted by doulamomvicki

I am there with you. DH makes 75k+ and I still work part time as a nurse and we still struggle. I love San Diego but HATE the cost of living.:

Cost of living is very similar in coastal New England. It's hard to get by on what others would consider a bigger income. Jobs pay better but everything costs more too, so really, we're no better off. We just pay more taxes. :

[countingsheep]

I'd love to hear from families with less...

We make so much less than most of the other posts...its hard to relate. Money is definately our biggest stuggle. My husband brings home about 1500-1600/month and our mortgage is 625...we have a small car payment and some debts that we pay monthly.

I feel like we are not making it, but I really like being home with the my young man (21months).

Anyone that can relate?

[Slabobbin]

My husband makes $20,000 a year. I sell on ebay and do secret shopping to supplement that income. We have four in the family. His check his just enough to cover bills. My ebay has to cover gas, medication, etc. It's worth it though.

[wildmonkeys]

Hello counting sheep and others who live in areas with lower costs of living - my dh makes great money on paper ($65,000) and I make decent money doing freelance work, but I can relate (as can many of the California and East Coast mommas I am sure) because after we pay our mortgage on our 2 bedroom house we were lucky to get cheap 5 plus years ago before the market went up : ....we actually have almost the exact same amount left over as you do.

So though the differences in incomes may sound huge on the Internet - I think that a bunch of use have about the same amount of spending money left after mortgage and taxes and whatnot.

We can't afford cable or eating out or any extras either though it really sounds like we should be able to...I know...we used to live in West Virginia and we felt equally stretched making about $20,000 per year as we do now.

OTH - there are some mamas on here who must be doing just amazing work to get by....

Thanks for sharing and good luck everyone!
BJ
Barney & Ben

[Alkenny]

The last couple of years, $21,000 for a family of 5 (2 adults, a teen, a preteen and a toddler). We own a mobile home outright though, so no mortgage.

[MommyToElla]

Wow.. I can only dream of a mortgage under 1000.00! We have a 13 month old... I work 2 days a week, my husband full time. We live on about 75K a year and we don't even own a house - can't find anything here for under 300K.

Our rent alone for a 2 bedroom in a half of a house is 1250.00 a month - NJ sucks!

[skueppers]

Originally Posted by wildmonkeys

So though the differences in incomes may sound huge on the Internet - I think that a bunch of use have about the same amount of spending money left after mortgage and taxes and whatnot.

I agree -- my mortgage, real estate taxes, and homeowner's insurance come to $1700 a month -- and that's for a house we bought for at least $120,000 less than ANY house in this county would cost today.

That's one of the reasons why I think it's worth comparing our incomes to the median incomes for the counties we live in, rather than on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The cost of living is just too different from place to place. Here's an interesting link where you can look up median income figures for wherever you live in the US:

http://tinyurl.com/h3qro

Edited to add:

Looks like the URL may have stopped working. Phooey. To navigate there, visit http://factfinder.census.gov/ , then point to "People" on the left side, and click on "Income" in the menu that pops up. Click on the "2004" tab, then click on "Income by Household". Finally, click on "Geography" under the word "Change" on the left side. Whew!

Based on that information, our family income is actually almost 25% less than the median for married-couple families in our county. (Edited to add: following what busybusymomma said below, the median married-couple household family income in our county is 172% of the nationwide median. I knew this place was expensive!)

[Peppamint]

Based on the info I got on the link that skueppers posted, we make about 60% of the median family income (in 1999) in our zip code. The median family income in our zip code is about 80% of the national median income.

I like crunching those numbers better than crunching numbers to pay bills.

[melissel]

Holy cow. That's a great tool, but I'm speechless. Our $83K combined income is only 84% of the median for our primary metropolitan area (I ran it that way because we're so close to NYC).

We really, REALLY need to move. My extended family seems to be migrating toward North Carolina and I would SO love to go too, but after 4 years of jobs he hates, my DH finally found a job he loves and that is perfect for him. There's no way I could convince him to move now

I'm speechless...

[livinzoo]

Well I make $28,000. But after taxes and gasoline I only bring home $1300 a month. And I have a $1000 morgage. Good thing I have a roommate.

[TiredX2]

Wow, that was both depressing and enlightening.

We make "a lot" of $. (well, what sounds like a lot) But not close to the median for our area. And the numbers reported are for 6 years ago, I recently saw numbers that were a bit higher.

[box_of_rain]

We live on my partner's income for the most part - around 28k/year, before our monthly mortgage of $1000, taxes, insurance (and we can only afford insurance for the kiddos), car payments on the old cars, credit card debt from when I wasn't working at all right after DS's birth, etc.

I work some evenings and most weekends at our local library, and at a home office locally during the week (so I can bring baby), but my total income amounts to maybe 100-150/week.

We are 2 adults, a school-ager and a baby and we struggle. I did work full time until baby was born last summer, so losing my 20k/year was quite a blow to us. We just try to find small ways of making every penny count. We garden, don't go out to eat ever, try not to drive more than we have to (and we have to a lot, as we are too rural for public transport.), clip coupons, no air conditioner, etc. It all adds up.

I must say, though, that I never feel poor, even though we technically fall at the poverty level for our area. We have a small, cozy home, enough to eat, and a big back yard with woods and a brook for the kiddos to play in. We have green grass and clean air.

I am very content (that's not to say I don't stress about the bills sometimes, though!)

[Llyra]

The median income for married-couple families where I live is $95,00+. Eeek. I knew I was poor, but I had no idea I was THAT poor. We make less than half of that. (In NJ, probably one of the most expensive states.)

[wildmonkeys]

Thanks for the link Skeuppers! Very interesting! I live right next door to you in Howard County, Maryland and our median income is within a couple of dollars of Montg. County and the mean income is $101,000 : Crazy!

BJ
Barney & Ben

[McFeelings]

We are right at the median for our area (albeit those were 1999 dollars so we may be slightly below it now). Thanks for the link. It really helps me to be grateful for what we have. It is so easy in suburbia to get caught up with keeping up with the Jonses...even when you are NFL.

[cchrissyy]

I'm not going to post the present, good situation, but until this time last year we were doing the student family thing, so we lived on about 1000-1500 a month in income plus 500 a month of student loans. and it was fine, even in northern CA, but we were very lucky/frugal/unusual.