24
At my Grandparents house, working in the garden for the day was worth about $10.
Plus.
Three meals.
Which were hard to value since many of the fruits and vegetables came out of the garden that we were tending.
But, for reasons I'll explain as I write, I knew that every week the grocery bills came out to about $200. Split four ways, $50 a week per person. Which meant about $8 a day in food allowance.
Now we're at $18 a day, net-working-value.
When it was too hot to work outside we could watch cable television which was around $80 a month, so...$20 per person, or $5/week, or about $.75 a day.
$18.75
Go to the swimming pool - swimming was $.50 per kid per visit, we went about three times a week. That's another $1.50 a week, or another $.22 a day.
$18.97
Go to the library – if all of the books in a week were purchased at retail...$400...we'll not factor in garage sell books...which were treasure troves for nickels...so that gives us $57.14 a day in reading materials.
By the way, when I say reading materials, I am referring to a book of roughly 3 to 8 hundred page in a pocket paperback format books.
I started trading in my picture books for narratives of that length at about age 6. -see: Literacy Education- Tarzan being the first books that really stuck.
I understood Tarzan and it's messages too. All of it. The only thing that confused me was why the Africans in the movies were not treated with such nobility or even present at all in some cases. Think about it...in Tarzan’s world everyone was equal, including the critters. The only thing that ruled was nature and survival. -see : human rights-
$76.12
Field Trip Days – At least once per week, sometimes twice, we would go somewhere like a museum, or the amusement park, or something along those lines. Total cost would be about $100. Included in that budget was price of admission, whatever food stops for either a nice meal or fun treat and a small souvenir for everyone. Split four ways, $25, over the week. $3.58 a day.
$79.69
Evening Entertainment
Usually, after the sun had gone down, we would all relax and watch television or play board games.
A reality of the day : Because my grandfather had been a “mans man” in his youth, he was enjoying the consequences of it in in his older years. Feet that were not the most reliable for walking. Type 2 diabetes does that to you. (need to double check the type on that...I typically don't stick to arbitrary naming and ranking systems for illnesses, mostly because I deal with the symptoms as they arise and try to find the root problem then attempt to fix or manage it as effectively as possible. And arbitrary ranking systems can skew a persons perspective away from including all salient facts.)
-See Hospice Care-
That's how it was demonstrated to me by two army veterans, retired and living together in a cute little neighborhood in suburban Oklahoma.
Anyways..
Evenings were spent addressing any wounds and injuries and medical needs after the days activities.
A safe place to call home at night, work in the day, and come home to after an adventure. I'm not certain how you put a price tag on security...but factor in the costs of these things at a reasonable daily rate, including all of the utility bills…
At age eight it would take Mr. Benjamin to get me out of bed in the morning based my knowledge, work output, and level of responsibility.
Back to the numbers.
Daily net value age 8.
$100 a day in food, fodder, housing, and entertainment. In the early 90’s.
And all of that was how I figured out that school...really didn't pay.
I mean, seriously.
Did not.
Pay.
Compared to working at home.
School gave me two prison food style meals a day, and still charged me for that shit. We had free lunches for awhile when I was a kid, but...as soon as I started making enough money I started buying my own food...'cause...school food at the time was barely food in some cases.
Required me to be there during the prime working times of the year. Fall and spring being the best times to do heavy work outside. And six in the morning is the worst goddamn time to drive during winter hours.
Factor in that during winter work commutes panicked drivers trying, operative word trying, to get to work on time while all but essential roads are iced over and slick.
Road clearing trucks still on the road...it’s a mess.
Or you were walking in all of that weather.
Then I get there and I'd have to sit and listen to some teachers drone on about shit that some of them didn't even care enough about to make interesting. While even the most dedicated teachers were failing to teach even a fraction of the information in the text book.
Too many kids with not enough educators...but I digress.
But...if I worked at either of my grandparents houses, at home, or any of the other hundred and a half odd jobs available to a motivated youth in the 90's....
Grandparents (mom)- Garden work - $10 plus entertainment and housing.
Grandparents (dad) - Farm work - Usually paid in ammo, fishing trips, and hunting trips. Sometimes Cash or Savings Bonds. This was true for all of the grand kids and their friends that came out to the farm. Everyone was offered work and a meal. But work first.
Home
- Yard and house chores - had specific dollar amounts attached to them. This included shoulder and neck massages for my dad after sun up to sun down work days. With all of these chores my sister and I competed to get the most cash at the end of the week.
Work with dad
- Cleaning debris out of the fill dirt, digging holes, and other helper tasks around construction sites.
I got to drive when I was with dad.
Dad really likes thrill rides.
Work with mom
- Mom was one of the book keepers for a Walmart super center before the super centers were called Walmart.
Back when they had farmers markets in the food court.
Back when my mom and I would get up ass early to go and sit at the farmers market and sell jewelry my sister, she, and I made at home.
Before she had to go to work in the store.
Mom wouldn’t let me drive ‘cause she was a bit of a speed demon herself.
Ask any professional driver how they feel in the passenger seat.
Neighborhood Friends House
Install software and put together PC’s in exchange for access to full scale networking suites and high end gaming rigs.
With parts at cost.
When I was a kid, you could sell aluminum by the pound. We spent a lot of Saturday Mornings digging through trash bins around the area to pull together extra monies for food.
So...school...for me, didn't add up.
And the reason I had cash in my pocket and food in my belly at the end of the day was because of the work I did singularly or with my family. The toys and things I had, and in a lot of cases still have, have much more meaning. The gifts I gave had more value to me, regardless of them being bought or made.
Because I earned them, each and every one of them.
If you're so good at accounting then why aren't you a "Millionaire?"
Well, for starters I've never been in a position to earn that much money.
Secondly I've never been motivated by Money. Just the experiences around earning it. I've worked shit jobs because I thought they were interesting. I accepted way less pay than was fair for work I was doing because I found the experience surrounding interesting. And I've walked away from well paying jobs because of principles.
So, no, money is not my motivator.
All of the sweat equity I've built up over my life, the things I purchased, have been gifted away or shared.
To me, spending time with people is much more valuable than being able to afford the fanciest new car, or the biggest new house.
That said; Here's how to work a budget when you have next to nothing to work with.
In recent years my net take home for a couple of them didn't even break $10,000.
But I still ate three squares a day, had a roof over my head, and was able to buy myself toys and video games.
How you ask?
When I had, on average, less than $830 a month to live on.
No money in the bank.
No credit cards.
No government assistance outside of working at a public library.
And moved away from my family so that I would not have the option of asking them for help.
Get yourself a roommate or two and then see above.
That's how I did it.
Let me break it down for you this way.
If you're a smart grocery shopper you can feed a single person for about a week on $40. Yeah, the food isn't the best selection sometimes. But work the deals and in season produce and you can eat pretty well if you're not picky. Do work trades for those with gardens and farms to supplement.
Make a lot of stone soup.
Seriously, you take three or four people, have them chip in about $5 or so each, take that to the grocery store and see what kind of dinner you can make out of it. Or better yet, if you actually trust the folks you're with plan meals, grocery shop together and make giant meals that can bee shared out over the week.
Also, don't smoke.
If you want to see what you can take your smoking money and turn it into :
- See: My; Transformers, retro video games, comics, and CCG (collectible card game) collections-
"But you don't have all of the money, just a bunch of crap." You Say
"Ahh, but if I want/need to resell these things, a comic is still worth what comic is worth, a game a game, a toy a toy. Regardless of what $1 is worth."
Plus, when I'm home alone with nothing to do. Instead of staring at my tar stained walls with a hyper tension headache because I don't have cash for a pack of smokes.
I have lots of things to do, and enough to share with folks when they come over.
Lastly.
Part time work is not work.
Part time work is an insulting proposition to anyone that has a family to take care of or wishes not to be jammed into a small living space with roommates.
After you remove taxes, (factor in sales tax too, 'cause you don't get that money, it's taken from you. regardless of what you pay in other taxes and on the very low end that's a minimum of 6%, unless you're in Oregon) All of the federal and state withholding at their base levels.
Cost of time and transportation to and from.
Increased caloric consumption because, theoretically you're on your feet and working or requiring some effort outside of what you might do on a normal day.
Side Rant :
Don't think food costs can rise considerably because of hard work days?
For a manual laborer that's the difference between needing about $5 in food a day to keep from going hungry on a day off.
To your body facilitating a working day which requires almost two to four times the amount of calories. Almost $20 a day in food for a single person.
Trust me, I've calorie counted and put the $ to calorie ratio to it's most extreme tests. Making sure I got enough to eat in a given week.
Pro Tip : Bean Burritos, Chicken, Rice, Fresh fruits and vegetables are the most cost efficient calorie sources in an urban wasteland. Just don't plan on your fruits and veggies being all that fresh.
Did you know it takes almost 500 calories just to keep your brain operating at base levels for the day? And a similar amount just to keep your heart pumping? So, yeah 2000 calorie a day diet. That's a base line if you're active at all. Not a maximum. (see : the over 60,000+ miles that I've traveled by bicycle in the past few years)
.
Also, brain is essentially fat. And i if you're not eating enough, then you're burning fat, and if you're not fat then the body starts consuming other energy sources. Namely brain cells and, necessary for proper biological operations, fat deposits around the body.
But I digress.
Point is; if you factor in the cost of going out into the world to work.
That most part time jobs demand you be there on weird day rotations, hours that carve out the middle of any given work day or are at such odd hours compared to the rest of the world.
The fact that after all of the withholding and cost of living are removed. At the end of it you only have about $20 to show for a full working day.
Which, if you're an active person or growing kid, typically goes strait into your mouth.
Part time Work is not a real solution to anyone but the owner of the companies problems.
Okay, so then you get another part time job.
Since you've, mostly, paid the bills with the first job, you get a second part time job so that you can hopefully improve your situation.
But wait.
To hold down the second job, you need a car to get back and forth between the two on time.
Well shit.
Let's say you're lucky enough to have a paid off beater that gets a decent 25 mpg on average. Your average commute runs you about three gallons of gas. At current gas prices, that's about $2 a gallon (which is a seven year low at the time of this writing). $6 a day in gas. So that $20, you thought you were taking home from the first job just turned into $14 in order to go between the two jobs.
Alright, well we still have a net take home of $54 at the end of the day for the two jobs. Cool.
We'll put that in the bank assuming we don't need that money to feed children or any other thing that happens in life.
At the end of the week you're looking at a tidy little $378 in the bank right?
No.
First off, that beater you're driving around needs regular maintenance.
When I was adjusting insurance claims we charged about $.60 to the mile of travel to cover maintenance on a vehicle. Even though you're not driving 75 miles a day to get to and from work ( unless you have a full on commute) if you're driving, your car still sits idle and consumes that gas, and your mileage drops considerably, because speeding up and slowing down wears and tears everything.
And honey, observing the way people drive, and what they drive. All break, or all gas, big tucks and suvs. Constantly slowing down and accelerating. I'd wager your actual cost per mile is a hell of a lot higher than mine is. (-see: vehicle operation and maintenance)
Side Rant: 2
Pro Tip :
A four banger (four cylinder engine) has, on average, a 50ish mph speed for best fuel efficiency. A six about 70ish, and an 8, isn't really that much faster.
Because if you have an 8, you're usually hauling a load or driving a giant thing that needs all 8 just to get it moving.
So if you're speeding along on the roadways, faster than what's safe and/or your cars peak efficiency speed. All your doing is, literally, throwing your money on the street. To save on average, for an hour long commute, about 12 to 30 seconds. I'll give you that speeding and weaving in and out of traffic MIGHT save you 182.5 hours a year in commute time.
That 182.5 hours can be used to listen to just over 12 nonfiction audio books. So that you can get yourself some of this knowledge I'm throwing around here.
What's that 182.5 hours really worth? Well, for starters...your life. It signifigantly reduces the chances of being in or causing a traffic accident. How many hours are you going to loose sitting int the hospital. How much money are you going to pay out to traffic tickets and court costs?
So, figure out what your average speed between work and home is, and try to maintain that. You'll get to work, sometimes faster interestingly enough, (more on traffic flow planning later and how slower speeds reduce drive time), not be risking a speeding ticket, and not run the chance of rear ending someone, and save a ridiculous amount on your vehicles wear and tear.
For all of you aggressive driving dick holes out there, slow down and play it safe.
Check the math.
You are not saving yourself any money, you're actually spending more on maintenance and fuel.
And if you really have a need to drive like a bat out of hell, take your car to a local track, pay the fees (they're a hell of a lot cheaper than speeding tickets and you get to keep your license) and race on the tracks during amateur days. And shit, if you do fuck up the EMT's are right there waiting. Rather than bleeding out on the side of the street until someone calls for emergency services and they are able to wind their way through the traffic jam you just caused to the wreck you find yourself in.
Gad, got to stop writing all of my old man rants out of context...don't worry, I'll get the rest done soon enough so that there will be better context.
Back to the numbers.
So we're sitting, best case scenario for a single person with no dependents, hobbies, or extracurricular activities to speak of with $378 in the bank at the end of the week.
End of the month about $1500.
Not bad.
But wait...rent in the U.S. averages about $2000 a month for a single room apartment within reasonable distance of a location offering two part time jobs.
....K....so we're at -500 a month. Can't live anywhere near work.
So, find cheaper housing or get a roommate or two and bring the cost down to $600 a month...whew
So we're back to $900 in the bank. Sweet deal.
Shit, I need to go to the dentist...150 for the visit.We're cool.
Almost $1000 for the work that needs done on my mouth?
Fuck.
Ahh, but you have insurance.
It's affordable.
My ass.
For someone holding down enough work to make ends meet the average cost of healthcare is $150 a month. With a $5000 deductible. And that does NOT cover vision, dental, or a lot of other shit that's considered (in america) necessary health costs.
It does get you one check-up a year though.
And I'm actually able to get coverage that isn't priced completely out of the water because of my preexisting conditions.
That's not bad you say....well let me break that down on poor people scale for you.
Including the monthly premium and the deductible if you do have any actual medical needs outside of throwing $1800 a year, per person, in premiums at the insurance company and have to cover the deductible you have. Comes to a paltry $417 a month....which means we're sitting at $483 in the bank after medical.
Anyways, you finish out the math with the rest of the bills and costs associated with a persons day to day and see how much anyone realistically has at the end of the day to "save".
"You should save about 35% of your income annually for retirement." Says "Good Economic Knowledge"
"Yeah...fuckin' pay people enough first." Says Me.
Part Time Jobs are for:
School Kids to teach them a work ethic
The Elderly so that they can continue to be active and have a little something at the end of the day.
The Handicapped...same reasons as the elderly, sometimes.
Unless you're me. (see: Human Rights Law)
Part time jobs are not sustainable sources of income and "well being" according to modern 1st world standards. Good math shows that. ...but the song and dance that employers and the job market wants you to believe that it is.
And employers will say, I'll give you "full-time" work.
Which means that they'll pay the the same wage as a part time employee, with no actual associated benefits outside of discounts on what they're selling (granted if it's food or fodder, it's kinda worth it)
Oh, but you have a 401k....that is subject to the whims of the market.
How many people are still working instead of, or had to pick up work after, retiring because these financial institutions lost most, if not all, of their money for them?
Real Talk : I've worked a total of 8 or 9 so years at jobs with offering 401k contributions and matches....know how much is in there at the end of my years?
Less than $3000 freaking dollars. And I'm already "Halfway to retirement."
I've never taken anything out, never borrowed against it, just contributed when employers offered it. That won't even cover a day at the doctors if I have any legitimate medical issues that need addressed. That money is a month, or two if you're smart, of living without work. Oh, but wait, I have to loose 25% of that when/if I want to access it because of financial fees and taxes. So...much lass than 3k for retirement at the end of the day.
Or...I could just stop working all together, apply for government assistance and not work.. have more and better food in the cupboards, spending money, and my healthcare taken care of.
But...well...let's just say that my pride gets in the way of things sometimes.
As fucked up and borked as my body might be, I've made it this far on my own feet and I don't see any reason in changing that. Unless my feet stop working...which they will. Sooner than I'd like, but I have plans to keep myself moving.
Do you see why the whole part time work thing is broken as fuck?
Or the work world in general?
Larger Scale Employers:
-Do not want to pay employees an actual livable wage because it's cheaper to farm out to lower wage, part time employees.
-Have been sitting in government rewriting laws for the past few decades to stack shit in their favor.
-Then, because they're not paying those same people a livable wage it forces those people to seek government assistance.
-So employers bitch about having to pay the taxes to cover it.
-Then go back to the government to rewrite some more laws in their favor.
-In the process strangling many small start ups that might compete with them by imposing all of these taxes and fees that do not apply to larger corporate structures....the opposite in fact. They end up writing themselves subsidies for things and cherry pick government contracts for their own companies.
Seriously, how the hell else did most of the worlds wealth end up in only a small fraction of the populations hands? -see : Government -
The leading generations want to blame millennials lack of "motivations" and "give me" attitude on the current state of the world.
Being a Leading edge Millennial myself, that made it into the work force years ahead of my compatriots I'll say this.
Fuck You ya old ass bastards.
You motherfuckers have been the ones running the shit for how long now?
You raised us and wrote the rules.
Don't like it?
Fuck you.
Lay in the bed you made for yourself.
The real problem with millennials isn't their problem.
It's the previous generations.
Some of the young ones bought the previous centuries fat lies about school and gainful employment and are very confused why they can't work to pay back their debts, or even get jobs in their fields.
How's that retirement working for ya boomers. And most of you motherfuckers did that on a High School Diploma.
Most of you didn't make it to retirement though and even more of ya fell out of it and are right back in the work force along side the confused and angry kids.
Currently : Lawyers and Large Business owners, most of the time one in the same, are writing the laws to govern themselves.
People, taught and trained to win at all costs and to do it so that it makes them look good.
Rather than...I dunno...Construction guys making decisions on construction things, scientists making science decisions, farmers making farm decisions, and the like....keep it calm Rob...don't get too riled up...(see: government)
My Feelings :
If you are making more than 50k a year then you shouldn't even be allowed in government.
Or you're supporting four or more people on that 50k..
Regardless.
The Sports World puts salary caps on the teams and players and it works considerably better than the rest of the worlds economy when it comes to finding good players. But, they have their lawyers and shit sloshing that overage money into other crap too...so... same problem with a workable solution.
And I hat to tell you older folks this.
But the internet exists.
It's shining lights on shit ya'll thought would never be seen again.
And us Millennials.
Our average is better sorting through the information on the internet than the best of the previous generations.
Accounting....
Yeah...
I do accounting for myself and run thought experiments on Macro and Micro level accounting needs.
Because...well, to me, it's fun.
The internet has boundless sets of facts and figures on these things. Actual sourced and verifiable facts and figures. A lot of it published by the gubment themselves.
Don't listen to the commentary on the news about how things seem.
Those motherfuckers will spin it how they want to see it. Or, how they want you to see it.
Get the numbers yourself, because numbers don't lie.
It's all publicly accessible. It's just damned convoluted and done with so much bad math it would make a Vegas Booky drool with the envy and the masterful way it was done.
But, you can go to the public library and find past governments budgets v.s. actual spending books and look at them yourself.
Hard copies.
Printed by the local governments so that people can see them.
Look out National archives, I'm coming to you next, I enjoy working with hard copies much better than digital.
Less easy to hide things in hard copies IMO.
But remember -
When you go looking for accounting info either physically or digitally...
Government or private...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNmIQX_ImgM
End Transmission
