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I read a great article the other day that unfortunately I cannot locate again to share. The gist of it was that kid related and health care related costs have gone up tremendously, while costs of technology and other goods have not. I did find this chart on the subject. http://www.mymoneyblog.com/why-inflation-feels-high.html If you are living and working in a high cost area, housing costs has also gone up tremendously during the last decade and in some places taxes as well. I’m not sure I have a point here exactly, but maybe it’s just that kids and health issues can make it more difficult to save money in the extreme ways that have been proposed here. Of course those expenses are totally worth it. Ebay is a great way for parents to abate some of the child care increases while earning money at home.
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Yes, Healthcare, Education, Housing and of course Taxes have gone up. Outside of moving (much easier said then done), there’s not a lot you can do about these expenses. With Kids, they have to come first, so I understand the dilemma.
When I say taxes, I’m not just talking about your once a year income taxes, I’m referring to all the backdoor taxes and fees we pay every day. Property taxes, car registration fees, sales tax and fuel (gasoline taxes) are just a few and there are many.
On the other hand cell phones, cars (even new ones), Many types of insurance and many many consumer goods are areas where we have so many less expensive choices these days.
Life is all about choices.. but all in all it’s pretty good.
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We are in So Cal because we have family here. And yes, it would be MUCH cheaper for us to move but I just refuse to leave my family, especially my parents — I want to be with them as much as possible before we have to say good-bye forever. I would love to save a bunch of money and move to Texas and get out of this concrete jungle but the cost in other ways would be to high for me.
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Oh lord… another Californian in Texas! 😉
Better move to the Hill Country Sigilini, then at least you’ll have another “immigrant” to keep you company. If you’re not born here, it can be difficult to be accepted! Texans are incredibly friendly people, but it’s hard not to feel like an outsider some days.
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Yes choices are fun.
I can stay near the city in my small house/apartment or move to the country and get a bigger house with a couple of out buildings on 5 acres of land for about 1/3 the cost.
In the country there will be less traffic, noise pollution and taxes. I just need to be close to my job.. wait what job..
Choices are fun..
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From my perspective:
Medical Expenses: I totally agree on the hospital charges going up. My regular job has had me looking at people’s medical bills since 1995. I’ve seen hospital emergency room charges go from around $1,000 to over $20,000 for an average after car accident visit. Seriously, get in a car accident with whiplash, go to the hospital and five hours later you owe more than $20k! The medical bills in the last 20 years have gone to crazy town amounts but the insurance coverage amounts have stayed the same. It. Is. So. Crazy!
Housing Costs: Personally, we are stressed with taxes and insurance, especially flood, for housing and how both keep going up so much. We are on the coast in Florida which has a lot to do with it. Looking forward, we just think that these costs alone will make living here into our retirement not possible. We are currently getting ready to put our house on the market. Short term, we might just rent and put our money into something secure or buy a seriously smaller home and buy it outright with no mortgage. Long term, I’m hoping to move out of Florida. I’d like to live within an hour of a city like Denver or Atlanta so my access to scavenging is available but the cost of living is less.
Education: We’ve also been down the private school route and each kid was about $10k per year for middle school! Private high school is about $30k a year around here. That was more than my college tuition. We have the kids back in public schools and for the most part all is well. We also purchased the college pre-paid plans when they were babies and paid them off so hopefully college isn’t going to be too much of an issue for us when they get there.
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I’m in Canada so my healthcare expense is $0, but noticed several things are going up at a crazy rate:
INTERNET – I feel my internet is the same speed as it was 10 years ago, but in my rural location, it has almost tripled in price.
CABLE TV – I kept cutting it down as it kept going up, eventually I was paying $25/month for the same channels I get with an antenna. Cancelled it years ago and just use the antenna and online content.
CELL PHONE DATA – use to be “included” – but now the phone companies have different plans for data. Had to cut them out and just use WIFI. My cell phone bill tripled over the last 10 years.
UTILITIES – Electricity, Gas, and Water bills seem way up to me. I feel they have gone up 4x over the last 10 years.
However, I noticed some things are coming down:
FOOD – coming down in price. Milk, bread, sugar, and fruits seem real cheap to what they use to cost. Meat seems stable except pork has gone down. My grocery bills are a lot less then they use to be.
CLOTHING – fast fashion has made everything cheap. Just look at an old Sears catalogue from the 70’s, and the clothes then were more then they are now – and that isn’t counting inflation.
MUSIC – seems to be free now – just build playlists through YouTube. Haven’t paid for music since the 90s.
Too me, things seem about equal. Also, things like car insurance and mortgage payments are coming down as I age and interest rates stay low.
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Just for grins, I looked up my old apartment in the suburbs of Chicago, and it’s for sale! It was about 600 square feet and is selling for $149,000. My house here in Texas was $149,000 and is 4 times the size on 3/4 acre out in the country. I pay about $100 a month more on my mortgage than I did for rent, due to a recent tax increase. All my other utilities stayed about the same price, even electric. There’s no cable tv out here, (too far out in the country). Tried satellite for awhile, but it wasn’t great. We’re 2 miles from the power company, and they recently ran fiber out to us. This allowed us to ditch satellite and go with Netflix and Hulu, which is cheaper. Then we ditched Tmobile and went with Ting (which uses the Tmobile towers out here anyway).
Moving here was a great financial move for us. My husband got a big raise to come here, but all of our expenses stayed the same, and we no longer had to pay $1000 a month for “inexpensive” daycare. We’ve been able to afford for me to stay home to run my ebay business and homeschool our son. Ebay income has paid for our new Speed Queen washer ($$$), repairs to our house after Hurricane Harvey ($$$), and new central air as of yesterday ($$$$$). All paid for with cash.
The trade off is that we no longer have family in the area, (inlaws are 3+ hours away, and mine are back in Chicago). But none of us are stressed out anymore, so that makes up for it. No more crazy veterinary ER job! No more mad dash in traffic to get my kid from daycare! No more teeny apartment!
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