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friendofgunnar
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posted July 30, 2010 01:51 PM |
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Quote:
$480 per month is an apartment in a nice suburb
I supercurious about this land of yours where you can make $30 an hour mowing lawns and yet only pay $480 a month for an apartment.
Here's some numbers
Rent:
$450 will get you a room in a crap house that you have to share with 5 other people, none of whom will wash the dishes
$550 will get you a room in house with 3 other people. You still have to share the kitchen and bathroom.
$650 will get you a stinky one room crap apartment in a huge housing block, 70% of whom will be smokers.
$750 will get you crap apartment in a medium sized apartment house. Chances are one hundred percent that one of your neighbors will be annoying enough such that you want to murder them.
$850 will get you a livable one bedroom where the hot water won't suddenly cut out on you.
$950 If you're going to spend twenty years hoarding money I wouldn't try anything less than this level.
Groceries:
$175 a month if you shop at the local super and are not worried about food preservatives damaging your brain.
$275 a month if you spend half your money at an organic shop and eat out once a month.
$400 if you go all-organic and eat out twice a month.
Transportation:
$70 bus pass
So
Hardcore: $8340 a year
Comfortable: $17040 a year.
According to this page minimum wage averages about $7.50 an hour. There's no federal tax at that level, so you end up with $6.50 an hour after all the other little taxes have been taken out.
Summary:
Hardcore: $8340
40 hours a week minimum wage: $13520
Comfortable: $17040
Were not done yet though. Things have changed a lot since I was living hard core.
Health Insurance:
$175 a month - this is the catastrophic level. There's basically two levels.
a) you pay the first 25,000 and they pay the rest
b) you pay the first 10,000 and they'll pay half of everything after that.
basically useless.
$300 a month - you pay the first $7500, they'll pay the rest.
I guess that's better than nothing!
$450 a month- they'll pay 80% of everything
Now that's a premium deal!
So at mininum wage, this is how much of your wage will be eaten by health insurance:
Basically useless level: 15%
Better than nothing: 26%
Primo: 39%
And this is how much you can save each year by working minimum wage, by living hard core, by buying catastrophic health insurance, and also never getting sick.
$3080
You can find similar projections when you do the calculations for families. If you're trying to support a wife and two kids.
Rent: $1000 to $1600
Food: $400 to $700
Transportation: $140
Family hardcore: 18,480
Family comfortable: 29,280
at $15 an hour about 15% will be taken out, leaving 26,520.
Summary:
Family hardcore: 18,480
40 hours a week at $15 wage: $26,520
Family comfortable: 29,280
So this is how much you can save by working full time at $15, by living hard core, by buying mediocre health insurance for your entire family, and also nobody ever getting sick.
minus $5342
The alternative to not having health inurance is even worse. Some anecdotes:
One co-worker's kid broke a shoulder bone in a football game and went to the emergency ward.
$6000
Another co-worker has to take these anti-arthritis pills that cost $80 each
My wife goes into surgery, spends a total of 3.5 hours at the facility, and the total comes to $10,000. My health insurance still leaves me on the hook for $2000.
If you call an ambulance and get taken to an emergency ward for any reason whatsoever you can expect an absolute minimum bill of $3000.
It gets better though. My company's been downsizing and a lot of people have been getting laid off. I gave some of my hours so that some of my co-workers who had kids could keep their health insurance. That means I barely missed the cut-off for the full time health insurance qualifier, which means in two days my health insurance is coming to an end. Under COBRA if I want to continue paying for health insurance for both me and my wife I would need to pay $920 out of my own pocket each month. That's 57% of my after-tax income. WTF.
In the 20 years between the time I was living hard core and now, health insurance has gone from exorbitant to extortionate. It's worse than the mafia. They'll cure what ails you and then they'll own you for the rest of your life. My mom does volunteer work with homeless people, some of whom were dispossessed of their homes due to medical bills. Is that the American dream? You work hard all your life, scrimp and save, and then after some bad luck you're back to zero again?
Up until the health insurance part I would have agreed with the capitalists' endorsement of the American economic system. Right now I feel like a serf. :-\
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dimis
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posted July 30, 2010 06:32 PM |
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From the bottoms of my heart, thank you FriendOfGunnar.
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The empty set
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angelito
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posted July 30, 2010 07:35 PM |
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Finally someone who showed us non-americans life is quite normal over there 
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Vlaad
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ghost of the past
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posted July 30, 2010 07:45 PM |
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Don't listen to Bin, he hasn't even bought H5 yet.
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mvassilev
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posted July 30, 2010 10:33 PM |
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FOG:
That highly depends on where you live. When my family first moved to the US, we rented a house - a quite decent house - for $500 a month. My grandparents' apartment was about $250 a month, and quite comfortable for two people to live in.
Also $175 on food for one person is definitely an exaggeration. My family, while I'm living here at home, probably spends $300 a month on food - and this is a family of five.
As for health insurance, the reason it's so high is because of government intervention. And even so - $300 a month with a $7500 deductible? I looked up how much "you pay the first $7500, they'll pay the rest" would be with my health insurance company - $61.43 a month.
So your calculations are quite off.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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posted July 30, 2010 10:59 PM |
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Come on, FOG, tell him that helath insurance is age dependant and that 300 $ for food for 5 persons means that's 2 $ per day and person which probably explains a lot, but 60$ per month for a person sounds ridiculous - except, if you have a garden with fruit and vegetables or something like that-
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mvassilev
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posted July 30, 2010 11:17 PM |
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If you're older, you probably have more work experience too, so you're making more money. 
And I checked it for a 40-year old guy - it rises, but only to $92.36. Still far from your $300, FOG.
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Eccentric Opinion
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blizzardboy
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posted July 30, 2010 11:45 PM |
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Tulsa Apartments
I just picked out a random city in the midwest, which is where Mvass is from. The cost of living is low.
Assuming for a family of 5 you'd be buying stuff in bulk, ~$60 per person seems cheap but not unbelievable. At any rate, you could very easily do $450 a month on groceries.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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dimis
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posted July 30, 2010 11:47 PM |
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Edited by dimis at 23:47, 30 Jul 2010.
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Yes. Is electricity for preparing the food included ?
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blizzardboy
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posted July 30, 2010 11:49 PM |
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Utilities generally aren't included, but if Mvass is from a town instead of a city like Tulsa, the rent would be even cheaper than that page.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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dimis
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posted July 30, 2010 11:51 PM |
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Edited by dimis at 23:52, 30 Jul 2010.
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I meant in the 300 dollar bill for the food of five.
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blizzardboy
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posted July 30, 2010 11:52 PM |
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Of course not.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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dimis
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posted July 30, 2010 11:57 PM |
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Ok. Now it is clear.
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Vlaad
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posted July 31, 2010 12:28 AM |
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Oh c'mon, what's clear - 2 bucks per day per person? Haha.
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dimis
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posted July 31, 2010 12:31 AM |
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Whoops!
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Binabik
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posted July 31, 2010 12:32 AM |
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I haven't looked for probably 10 years, but I'm pretty sure Oklahoma has lower housing costs than Ohio. If I recall it's one of the cheapest states in the country.
Around $450 per month would be the price of a lower end apartment in my suburb, which is one of the nicest suburbs. In this suburb lower end basically means that it's an older apartment without the fancy amenities like a built in dishwasher and swimming pool. It might also have younger residents who tend to be noisier. It would still be well maintained and clean in a good neighborhood.
As for food, I have no idea what I spend on food. I also eat out a lot, like 2-7 times per week, sometimes more.
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dimis
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posted July 31, 2010 12:37 AM |
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I knew about problems called a-ha (3rd post for description). Apparently, there are also ha-ha problems.
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mvassilev
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posted July 31, 2010 12:42 AM |
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Quote:
Oh c'mon, what's clear - 2 bucks per day per person? Haha.
That does seem kind of low. But I know that we usually go to the grocery store about twice a month, and spend about $150 each time.
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blizzardboy
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posted July 31, 2010 03:18 AM |
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Mvassilev's family is from the USSR. They graze on the lawn grass. Consequently, they don't have to pay a guy $100/hour to mow their lawn.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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JollyJoker
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posted July 31, 2010 08:27 AM |
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Well, we sure have found one solution for the nurse problem: they must all move to Oklahoma.
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This thread is pages long: 
