Living on Minimum Wage

I often like to do my own research on subjects when I have time. I decided to look up the minimum wage and then adjust it for inflation. You can see the 2019 adjustment that I made next to the actual minimum wage for that year. This information was not easy to find online so I had to do all my own inflation adjustments!

Some thoughts I had as I read this is that when these wages were given, most families were one income earners. Most families now are earning two wages or one and a half. If it is a single person, they have the ability to rent a room etc. I am not going to say that living on minimum wage is easy but I just read a write up by a woman (I don't have permission to share the whole write up as she just wrote it in a forum) who is married with 7 children. Her husband makes slightly more than minimum wage if they both worked but they are still low enough income to qualify for SSI for disability for a handicapped child and their kids qualify for Medicaid.

They live in a house in NC that cost $115,000. They moved there after doing research on jobs and housing costs. They pay $400.00 a month for health insurance. They bought their cars with cash.

The first 2 years their child with disabilities was born, they got 80K in debt. Sometimes, they eat beans and rice because it is so inexpensive. She says things have to be "well budgeted" but that living on two minimum wage salaries for her family of nine is "completely doable". She spends about $500 a month on food. She says "read The Millionaire Next Door" (A book I also recommend!). I like her spirit and agree with her philosophy.

Redone Living Room for $426!!

I was so tired of my old dated living room. I wanted to update everything into a more contemporary look. This old couch I purchased in like new condition about 8 or 9 years ago used for $100.00. I have cleaned it a number of times but the stains were no longer coming out as well and I was just tired of the floral/cranberry. 

 I looked for months for the right living room set. I wanted a used set, brown, comfortable, smoke free, like new, preferably with recliners on at least the couch and a set that was reasonably good quality and fairly priced for used furniture. I went to a new furniture store to look around and was shocked at the thin fabric on the couches and knew I wanted something that was better quality than that and I sure wasn't willing to pay new prices for that thin fabric! 

 This glider was on the other side of the room. It is the most comfortable chair you could ever hope for. I got it for $5.00 or $10.00 at a garage sale, but it too needed to go. I am giving it away (already claimed!) where it's comfortable seat will still be put to good use!

When I saw this set on the Marketplace on Facebook, we had a family reunion that day and I almost didn't call on it but ended up calling anyway. The lady said it was spoken for, if the woman could find a trailer. I said "I have a trailer hooked up and ready to go right now!" And so she said first come, first served! Here is the couch!

Isn't it beautiful? I got the set for $325.00 The couch has recliners! (The love seat doesn't.)  I knew the colors I wanted for the pillows and accents. The rocking chair I got at a garage sale a few years ago for $10.00. The window mirror I got at a garage sale this year for $5.00. Also the antlers for $3.00 and the square aqua design for $2.00. I found some aqua pillows at Goodwill for $3.99 each and had a hunch that they had more at Wal-Mart and I was right! I got matching pillows for the love seat for full price at Wal-mart, about $15.00. Lastly, I splurged on the rug to bring it all together. I paid $70.00 for it at Wal Mart. 

Here is a better view with the couch and love seat. So, I re-did the whole living room for about $426.00 and a fair amount of patience. I am so please with how it looks! 

Summer Garage Sale Finds! Pay Yourself $$ Per Hour!!

I've been busy doing summer projects and working on some garage sale finds. I found this cast iron/wooden bench at a garage sale for $10.00. Exciting! 

 It needed a coat of paint and I found this older can of paint I had in the basement. It was barn red like the bench was originally. However, veering from my usual path of using whatever was available, I decided to buy some blue paint for this project. I also decided to repaint the cast iron because there was a little bit of rust in spots. Here is the can of paint I rejected and some free painting materials I got from Menards. The paint cost me about $17.00 for both the quart of blue and one spray can of brown metallic.

I found this cast iron stand at a garage sale for $2.00. I decided to paint it matching colors.

 
It was a pretty intensive project and took me a number of hours. I needed to put a few coats on the old, dry wood. The whole bench needed to be taken apart to paint it too.

 A $10.00 bench and a $2.00 stand and $17.00 worth of paint and some elbow grease and here is the end result! I am so pleased! 

I had some paint left over and during the drying times, I moved onto some other projects. I don't have a "before" photo of this but it is a plant stand and I paid $1.00 for it last year at a garage sale. It was gray and rusty.

Here is the end result, matching my bench and stand! 

I bought this fountain at a garage sale last week for $5.00. I thought for sure it wouldn't work but it does! It has a solar panel that makes it run. The woman said she paid $70.00 for it last year. I'm glad

 I took a risk!

I bought this bench at a garage sale a couple years ago for $10.00. It needed a fresh coat of paint now so I decided to paint it blue like the other one.

 Here it is in front of my garden. I love to sit on it between weeding rows!

I bought this glider at a garage sale a few years ago for $5.00. I am going to buy another can of spray paint and paint this brown to match the rest of the outdoor furniture.

Altogether I have a cast iron garden bench: $10.00. A cast iron stand: $2.00. A garden bench: $10.00. A plant stand: $1.00. A fountain: $5.00 and a glider: $5.00. Total $33.00. Add paint: $10.00 quart of blue. $7.00 spray paint and $7.00 for another can for the glider. Call it $25.00 with tax. $58.00 for all the outdoor garden furniture shown here plus quite a bit of elbow grease! I have about 8 hours in to painting and call it 8 hours of garage saling. If the items as they are listed above cost, say, $75.00, $25.00, $12.00, $70.00, $39.00 and $79.00 new, that is a total of $300.00. Granted, the items are not new, so, lets call it $200.00 altogether for the items. Working 18 hours on the project, I was paid $12.50 an hour (or $18.75 an hour if we called it $300.00). Pretty good pay!

Happy Savings! ~

Shop for Best Medical Prices and Insurance!

I find exorbitant medical costs to be a particularly disturbing thing, especially when it's difficult to price check, comparison shop and that the government wants to cover everyone all at the same time. This looks to me like a recipe for disaster for a number of reasons. 

Thankfully, there are other people who are also disturbed by the lack of being able to price check, and they have put together a couple of websites where you can do some price checking and comparison shopping. I have not used these extensively myself but I wanted to pass them on because I think we should all be empowered to compare medical costs!

These websites offer the chance to learn about medical pricing and can give you the opportunity to "shop" for services.

healthcarebluebook.com

hospitalcostcompare.com

Remember too that stand alone clinics like a medical imaging center can be far less expensive than hospitals. When patients are not allowed to shop or even question prices, hospitals have no reason to keep prices low. We should all expect that we have the right to know prices and comparison shop.

There is also something people are now doing called medical tourism. Again, I can't personally speak to this, as I have not done it, but there are many resources out there by people who have done it with success. Medical tourism sounds scary but some assure us that it is not scary if you do your research first.

Here are a couple of books and there are many more out there!

https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Tourism-Travel-Guide-Top-Quality/dp/1934716006

https://www.alibris.com/Patients-Beyond-Borders-Everybodys-Guide-to-Affordable-World-Class-Medical-Travel-Josef-Woodman/book/28905363

Here is a group called the Medical Tourism Association:

http://www.medicaltourismassociation.com

There are also medical sharing groups that people can join instead of using regular insurance. Here are a couple of those groups:

http://www.chministries.org/

https://www.libertyhealthshare.org/

There are other groups online that you can find. They all have their own rules and guidelines.

Together, when we make it known that we care what is being offered to us and that we will comparison shop and expect good and decent prices, we can make a difference and expect the medical community to compete for our business just like any other business.

Happy Savings! ~

Scratch and Dent Gluten Free Haul!

I am very thrilled with this scratch and dent mostly gluten free haul my husband and I came upon the other day. We were in Amish country and happened upon a little scratch and dent store. I went gluten free last year and gluten free items are very pricey. This is just some of what I got. 

Look at these prices! 

Croutons for .35!

GF flour for $1.25 a bag!

Chocolate wafers for .50!

GF Vanilla Creme Cake for .85!

Breakfast Bars for $1.00!

Cereal for $1.00!

And on and on!

I wish I lived closer to this store! I hope to be in that area a couple of times a year to stock up. Some of their items are out of date but many are just dented boxes etc. I will be in stock for quite a while!

If you have an Amish or Mennonite area close to you, it pays to check out their bulk food store where things are usually less than store prices and their scratch and dent places are often pennies on the dollar. 

Happy Savings!

Change Your Think into a Thunk: Stop Giving Your Money to the Rich-Part 2

Yesterday kind of got me on a roll so I decided to make another installment on this topic. Yesterday I demonstrated how most people willingly give their money to the rich every day through interest payments by choosing to buy an everyday coffee or other somewhat frivolous item rather than paying down their debt. In doing so, they are voluntarily giving their money to the rich in interest payments every month rather than choosing to pay down debt. Not only does this make that coffee cost that much more but the money goes to the rich.

But there is another whole aspect to this which is the use of credit cards. I am not talking about credit card debt this time. I am talking about the tiny percentage that goes to the rich every single time you use your credit card. That’s right! Even if you have a 0% interest card and pay it off at the end of every month, the simple fact that Americans use credit cards takes thousands and thousands of dollars out of our communities and puts that money into the hands of the rich every single day.

Here’s how it works. Businesses know that customers want to use credit cards for convenience. This means that businesses pay the credit card companies processing fees and costs. Depending on the credit card company, the cost for processing will be about 1.95%-2.50%. According to instoredoes.com “Although all credit card processors are subject to the same interchange and assessment rates for their issuing bank, the merchant services provider you select can change your costs by thousands each year. On average, however, credit card transaction fees on a $100 charge would amount to between$2.50 and $3.” This is from a 2013 article. http://instoredoes.com/making-cents-of-credit-card-processing-fees/ Credit card processing fees can be very complicated so it’s hard to know actual costs. However, because of the high demand for credit card use among consumers, businesses know that their sales will go up if they take credit cards even though they have to pay these fees to do so but what it means is that thousands and thousands of dollars leave every single community in the Unites States every single day by the choices everyone makes. Even though these fees seem invisible to the consumer, prices rise on everything because of them and so consumers end up paying the costs even though they are not seen. 

Many people complain about the shrinking middle class and so much money going into the pockets of the rich. Especially those who complain about and are concerned about the shrinking middle class should consider controlling what we can control.

Now I am going to be honest. I do use credit cards and I use them to my advantage. Credit card companies pay me to use their credit cards. Why? Because we either pay 0% or pay the cards off at the end of every month. Still, credit card companies want us to use their cards even though they give us rewards like airline miles and cash back. Why would they do this? Because of transaction fees they get from the businesses. However, sometimes I pay in cash because I know that this money goes out of our communities and I just hate that. If we all started paying more often in cash, we would keep a lot more money in our communities.

Have you ever read articles about how only criminals need cash? Boy would credit card companies love for us all to think that! If we all used cash everywhere, it would cause a revolution. A real revolution! We would have thousands more dollars to invest in our communities every single month.

So, my opinion is this: If you want to support your communities pay off consumer debt, car loans and student loans before you support your community by buying from them. After that, you will have much more money to support your communities with. And, when you buy, don’t use credit cards as often or maybe not at all. (There are no hard and fast rules to this-we each need to tailor make how we apply these principles and there is no judgment here!)

But we have so much more power than we think. We are not powerless. We can make a difference.

Stop giving your money to the rich!

Happy Savings!

Change Your Think into a Thunk: Stop Giving Your Money to the Rich!

 We hear a lot these days about the rich and how horrible they are and how they get all the breaks. But today, I want to let you in on a little secret. Most Americans voluntarily give their money to the rich every day. “What???” You might say? “No way! People do not voluntarily give their money to the rich! People struggle! People suffer financially! They don’t choose to do this!” To this I say “Yeah way. Every. Single. Day. People line up and voluntarily give their money to the richest among us.”

“How can this be?” you might ask. First, let me tell you a little about myself. My husband and I got married very young, had a baby right away, had no college educations (still don’t-although I am working to change that) and were dirt poor. We did not rely on our parents to help us out and it was tough. Over thirty years later, after many bumps in the road (lost jobs, cancer etc.), we own a thriving business and are doing well. If we had listened to the people who claimed we were victims of circumstance, with no hope, we never could have gotten to where we are now. Through hard work, smarts, force of will and the blessings of God, we have what we have now.

It is true that you can’t control everything and sometimes things are beyond your control. But there are things you can control and that is what I want to talk about now. What you can control is this: Stop feeling like a victim and stop giving your money to the rich.

Step one: Stop throwing your money away on things that are not necessary. Let’s pretend that you don’t spend $5.00 (Starbucks) a day on coffee but just $1.00 a day. You might even think you are being frugal! That $1.00 cup of coffee you get from the convenience store every morning is unnecessary. ($30.00 a month! Brew your own at home!) That $5.00 lunch you get 6 times a month is unnecessary. ($30.00 a month! Pack it from home) Whatever and wherever you spend money on unnecessary things, figure it out and change your routine. Then comes step two.

Step two: So, let’s say you didn’t buy that coffee or that lunch this month. You just saved $60.00 a month! Now, let’s say you have a credit card balance. 

According to Money “On average, an American between the ages of 18 and 65 has $4,717 of credit card debt. According to CreditCards.com, the average credit card’s interest rate is 15%. At the minimum payment of $189, it’ll take 10 years and a month to pay off that $4,717. The total payments would amount to $22,869. That’s a $18,155 cost for a very small loan.” http://time.com/money/4213757/average-american-credit-card-debt/This is talking about the average American. That is a singular person, not a family. According to CNN, the average American family owes $8377 in credit card debt alone. So, if you as a single person, had a credit card debt of $4717 at 15% interest rate and paid the minimum every month, you would pay an extra $18,155 for the privilege of having that debt. This is how millions of Americans give money to the rich every single day. By choice! “But it’s not a choice!” you say! And I say “It is a choice when you continue to buy that $1.00 coffee every day instead of brewing your own. Instead, you could be paying off that debt ahead of schedule and it is very important that you do not charge anything else!”

Americans give money to the rich every day with interest on house payments, car payments, student loan payments, credit card debt etc. etc. Admittedly *some* of that is necessary. But Americans give money away like floats throw candy away at parades and then complain about the rich having all the money.

The way to get ahead is to change your think into a thunk. Instead of *thinking* the way most Americans do, say “I thunk that”. Past tense.

Americans are rich beyond measure. We are rich beyond many societies of the past and present. Our problem is less one of not having enough than managing it well. Yes, there are some who truly struggle. I know. I did too. But giving your money to the rich is not a way to win this game. Once you tighten your belt and learn to stop giving your money away and get your debt paid down, you will see how fast it can grow. Then….

Step three: Once you stop giving your money away to the rich, you can invest your expendable income and your money can grow!

I hope with the new tax bill breaks coming up that people will not give their extra money to the rich and instead invest it into themselves. I hope instead of taking that extra vacation, buying those extra clothes, buying that TV etc. that Americans will instead to choose to get rid of debt and make wise choices for themselves.

Change your think into a thunk and stop giving to the rich!

Happy Savings!