You think you could live on $250 a week?

I do. And I have what is supposed to be a good "union job." I work as a school bus driver.

Yet, over the last few years, every year it seems I bring home less money than I did the year before, even though I as supposed to be getting raises.

Every year my health insurance premiums go up.

Every year, I do receive raises, but for the last two, they have been like 2 percent.

I have 10 percent taken out of my paycheck immediately for retirement, which is nice, but is also a hardship because of all of the other factors that take money out (child support).

Every year, even though I am working more hours, and supposedly making more money, I have actually brought home LESS money. My raises don't keep up with inflation, and insurance premiums and all the rest.

At the end of a 40-hour work week (it's actually been cut down to 35 this year), I bring home less than $250. As well, my work place has been fanatical about cutting any extra hours.

Think you could live on that? I do, although I have to resort to riding a bicycle almost everywhere, eating peanut butter and jelly, and living in a ghetto apartment with way too many idiots, prostitutes and crackheads nearby for my liking.

Although I must add that I am also going to school full-time to hopefully pull myself out of this financial conundrum, its really not right that someone who works this hard has to live so meagerly. I am just about at the breaking point.

Yeah, the Bush year's have been just grand.

That's my point I suppose.

I am really starting to see the logic of those who just milk the system for every drop it's got to give them, and sit on their ass all day long.

Why work your ass off, if at the end of the day you just end up broke?

Women have been living like that for YEARS!!!

The OP didn't state their age or what kind of work they're doing.

Maybe the OP needs to increase the amount of deductions they're claiming on their W4 ?

Over the last 6 months I've made less than 1000/month. This week was the first time in 2 months I made more than 200. And there's still undecided voters out there?

...now I'm gonna go back and read your post.

Education is the key to success and the pathway out of poverty. Keep up what you are doing. Things will get better.

FYI my well-educated coworkers are being laid off in droves now

I've worked as a journalist - made less.

Worked in the advertising biz: made more but hated it, and most of the people involved.

I really enjoy what I do, and feel good about doing it.

Sad thing is in so much of America, it doesn't matter what you've done, or how smart you are. It's about pieces of paper is so many instances.

But there needs to be more payoff for those of us who make society work day in, and day out. Either that, or prices need to get A LOT cheaper.

Wall Street firms are taking home $70 million of the $700 million bail-out. And you are earning $250 per week. What's wrong with that picture? A lot.

hang in ther dave and stick with us

I'm making an OK living now but I work in a place where they have been regularly laying people off - it's just plain nerve-wracking and no way to live

Could I survive on $250 a week? If I had only myself to take care of, maybe. But not with a family, it would be impossible.

Every time I hear the GOPropaganda Party talk about taxes, I always wonder who really benefits - us or the upper one percent?

you out.. It would cut the cost of living if you share... You could rent a decent house with 2 or 3 persons.. It cuts the electric, cable, water-sewer, trash.. etc. down... plus you can usually find a safer neighborhood.. since you pay child support.

Its the old college way, but it would help you save while attending college..

For instance, monopolizing the kitchen and forcing you to eat out. I would not recommend moving in with someone unless you know them VERY well.

You could kick them out....but you still need their share of the rent.

I got rid of the cable. And I don't miss it either. I get music from the library, and read.

Right now I'm typing from a guest computer station with Internet access at the University of Dayton.

Tonight I came home to a fight going on (a physical one) on the steps going up to my apartment.

"spread the wealth around" like it's a bad thing-I suspect most Americans want the wealth spread around a little more

Single Mom here. Two pre teen girls ( yay me.. :-( ) Mortgage.. car loan, utilities,water bill, snow plowing coming up, dead beat dad and no child support. No way no how.. I'd have to lose a lot of stuff in order to live on that and probably live in a small apartment in the sticks.

I used to make almost that delivering pizza in tips alone.

Driving a school bus is a huge responsibility. Imagine how parents would feel if thay all had to manage the transportation of their kids to and from school! Nobody's asking to get rich here, just a decent living would be nice.

first, you can't have friends on a school bus. You MUST be in charge. And yes, it can be very nervewracking. I transport urban kids in an urban environment in one of the top 20 roughest cities in America.

Secondly, people treat you like an idiot because of your profession (forget the fact that I'm also an accomplished artist and songwriter that Robert Christgau wrote up last summer for his Consumer Guide - yes the senior editor of Blender Magazine). I could be a nuclear scientist on the side, but people would still treat me like an idiot because I drove a bus.

I'm an exotic dancer and deal with that every day. People are AMAZED when they talk to you and find out you aren't stupid, drunk, on drugs and don't have a pimp of a boyfriend that beats you up. They even think they're being flattering when they say how amazed they are that you aren't any of those things and actually have a brain in your head. Their stupidity is galling. It's even worse when after they figure out you aren't an imbecile they ask "well, then why are you doing this for a living?" DUH! Why do you THINK doofus??? Damn, and they think WE'RE the ones who are idiots??? Crazy.

Honey, I really feel for you. I used to be in the same boat. Worked 60+ hours a week as a "professional", had tons of responsibility, 10+ years of experience and absolutely could not make fucking ends meet. And I'm single with no kids... I can't even imagine how impossible it would have been if I had any dependents. And that was during the Clinton years! At least when I was in your position there was still cheap gas, cheap food, more job security, cheaper housing, cheaper utilities, etc., etc. Had I had to try living that way during the Bush years? Pfffftttt... I wouldn't have lasted a month.

Pilots get paid good because of their huge responsibility. You would think a bus driver should make more than 250/week.

That wouldn't even cover my rent. Not even close, and I don't live in a palace by any means. But that's Los Angeles for ya.

and thank you for posting!

I live alone with pets, so I guess thats okay.

but I would like to be able to take my kids out to eat, maybe once in awhile.

Right now it's home cooking, all the time.

This summer, when school was out, I washed all my clothes by hand, and ate nothing I didn't grow myself.

i couldnt have imagined having my kids and getting by on that. i dry my clothes on a line in the basement. no tv,never go out. sending you hugs and love.

After a $620 mortgage, I'm screwed. But grad school ends eventually!

I was poor growing up, poor when my kids were growing up, thought I should go back to school to make money to send the kids to college, graduated with student loans(at 43yo), husband got sick and died, lots of medical debt, student loans got bigger, couldn't find work(50+ is not in demand), forced to take a job traveling 99% of time(for health insurance-damn the people that fight against single payer system!), away from kids, student loans grow, now make a little more than $250/week but.... I was much happier when I was really poor. I miss my kids!

We all have so many stories, happy and not so happy. I spent a year in Seminary while my husband was dying. This is know with all my heart: Jesus said only one thing, "Life is a bitch and we have to help each other out."

WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR!

Too much is no good at all, because then you lose touch with reality and start thinking of luxuries as "necessities".

I'd like to do little things, like go to the movies every once in awhile.

But everything is TOTALLY overpriced, as well as having been moved to the suburbs, harder to get to.

I own an old Ford van, and only use it when I have to. To get to work I bicycle, ride an electric scooter, or car pool when it gets really cold or is raining.

I once read a quote in "Small Farmers Journal"

"The problem with our beloved Country is that our necessities have become too luxurious and our luxuries too necessary."

the math doesn't work out.

I don't know how people do it out there.

My place is $420 a month, luckily, with heat included.

Ideally though, I would like to be spending about 1/4 of my income in living expenses.

Then I would be able to save some dough.

Bedrooms rent for $500 to $800.

if you look on craigslist....not much less tho.

My rent is $1100 a month and that's cheap here (outside Philly). And I live in a dump.

That's the official inflation reporting. The inflation that you are seeing on the street is probably closer to 10 percent if you removed the bullshit from the inflation accounting methodology.

I am actually bringing home less.

That's before I have to even worry about consumer prices rising.

Every YEAR, I have taken a pay cut for like, five years now with the rate of inflation as opposed to the rate of inflation.

If I were working a minimum wage job, I would probably have to sell crack, or prostitute my crack to get by.

They do not have an extensive list, but it took me a year or two to see all the films that interested me. Good way to catch up on what you've missed over the years or to re-see those that you've liked.

I live on the outskirts of civilization and use a library in a 12,000+ town. I suspect your location would be far more rewarding.

I would recommend to all underemployed DUers: Oregon has been ramping up on Green Energy jobs ... MANY openings in Wind Energy in the Columbia River Gorge, and a brand new Solarworld Solar Cell fabrication plant just opening in Hillsboro ...

Combine this with living in one of the great American cities (Portland), and you can find life improving, at least a little bit ...

Did I mention that Portland is the craft beer capital of the world ?

IF you search my posts for these last 12 months, you will find my rants about wages just about everywhere .... Wages MUST increase ...

We dont need more credit .... The only stimulus we need is GOOD PAY, and the economy will resolve by itself ....

my shitty pay ensures that I do everything I can NOT to spend money in this economy.

I am an expert on where you can get free food samples.

I know which soup ktichens to eat at that don't do income or employment checks. I'm going in today for the free 4 p.m. fried chicken dinner at Kingdom of Jebus Ministries (not really the name), but you get my drift.

If the healt insurance premiums alone would go away, much would be better.

I'm almost going to break as well.

200 euro a month, plus about 25 more from overtime. Without my wife's salary I would be ok but would not be able to have a car and would live in a studio apartment. I have national heath insurance too so that helps. I imagine in the USA 250 dollars is not a lot. It has to be rough for you.

But that was a long time ago and it was less expensive to live. But I couldn't do it now. I work full-time plus collect $1,300 a month in social security. I can't afford to retire because I could not survive on just social security. So I'll just have to work until I die. I have a few thousand in a 401K but not enough to last for the rest of my life.

I think that a lot of it depends on where you live. I bought my house 20 years ago, and I have taken out a little equity on it to pay off credit card bills from being unemployed, but the mortgage balance is still less than I could sell it for. But food and energy costs have gone up so much, it is straining almost everybody's budget.

Hang in there, Dave! :hug:

It's a hard job that takes skill.

I believe the financial crisis is the result of years and years of wages like yours being depressed, and millions of people living on the edge because of it.

because the OP is talking about $250 a week take-home pay after 10% is deducted for retirement, after 7.65% is taken out for FICA, after state, federal, and city taxes have been taken out and after child-support has been taken out, and after insurance premiums have been taken out. That stuff knocks my pay down from $300 a week to $199 a week, and I only have 4% taken out for retirement and nothing for child support (and very little for Federal taxes).

It has always been the case that one of the keys to prosperity is getting married and staying married. That way expenses are shared

why should we be punished for that?

my gross income is $270 for an average week (sometimes I get more than 20 hours). It's easier to do so when you have a house that's paid for. Even when I had house payments, they were only $215 a month.

Yes, health insurance costs have gone way up over the last six years I have had this job.

But,

My house is paid for.

My car is paid for.

I have no charge cards.

I have no student loans, nor any other loans.

I basically pay for food, utilities, taxes, insurance, and gas.

So, technically I could get by on 250/take home/week.

And Other Ways the Republicans Will Try To Steal the Election,

The Great Depression II will be put on hold through a surprising, if temporary, stock market recovery, just in time for Election Day. Unbeknownst to most, the market can be jiggered through big player collusion. All that’s necessary is lots of money, readily available to the Republican run investment banks from the 700 billion dollar bailout and their no interest Federal Reserve loans. Also part of this effort are the deceptive encouragements and stimulus programs coming from the Republican White House stooges, Paulson and Bernanke. These stratagems to steal the election have been in the planning since the beginning of the Republican campaign along with various forms of bogus ballot disqualifications, well polished from their successful use by the conservatives in Florida and Ohio in the last two elections. To truly understand the depths of their skullduggery requires that you be a conservative, though if you are, you certainly don’t open your mouth to outsiders. I get around this problem by being the renegade daughter of a conservative minister and, back 35 years ago, the wife of a conservative missionary…

Ruth Calabria
http://www.matrix-evolutions.com

It's hard for the PPT to hide now. It's amazing what they've had to do to keep things from completely falling apart.

but that's my fault for living in a high-cost location, I guess.


edited to add: I've lived on a lot less than that, as far as take-home pay, but I lived in a series of totally fucked up group houses, occaisionally without such luxuries as heat and hot water, I had no dependents, and it was like ten years ago, so the cost of living was much less. Like, my $200 a week or so was just fine to cover my $350/month rent on my room, all the food I could want, and plenty of beer and whatnot on top of it all. It would be like $500/week now. I still couldn't even live on that at this point, with a dependent and the higher rent and cost of everything....

Perhaps your local needs some new leadership.

and we get the same raises as the teachers union gets.

Did you know that the minimum wage in Norway is equivalent to USD 20$/hour? The other Scandinavian countries are up there, as well. I have no idea why people in the States have such animosity towards the concept of a "welfare state"-- it seems to me that the Far North model is about the most humane one in the whole world and should be adopted as much as possible .

If you are a school bus driver, then you are responsible for dozens of children every day. You're responsible for getting them to and from school safely, through traffic. You're responsible for making sure that they behave fairly well while on the bus and don't beat one another up or worse. You probably have to be at work very early in the morning. After your morning route, you probably have a lot of maintenance and cleaning to do, in conditions that are not necessarily air-conditioned or heated. Then you have to do the afternoon run.

I salute you and the millions of other Americans who go to work every day, do a good job, and contribute to our society. And you know what? I think that you ought to have guaranteed health care that is just as good as everybody else's in this country. I think that you ought to have a couple of weeks of guaranteed vacation each year. I think that you ought to be able to count on retiring with a liveable income. I don't think anyone should have to live with prostitutes and drug dealers. And I think that there ought to be reliable public transportation to take you to and from your job.

As a mother of two boys who take the bus to and from school, I can't imagine a more important job than yours, unless it's the other important jobs that get paid so little in our country - the teachers and fire fighters and police and ambulance drivers and nurses and primary care doctors and...

Meanwhile, hedge fund managers make a billion dollars a year, literally. And they never have to see a child much less take care of one during their work day.

at least there's some psychological support out there.

I forgot to mention I go to school full-time too.

peace and chicken grease,

david

So, yes. But with sleepless nights.

:(