[SunRescue] Monthly living expenses Was OT: natural gas prices

[Christopher Byrne]

You know I never though I'd be thrilled to have electric heat, but since I
never use it it's not a problem. And I live in the bay area, so the summer
heat, while still requiring air conditioning, isnt as bad as say someone in
San Diego. That being said, our living expenses are just INSANE.

Okay, we are not in any way shape of form high rollers. We live in a
reasonably nice appartment. She drives a jeep and I drive a saturn. We eat
out about once a week, order in about once a week, and do a movie about once
a week. We have a cat,no kids, no other dependants.

Our monthly bill breakdown looks a little bit like this. All amounts are in
US funds, and rounded to round numbers.

Rent on 2 bedroom condo $2300
Medical insurance		$500
Car payment #1 		$450
Car Payment #2 		$250
Electric 			$250
Food				$400
Insurance on car 1	$185
Insurance on car 2	$135
Renters insurance		$100
Cable 			$80
Cell phone			$80
Internet			$70
phone				$40
Assorted other bills	$700
-----------------------------
Total monthly appx.	$5500
x 12 for the year		$66,000

Now, living in the great state of California, I get to pay one of the
highest tax rates in the country (admitedly nothing compared to say Denmark,
70% tax <shudder>), and as a small business owner I pay my own social
security at 15% of my income, as well as various business taxes and fees.

Essentially if I get REALLY creative with my bookkeping, I get to keep about
50% of what I earn gross.

What all this means just to pay my bills every month, I need to make about
135k a year. Thankfully I do make this, and if it's a good year, quite a bit
more than this, but that really is just a ridiclous amount of money to be
paying out every year.

BTW, in my county the federal government considers you low income, and
therefore eligible for federal assistance if you make less than 50k a year.

My wife wants to move back to her home town of Lexington KY. Were we to do
so our expenses would look a little more like this

Rent on 2 bedroom condo $600
Medical insurance		$400
Car payment #1 		$450
Car Payment #2 		$250
Electric 			$100
Food				$250
Insurance on car 1	$100
Insurance on car 2	$100
Renters insurance		$50
Cable 			$40
Cell phone			$80
Internet			$50
phone				$30
Assorted other bills	$500
-----------------------------
Total monthly appx.	$3000
x 12 for the year		$36,000

The tax situation wouldn't change much, I'd still be paying about 50% to the
government, but it'd be 50% of a much smaller sum. SO to live in the same
style in Lexington, KY as I do in Fremont, CA I would have to make about 75k
vs 135k.

Same cars, same cable, same internet, same living conditions, only the
average salary of two average american familys seperation in cost. In fact I
could live in KY for barely more than my rent here in CA. Does anyone see
anything wacky here?

Lets break it down a bit more. If I were to have a "normal" job where I
recieved health benefits and what not, and I would only end up paying 30% of
my money to the government, I would need to earn the following to maintain
my living standard.

California	$86k
Kentucky 	$45k

Gee thats only a 48% difference in cost of living. No problem there
;-)Somehow I think I'm in the wrong business, in the wrong state.


Chris Byrne
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But the word is the doorway to the mind
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