You need a budget. You absolutely need one; you have to measure out precisely where your money goes. You have to figure out where the wound is, bind it up and seal it down. I have made a good living for years and bled out tons of times because as it turned out, I was blowing through wads of cash on bullshit. I, now we, now know how much bullshit budget we can afford, and though we now make a lot more, we stick to a solid savings plan with the budget. Trust me, any bs budget template will do. And once you hit your metrics and locked in a regular savings rate, the numbers pretty much write themselves.
Establish your baseline just like a doctor checking your vitals would.
I'm not a financial guy, but the six sigma methodology applies here.
Define, measure, analyze, improve, control.
Define: The problem is you don't have money.
Measure: collect your bank statements, credit card bills, etc. That dictate where money went
Analyze: break down where the bulk of your money went from greatest to least.
Improve: fix the problems that take the least effort per dollar (subscription services you don't use for instance, product substitutions, etc.)
Control: Don't fall back into old spending habits.
You smug fucks with the budget advice and straight from someone else’s mouth anecdotes and business school buzz words.
100K is nothing for a family with kids in today’s economy. It’s a systemic failure of the American middle class issue, not a budgeting issue.
Dear OP - you’re fucked, but so is everyone else, and it’s not your fault for not doing the right budget things.
Both things can be true - a well-considered budget can help, and we can be systemically failing to maintain the middle class.
The budget may not solve the core problem, but it is likely to improve OP's situation, because it is a proven approach and within their control.
Just because something is fucked doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do what you can to improve your situation.
My family lives on 40k per year in WA state.......we are doing just fine. There's definitely no extra, but we're stable. 100k would lead to so much freedom for us, and savings. They're not fucked. They just need a budget. Buy used. Utilize the food bank. Don't spend on anything extra for a few months and they'd be surprised.
We just have the one kid, so that helps. Our mortgage is 2,200 and our only bills are cell phone ($17 for both phones), electric ($40), water/sewer ($50), internet ($70). We don't buy anything unless it's second hand, both to save money and for morality reasons. We grow a lot of food. We are an ingredients household and don't buy convenience food. We do free things for fun like hiking and going to the beach. It's tight but allows a lot of freedom in many ways.
Ok so what's your solution?
If you sit around and bitch without doing anything about it you're never going to even have a *chance* to escape your problems.
My family has to budget on 50,000 a year and we make it work. If you’re pulling in six figures. And still not making ends meet. Then a budget is part of the of issue. And need to consider a lifestyle change
Pinching every penny to feed 10 people on less than $50K is an insane life and you shouldn’t be defending our current system because you will never retire in it. You are not living the American dream.
We make 60k a year and I have 4 kids. I own a home in a nice neighborhood and don't have a car payment. I drive an old reliable car (1998) to work and have a 2017 van for my family.
There's no generational wealth. We just avoid spending any unnecessary money. That includes having cheap phones and a cheap phone plan. Rarely eating out and avoiding unnecessary expenditures.
The idea that a budget is somehow bad is totally stupid. My friends make more money, have nicer cars, and live paycheck to paycheck.
Where you live makes a difference, but most people over spend and that includes food.
You’re poor. I’m sorry to tell you. You are not living the American dream. It’s going to be tough or impossible to withstand any emergency or sudden change in jobs. You aren’t going to have a good retirement at $60K.
We actually use a program called YNAB "you need a budget". It's been amazing. We have been able too pay off tons of debt and we use the amounts we allocate to each category each month and don't have to worry if there is enough in the bank cause we know we have it since we budgeted it out already. Highly recommend!
YNAB and the concept of zero based budgeting instead of after-the-fact tracking made an enormous difference for not just my household income but my entire relationship with money.
YNAB changed my financial life. We made enough money but had a cash flow problem. Having categories for everything made it easy to see what the problem was.
If the 100k is before taxes then I can definitely see this.
I make about thst much and have a budget. It's way tighter than I'd have imagined with most of my spending going to housing, paying down debts, and food.
Budgets are good no matter how much you make. When I started YNAB it was about covering bills and oil changes - we have more breathing room now but it’s still a critical tool in deciding how to allocate finite resources. Even Bill Gates has to make decisions with his money - private island or clean water for Africa? Budgets just help inform decisions
1k for food is crazy to me. OP needs to look at every aspect of where their money is going. And I don’t mean just “oh. 1k goes to groceries.” They need to look at what they are buying. How often are they eating out?
I agree with this, we don’t eat out at all and I easily spend that on food and household items. My daughter is also on the spectrum and she will only eat certain foods and certain brands so deviating isn’t always an option for children like this. When you find something they’ll eat it’s a huge win.
100k is about 5700-6700 after tax, benefits, and retirement. Rent is going to be 1-2k per month. Food is another 1k. Medical stuff they said was 2.7k. That leaves about 1000 dollars for everything else.
Reading these threads, it seems like the number one problem is medical costs. I suppose those are perfectly healthy are doing just fine in this economy but any kind of long term medical condition just kills your budget.
Do both or either of your employers provide healthcare benefits? That is a ton of out of pocket after tax income and is definitely the main culprit I’d say. Note that you can get tax breaks on some out of pocket medical expenses; helps a little, not a lot. Also $100k between 2 incomes is likely below average (depends a bit on the city). If you can find opportunities to distance yourself from the lower $100k and get up closer to the $200k range then you’ll find some breathing room. Side gigs can also help a lot.
What is your housing situation like? Rent/mortgage?
Right, OP mentioned earlier that they haven’t been able to find a better position in their field in their area than $22/hr, but if that is not factoring in differences in benefits for roles that may pay the same or slightly less, it may be one thing to consider in this search. My benefits include family plan max out of pocket at I believe $12k, and I also get the equivalent of several months’ sick leave at the time I begin the position and accrue another couple during the course of the year. Altogether, those benefits and savings for someone in this position may make a world of difference in circumstances even if salary on paper was lower.
Not OP but I have health insurance through my employer for my SO and I and we have already spent thousands in medical bills this year alone. Health insurance is a joke..
Jsyk, in some states an ASD diagnosis is an automatic qualification to have Medicare for the individual, regardless of the parents’ or family’s insurance!
You need to better budget. Your post said 20k a year medical costs, but $2700 a month is over 30k a year. You need to be cognizant of exactly what your costs are, and I'm sorr but that's not on the economy.
Obviously the medical costs are a beast. Aside from that, you need to make a budget, then pull a few months worth of expenses and compare them to the budget. It's also worth sitting down with your accountant or financial planner or just making an appointment with someone at the bank to see where you can cut expenses and maximize savings.
I'm wondering if part of the problem is that you're caught in a stress/convenience trap. I've known a lot of people who took second jobs to get ahead, but they're so tired and burnt out from overwork that they end up buying themselves presents and treats to cope, plus convenience food and items because they're too tired to cook or run to the store, and they spend more money than they earn at the second job coping with the impact of the second job. When I was a manager, most of my staff worked two jobs and were exhausted. We offered a money management course to anyone who wanted it (we were running it for clients anway) and after looking at their stress and convenience purchases and changing their budgeting, more than half the staff were able to ditch the second job. I doubt you're at that level, but you can probably carve a fair chunk out of your monthly expenses without sacrificing your quality of life.
Yeah...I'd love more than one pet but you have to keep in mind what you can afford. Especially when you consider they won't always be healthy and will need extra medical care
Right? Which to each their own. You want to have 5 dogs amd 2 cats, go ahead. But don't cry woe is me and "this ks a shit economy" when you have a luxury that most people can't afford.
I recommend trying to climb the ladder and get paid more for your skills vs killing yourself by working a second job at the gas station. Maybe one of you can attempt this and then that will be an opportunity for the second to increase their career.
$100k a year is a decent amount but it’s not much considering you are collectively working 4 jobs and huge overtime.
Life is extremely expensive right now. I wish you the best of luck
I've been keeping an eye put for better jobs but my main is 22$ an hour and I haven't stumbled upon any better so far. But yes. Life is very expensive right now :/
Prioritize getting great health insurance. $20k/year in out of pocket medical = $10 per hour. You should easily be willing to trade a few bucks of cash compensation for that and need to think strategically about that trade.
Yes but can't move up til I hit a year with the company. I left my last job because there was no career advancement opportunities so I've been with this company about 7 months now. I'll be up for advancement in October and a raise in February 2025
Get a job for the government. It won’t pay super well (actually might be better than your current job tbh) but your healthcare costs will go down to near zero. I pay maybe $160 a month to insurance and my copay is pretty minimal. In total, I probably pay about $300 a month for insurance, meds, therapy, and my doc appointments. I’m on the spectrum too btw.
are there any government programs that would help pay for your daughter’s care?
I recently switched to a high-deductible HSA-backed insurance plan, and I find that it has much lower maximum out-of-pocket. So at a certain point, everything is completely free.
And I have access to the same doctors. So you might look at your available health insurance with different eyes.
OP I'm a financial advisor and I have a few things to say. Respectfully to everyone else here, you don't really have a budgeting problem I would guess but let's try to break down your big spending categories instead of nitpicking the little stuff.
I'm just spit balling here but at $100k you're probably spending around 20% in taxes between federal, SS and state (not sure where you live). Then another $20k in health related costs. So right off the top you've got $60k left which is $5k a month. Assuming you're in a MCOL city, I'm guessing your mortgage/housing expenses are at least $2k. I'm also going to assume you spend at least $1,500 on daycare etc. You said your groceries are $1k a month which is not surprising for someone with a kid. That leaves you with a whopping $500 for everything else - assuming you have a fully paid off car, $500 a month is extremely tight for everything else like car insurance, phone plan, utilities, so on and so forth. Here's what I'd recommend for you:
1. Spend 15 minutes putting pen to paper on the big expenses as I illustrated above.
2. Start with the big expense items - for example, are you on the right kind of health insurance plan? Could you get a different plan that covers more of what your daughter needs so your out of pocket isn't so expensive. If you have an expensive car payment, are there change you could make. Do you usually get a tax refund, if so, that means you're overpaying on a monthly basis and you could adjust your withholding to smooth out cash flow.
3. Both of you need to seriously think about ways to increase your income. You can scrimp and save on grocery store coupons all day but saving $10 every week will be way less effective than earning $1k-$2k more per month.
4. See if you can find out if where you live has a "Financial Planning Association" chapter. They offer pro bono services and you could work with a planner to help you with your finances.
In the fullness of time, I would still build a detailed budget to see if there's any areas where you can cut expenses but that's not where I would start because that's not what's going to be most effective.
I'd be happy to offer my pro-bono services as well but not sure if that's against rules here.
What on earth were you think getting 7 pets which require proper food, veterinary care, annual booster shots. That’s a bit irresponsible considering my next piece of advice, would be to consider finding loving families to adopt them. You clearly can’t afford to care for them properly, so find others who can take that financial burden off of your shoulders.
How are you spending $1k a month on two adults n two small kids?
Parents, sit down and look at where the money is going. Figure out a budget that will work. Separate necessities from wants. See how much your entertainment spending is. Are you making meals or reheating crap and eating out often? Sit down and compare plans of your cell phone, Internet, cable bills, see if you can switch to less.
Ah yes, a very vital piece of info. I always wonder how and why people keep so many pets in one household *and* have kids. In this economy? And dogs eat a lot too, especially the bigger they are.
I started cooking more at home and buying things they could heat up so we wouldnt eat out. It seems to be working against me tho. That grocery bill does include diapers for my youngest which is about 200 a month and dog food which we spend another 150 a month. Not to mention I not only keep our house stocked but have to also provide my daughters food for her therapy cuz she goes for 6 hours a day and they don't provide her diet.
What might help is to get a Costco card and a chest freezer.
You can easily save on dog food and diapers.
Cut down on buying heat/eat meals n just find ways to make them yourself and freeze.
Ahh diapers and pet. Those 2 things can add up. My husband is the only breadwinner, $108K, 3 kids. I spend about $100-150 per week on groceries.
When our youngest stopped wearing diapers and graduated preschool, it’s a bit of a relieve. We don’t have a pet since can’t afford its care. If the pet was sick, we wouldn’t have the budget for the vet bills.
We live pretty comfortably, but we don’t have the budget for luxury things, like summer camps or vacations.
Not true, our family of 4 spends between $130-$150 per week. We have two dogs and a cat. It’s very doable but you have to plan and bulk buying helps a lot.
If you have the freezer space consider prepping things ahead of time that can be heated up later rather than buying premade. Like one of the things I always have in my freezer are little lasagnas in mini loaf pans, you can do the same with microwavable dishes instead. That can really help bring down the coast of food.
I would focus on getting a job that has better benefits to help your healthcare costs. Or maybe relocating to a city with a lower cost of living. Sorry to hear about your hardship.
It's tough to compare because it's never apples to apples. Like others have said - make a budget.
Grab your bank statements and input everything (spreadsheet, app, etc) for the last 6 months (although a year is more accurate). Categorize the expenses. Groceries, travel, pets, insurance, etc.
Determine what is a need. This means groceries, shelter and all expenses related to survival. Then determine wants. Then find where to trim.
Check out a tool like Rocketmoney. When I joined, they offered pay-what-you-can, so you could pay a couple bucks a month for it. It makes it so much easier to track all the expenses.
I have 1, although small dog. Dog food is really really cheap imo. I buy a big bag of dog food for like $40 and it lasts me months.
My big costs are grooming (she is long haired), vet bills and boarding. Of course if I was financially struggling boarding would decrease as I wouldn't be going on vacations.
I wonder how many skip out on vet bills to save some money.
You spend $1,000 a month on groceries? That’s over $30 in groceries every day. Are y’all eating prime steak every night??
I do sympathize on the therapy costs. Our son was diagnosed autistic (high-functioning) and those therapy bills were no joke, especially since insurance barely covered half, if any of most of his appointments.
You have to go to the cheapest grocery store like Aldi
Don’t assume your kid has to have the most expensive therapies. If the therapies really won’t change anything, learn to do them at home.
Blame the shit economy
I work in the IT sector, my wife is in psych: child mental health. Combined income about $130K and we have only one car and I feel broke. We budget every dollar. Go out to eat maybe once a month (mainly to spend time with family or friends we haven’t seen in a while) our only luxury expense is our gym membership.
Lately I feel like anything under 200K is not enough for a family to live the classic middle class lifestyle; 2 cars, good food, a mediocre house and money for kids activities
The "Classic Middle Class Lifestyle" is something our parents had. The actual middle class in the US earns 50-150k a year, to afford owning your own house, a few cars, a few vacations a year and a comfortable lifestyle, you need to be pulling in well above that.
Skyrocketing medical expenses, education expenses, food costs, and mortgage rates/hous prices have pushed "the american dream" firmly into "top 10% territory".
* $12,000 groceries
* $20,000 health insurance premiums
That’s $32,000 already.
Don’t forget other taxes and withholdings that could easily be $25,000.
Your meals all need to be prepped.
* Slow cooker rice and beans and cut up chicken (like the Costco rotisserie chicken for $4.99).
* Bread, mayo, ham or chicken or tuna, etc.
* Julia Pacheco-inspired casseroles and slow cooker meals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIivFUJVJw)
What?!? /u/Standard_File8255 didn’t mention that in her post!
No wonder! 5 dogs and 2 cats on **food alone** is at minimum $300 per month of take-home pay on food alone, and that is $3,600 per year. More than enough money for 3 to 6 “emergencies” per year.
Most people contribute to their own financial situarions. This is clearly such a case.
Mhm. As per her comment. "2 outside dogs and 3 inside and 2 cats. Its a lot but they were homeless when we found them. 3 of them were suppose to be fosters but no one ever adopted and our shelter is a high kill shelter. Idk what else to do"
It very much is her own doings, she knows why she's financially struggling.
I'm a single dude, and 20k/year in medical costs would severely hamper my budget. Are you sure the therapy is worth it? I understand the desire to help your child, but at the expense of your entire family's well-being? People are criticizing 1k/month for groceries/pet expenses. I don't agree with them. For a family of four I don't think 1k is that crazy. But the 5 pet thing is kinda nuts. You need to learn to separate WANTS from NEEDS.
She's nonverbal and severely delayed, what kind of parent would I be if I didn't try everything possible? And believe me, needs are definitely prioritized. We don't do anything extra. No vacations, no out of town trips, no extra costs or vices of any sort. We work too much for that. Now the dogs yeah they are a lot. But our area has a kill shelter and we've never been able to find anyone to take any of them. 3 of them were suppose to be fosters but no one would adopt and aside from dumping them like they were when we acquired them, idk what to do.
Your medical costs are crippling. I'm not sure what the answer is for your daughter. But I'll flip that statement around..."What kind of parent would you be if you and your children ended up homeless?" Can you find a speech therapist doing Freelance work? You guys really need that money. Maybe you're able to scrape by on that 100k. But what about when emergencies happen? Car repairs? Etc.
The best money saving advice I have is work opposite shifts as your spouse, split the child care evenly and save any child care costs. It will only be temporary until they are both in school. This has saved me tens of thousands of dollars and it keeps us from fighting as much as we see eachother less
51F I am disabled, my guy works but delivers. Our car has been out for 2 months, we have had no income except disability from me.(and my son) we live on less than 2k a month for 3 adults. I need healthcare but that’s impossible on our salary. We are one check away from losing our home and being on the street.
I'd say 1k on groceries per month is kind of extreme, I'm sure you'd be able to find some room there.
Otherwise, I don't think you're a failure at all you guys are making decent money and with such health costs it would be rough.
OP said housing was $1200 and made another post saying they spend over $80/week on energy drinks at the gas station.
Their income is not the issue, they need to learn to budget.
This is going to sound aggressive and I apologize for that. It comes from some cultural trauma and a need to make sure autistic voices are heard when it comes to how we are treated by the medical community.
If the therapy is ABA therapy highkey get your kid out of there. I know it’s what you’re “supposed” to do but any autistic person I’ve ever spoken to who’s gone through it talks about it like it’s actual literal torture. Like it’s conversion therapy for autism. If it’s not ABA then carry on, thank you for getting support for your kiddo.
If you have a yard, you could try growing some of your own food?
Also, how much are your other bills? After healthcare and groceries you should still have around 4500 a month.
You're doing something wrong. The economy isn't bad despite how many social media feels and vibes say it is. You can't blame this on that.
The healthcare costs are the #1 issue here, but there needs to be a total overhaul of your budget in other areas as well.
Same for me. I make a good salary, and I drive Uber as a side gig. My wife make okay money, but it’s contract work, so not consistent.
Still paycheck to paycheck.
Although, not all negative. Lots of equity in our house, cars are paid off. Most of my expenses are CC debts, which is hard to keep low balances.
I’d start with the insurance expense since that’s so high by going on to the autism board and asking around about insurance options and jobs that have good insurance that cover these treatments. You might take a pay cut working for the government or a certain company but end up making up for it with much lower health care costs. It’s hard to help with the rest of the budget if we don’t know all the details of where the money goes.
Do you have any kind of HSA account through your job that you can take pre-tax money out of your paycheck and use it for medical bills? Especially if you know those will be consistent for a year.
If you have online banking and mostly use a debit card , print out a month or 2 of statements grab a few highlighters and a cup of coffee. Go through EVERY single line item. One color for necessities (Utilities, mortgage, insurance, copays) one color for food and fuel, one color for everything else. The everything else is probably where the bleeding is . If you are charging on a credit card STOP. Take a look at the everything else category and you will be astonished at the amount you overspending. For me and especially my husband having it in black and white was very helpful. From there I was able to establish a simple spreadsheet and refer to that when needed. At one point we were spending 350.00 per month on dunkin. Thats almost 2 weeks worth of groceries, SMH. You will be pleasantly surprised when you see how small changes can remove the financial noose
girl I love my pets as much as the next person, but your pets are a HUGE strain on finances. I have 3 cats and 2 fishtanks. its NOT cheap even when you buy all the cheap stuff (which i don't unfortunately, but pellet litter has brought the costs down in that area). I can't imagine have dogs in the mix too. idk the breeds but bigger dogs obviously eat more plus any vet bills, grooming, and washing, assuming you do any of that.
you can blame the economy all you want because it absolutely IS shit, but thats not going to get you anywhere. id really look into how much you spend on pet care and possibly re home some of them which im usually AGAINST as they are family, but what happens when one of them needs surgery or even just putting one down. you are doing a disservice to everyone involved in that scenario.
secondly, do you use coupons? I'm not saying you have to be the crazy coupon person, but just using some is a big help.
you didn't put much of your finances on here so I really can't help in figuring out your issue and where you can save, but you have to really dig down into where your money is going and see if there's anything you can live without or live with less of.
100k isn't what it used to be but its also how you use it.
It’s probably not an income issue rather an expense issue.
I would highly recommend to analyze your monthly spending habits & work backwards.
1. Pay yourself for retirement
2. Mandatory expenses (you should still look to see if you’re paying the best rate possible)
3. The extra fat (biggest cuts here)
Most people keep 4-6 subscriptions a month for entertainment purposes continuously running. I always encourage people to go in cycles like switching your subscription every 3 months. (Netflix,HBO,Disney+ etc) there isn’t an activation fee so take advantage of this flexibility.
I’m not saying this maybe 30-40 savings would change your life. I’m just trying to show that small decisions may add up to help you.
100k today is actually like 50k 30 years ago. It's not you being a failure.
The only thing I would look into is the health care and therapy for your son. He might be eligible for Medicaid and the therapy could be covered under that, possibly.
My sister is an eye doctor and her husband has a good job as well. They had a kid with special needs, and they didn't know it at first, but after a year or so, they were able to get him on a Medicaid plan.
Making 150k from 80k in the last 4 years. Prices have doubled on everything and we didn't get a big enough boost to keep up. We are struggling more now than we were 4 years ago.
Unfortunately, 100k is nothing. Especially for a family of 4 and pets. That’s a lot of expenses.
Need to look at your monthly costs and figure out what do you really need and what can you do without. And what can you change to lower certain costs? (Change to cheaper pet food, store brand foods, not have expensive car payments, cut out subscriptions, etc).
Everyone is saying budget but I think you need more income. 100k is 70k after taxes and insurance, then 50k after her stated health care costs. 4k a month isn’t a lot when rent is 2k, childcare is 1k, gas/maintenance for two vehicles is 500.
Honestly I’m not surprised you are struggling because 100k is only about 5k a month take home give or take. You said your health insurance plus therapies for your daughter are $2700 a month,right there that leaves just $2300 for food,car expenses,housing,clothing,etc. So don’t feel that bad as you just have some unusually high required expenses.
Just wanted to say that regardless of current circumstances I’m very impressed with you guys. You are working really hard and dealing with a lot. Wishing you happiness and prosperity.
Wtf kinda dog food are u buying? 50 bucks at Costco lasts me like 4 months, I reluctantly advise you if you need to give the dog away... 150/month plus yearly vet stuff which should be around 4-600 a year ish.. that could be invested and growing, look out your long term financial health for God sakes
she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. the only way they're going to save on petfood is by getting rid of some pets. and I say this as a massive animal lover. they will be stuck letting an animal die over eating plastic or whatever because of this. she needs to get rid of some of these. and I'm on the side of id rather die than get rid of my pets.
Yes. I have a child in the spectrum and we used to want 4 children. But with one in the spectrum we decided, 2 are enough. Because I love my children. And I want to give them the attention they need. With one in the spectrum that needs a lot of attention there is not enough time/energy left for more than one additonal child. If you love the people/creatures in your family you stick to the amount you can handle. And you don't add family members you can't afford financially, timewise and energywise.
It’s the economy and your circumstances. I can’t even afford a dog in this economy, let alone a child, let alone a child with complex needs. It’s a struggle
The hours ye work and the care needs of your kids , one with extra needs , make it highly likely ye dont have time to actually sit down and see where your money is going, how to budget for groceries and bills and have a good handle of whats what
A rough guide that works for me is take your salary, immediately minus off your insruance and tax.
That's what you actually have. Divide this by 52 for your weekly amount or by 12 for monthly
Draw up a calendar , just 12 columns.for each month works put all expenses on it.
Add up your expenses, things like mtg, car payments etc.
Utilities
Every expense ye have, literally i pop kids birthdays ,pet care, glasses every two years, heating fuel for winter, upcoming weddings, an allowance for back to school in august, and everything on it
I save for additional expenses weekly , some weeks, there is more money that covers the weeks that have the bigger expenses.
I have an allocation for groceries, never spend the full amount , you may need something during the week like milk and bread.
And be really cognizant of it. It doesn't make me feel like i have more money , but if your groceries have shot up that much , you need to trim it back unless you can actually see other areas where you can cut back
The hardest part is getting in front of expenses
I now pay things in full instead of by dd which costs more etc
Theres been times when I'm not on top of my budget that i feel stressed out and unable to spend because i didn't realise exactly what i had available, seems easier to be completely on top of it
For my family of 5 groceries are at about 600 for a month. $1,000 for just groceries a month is ridiculous. Credit card debt? Car payments?
My husband and I make no where near that and we are comfortable and have what we need. 100k, we would be set.
Grocery prices vary from place to place. You two may be buying the exact same stuff and they could still pay more than you. Feeding 5 people with $600 a month feels impossible to me. My family of 4 spends $300 a month at Sam's Club (bulk store if you are unfamiliar) just on snacks and misc items.
considering the 2 jobs and medical needs, it sounds like there might not be time for OP to do proper comparison shopping or couponing.
"Struggling" is also subjective. For some folks it means "i can't save money, but my bills are paid" and to others it means "I don't know where the next meal is coming from"
After reading your replies op, you're struggling because you have 7 pets. I know pets are line part of the family, but you can't really afford 5 dogs and 2 cats right now. I'd suggest keep trying to rehome some or just knuckle down for the next 3 years.
I certainly don’t understand why you can’t make it. If you have monthly payments for things you don’t need get rid of them. It appears that you have purchased too many things on your want list rather than your needs list. See what you can do and get back on track
I understand kiddos on the spectrum need specialized treatments that is expensive but with your six figure income should not make you live from pay cheque to pay cheque
I don't understand anything about this. you in America work for 100 thousand dollars and barely survive, you have to work two jobs. I work here in Germany for 43 thousand euros, I live normally, you even save money at the end of the month. I do not understand.
My husband makes about 50k before taxes and my family of 4 lives comfortable off and we pay a mortgage.
I get Kindergeld 500/month and I save the Pflegegeld I get for my son with autism. We always have money over at the end of the month.
Time to figure out how to make more per hour and fast. Yiu can only work two full time jobs for so long. Each year is time off your life and stress on your marriage and kids, it's also no way to live.
You either need to cut costs, move to a lower cost of living location, or one of you need to make more.
If you have any time to read a book I would recommend the barefoot investor - don’t let the name turn you off, it’s not about investing in the stock market, it’s about investing in yourself. In any case, it has a very easy and useful guide on dividing you pay packet up which was a god send for me after years of struggling pay check to pay check, living under a mountain of debt.
Since reading the book and taking on some of the advice, my earning hasn’t increased that much but I now have emergency funds saved away, I have money for a holiday each year and we were able to buy an apartment to live in.
I def recommend
You need to look at debts this is where most people’s money goes what’s your car payments you rent/mortgage these are the things that eat up all the money if you have 2 cars is it possible to go to one? 100k in todays money isn’t a whole lot considering how expensive everything is but there’s a leak in the finances somewhere that needs to fixed
Weed out any unecessary purchases. Many ppl when asked what they actually spend their money on will say well yes there is ____ and maybe I don’t need that. Is he at amazon?
I think together we make about 170k (I'm in my 40s), and everything is bleeding us dry. Vehicle maintenance, kids going to college, insurance not paying for hospital services, house things, groceries, etc. 100k is great for a single person, but it barely makes a dent in supporting a family.
It's almost like when women hit the workforce, costs rose to ensure that two earners can't really get too comfortable (labor stopped keeping with production output in the 70s).
Yes, you make decent money, but you have unique expenses $20k of expenses that most of us don't have changes things.
It might be to your advantage to look for a job that pays a bit less but has insurance that would cover your medical expenses. A $10k pay cut but insurance that pays that $20k is a raise. My wife works at a hospital. They pay a bit less but the benefits are great.
All the comments here saying budgeting. How the hell do you budget for 20k health care costs a year. What the actual fuck. How are Americans okay with this situation..
Do you know if you’re maximizing the state scholarship programs for children on the spectrum? In another life I was an expert on funding available for this and consulted in several states but I have moved on. It’s my experience that many parents are not properly informed on the grants, scholarships and funding available. What state?
Mostly you NEED to budget for your reality. Over analyze everything purchase you have made in the last few months. It makes a huge impact on your finances.
Budget for sure but 100k right now with 2 kids and one of them on the spectrum is not a lot unfortunately. It’s absurd for sure but it’s a fact.
Budget though 100%.
Do you guys have debt or car notes? One thing that helps me and my lady no car notes and we don’t have debt from school, she also works but those two things help us when it comes to saving and doing what needs to be done without feeling the burn.
This is the reality of middle class families. Living from paycheck to paycheck and God forbid that you find yourself with an unpredictable situation requiring few ks. You can scrap up that not so fancy deserved vacation. We have 3 kids and our oldest son 20 has just moved out.
My wife tells me all that stuff that Dave Ramsey and team teach and sell is what we have been doing a long time ago before you heard of him because that is what people used to do.
You lived like no one else so then that later you could live like no one else.
He is hard-core about getting out of debt.
But we do use a credit card and pay it off every month and we have borrowed short term for some rental properties that we paid off in two years.
Look up Dave Ramsey and team, you do not have to buy his material as you can get the information from a podcast or radio broadcast. But me I like a paper book to refer to.
I think the root of it is that the terms we use for being wealthy or well off haven't changed in decades, and haven't kept up with inflation. "6 figures" and "millionaire" mean far less than they used to.
My family is in a similar situation. Teenage daughter with ASD make low 6 figures. We are fortunate to not be struggling due to a combination of low housing costs, great health insurance, and some other variables. That said I totally feel you in the costs of raising a special needs child and even though we aren’t struggling, we are still cost conscious.
Our largest chunk of expenses is by far my daughter. She’s sensory seeking and rough on clothes. We buy thrifted clothes to keep the cost down (we’ve always been thrift store shoppers even before then). Adult diapers were a huge expense. Walmart branded ones are like half the cost. That took a huge chunk out of our monthly bill. They are also FSA though it looks like your daughters expenses exceed anything you’d have in FSA anyway. Just a thought if there’s a medically lean year. We buy essentially generic everything. We would buy from Aldi but they don’t have them where we are in the west coast.
A lot of people in this thread aghast at your grocery cost may not be taking in the full picture. Our grocery costs doubled moving from South Carolina to Washington state. Between not having an Aldi or Aldi substitute and general cost of food out here, it’s nuts. It went from 150/week for a family of 5 to 300/week for the same amount of food. Then add to that a growing family with higher demand for caloric intake, less diapers for more money because it’s now specialized for a larger person, extra clothes always ready to go because your child might leak through their pull up or get food all over their shirt, don’t forget the extra laundry because they go through so many outfits every day, oh if they’ve also got blood sugar issues you’re probably monitoring and feeding them regularly, also she is sensory seeking so to prevent her from fecal smearing we make sure she gets what she needs with shaving cream which is added to the grocery bill - 1 a day is $2 and that’s an extra $60 / month just for that, and all that added up can drive up the grocery cost. Our current grocery bill is between 400 and 500 every week. All the extra things she needs outside of groceries also adds to the cost (medical, 1500 cash to have her anesthetized for have her dental work done in addition to the actual cost of the dental care, all of the cost of her meds, constant specialist visits, time away from work to put out fires related to issues at school or with a specialist, repairs needing to be done to the house because your child is unintentionally destructive and you can’t change the behavior overnight). I’m only sharing this info so others in this thread can understand the added challenges of a child with special needs and consider thinking twice before scoffing at the grocery bill.
In terms of working multiple jobs…one of your jobs is WFH. You should look into overemployment. There’s actually an overemployment subreddit targeted at women:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OverEmployedWomen/
If the insurance gig is hourly it might be hard to do, but if you can manage it, you’ll free up bandwidth by being able to do both jobs at the same time.
Strategically for jobs you’re looking at, when you’re in a better position and less is at stake, go for one that has good health insurance. My families health insurance covers everything at 90% in network. It really helps keep the costs down for my daughter’s care.
$1,000/ month on GROCERIES for 2 adults and 2 kids?? That is CRAZY!! What in the world are you guys eating?? If that is what you are spending on that my guess you are spending A LOT on other stuff and not even realizing it.
First step... Itemize where EVERY DOLLAR is being spent over the next 3 months. Then start cutting where you can. I GUARANTEE you can find places to cut.
That’s the new normal. You’d have to quadruple that income just to begin feeling ok. If you were able to do that, the money would still all disappear. It’s just that you’d be able to afford some basic things without feeling broke all the time.
I feel you, I am a single parent and I make way less... I work 50 hours a week around my 2 kids (9 year old non speaking with ASD, 7 year old ) and I am drowning, barley have my head above water and it keeps getting worse, I know a lot of people have said budget and that helps its also hard when the cost of basic things is climbing.
This is not a great advice. I skip 1-2 meals a day so I have enough to pay for kids meals and I am raw dogging with no health insurance because its too expensive, sad world we are living in
* Does your family keep a budget report? If not, you should. Write up literally everything you spend on, small or big, in a spreadsheet. Write up all your income (that's usually simple, very few items)
* Then check what you're spending on most, and evaluate if the spending is required or not
* So therapy for your kid is essential, but stuff like eating out or ordering take-out isn't
* Next, do an **actual** budget - which is different, report just shows what you spent on, budget is deciding in advance what you WILL spend on. And make sure not to exceed it as you go. Obviously it has to be realistic and based on your budget reports from before.
* Learn to save money. You mentioned grocery costs.
* **Are you buying food in bulk?**
* Are you buying generic stuff or brand names?
* Are you buying things that are... optional? (cakes, cookies, soda, other junk food).
* Are you cooking 100% of buying store-prepared foods, frozen foods, and takeout/eat-out? Are you throwing out any food that spoils, regularly?
* Lastly, you seem zeroing in on "feeling". Sorry but how's that helpful? If you blame yourself, OR the economy, or lizard people, you still have the same salary and same expenses either way. How's that help anyone other than make yourself feel worse and take away time from actual useful actions?
Let's hone in on one thing since it seems be one of your single biggest expenses. Have you been buying the exact same groceries? My grocery bills have gone up too, but by a THOUSAND dollars a month? Even for a family of four that seems pretty extreme unless you're in some kind of crazy high cost food desert.
Why don't you compare some grocery bills from the last couple years and see which are the high hitters and make sure you haven't accidentally fallen prey to lifestyle inflation instead of cost inflation.
To me what jumps out is the 1k monthly grocery bill, thats where I would start tidying up immediately. Something you didn't mention but I find to be a drain for us is subscriptions to everything; tv, movies, podcasts, internet, cell phones, that iphone watch thing. Usually theres some waste there as well.
You need a budget. You absolutely need one; you have to measure out precisely where your money goes. You have to figure out where the wound is, bind it up and seal it down. I have made a good living for years and bled out tons of times because as it turned out, I was blowing through wads of cash on bullshit. I, now we, now know how much bullshit budget we can afford, and though we now make a lot more, we stick to a solid savings plan with the budget. Trust me, any bs budget template will do. And once you hit your metrics and locked in a regular savings rate, the numbers pretty much write themselves. Establish your baseline just like a doctor checking your vitals would.
"Budgeting is telling your money where to go, not asking where it went"
I'm not a financial guy, but the six sigma methodology applies here. Define, measure, analyze, improve, control. Define: The problem is you don't have money. Measure: collect your bank statements, credit card bills, etc. That dictate where money went Analyze: break down where the bulk of your money went from greatest to least. Improve: fix the problems that take the least effort per dollar (subscription services you don't use for instance, product substitutions, etc.) Control: Don't fall back into old spending habits.
You smug fucks with the budget advice and straight from someone else’s mouth anecdotes and business school buzz words. 100K is nothing for a family with kids in today’s economy. It’s a systemic failure of the American middle class issue, not a budgeting issue. Dear OP - you’re fucked, but so is everyone else, and it’s not your fault for not doing the right budget things.
Both things can be true - a well-considered budget can help, and we can be systemically failing to maintain the middle class. The budget may not solve the core problem, but it is likely to improve OP's situation, because it is a proven approach and within their control. Just because something is fucked doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do what you can to improve your situation.
My family lives on 40k per year in WA state.......we are doing just fine. There's definitely no extra, but we're stable. 100k would lead to so much freedom for us, and savings. They're not fucked. They just need a budget. Buy used. Utilize the food bank. Don't spend on anything extra for a few months and they'd be surprised.
Their healthcare costs are insane though. I really feel for them.
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50k single with no kids and I can barely save any money how in the world do you survive
Our mortgage is 1050 which is very low these days. We get by but we don't get ahead.
We just have the one kid, so that helps. Our mortgage is 2,200 and our only bills are cell phone ($17 for both phones), electric ($40), water/sewer ($50), internet ($70). We don't buy anything unless it's second hand, both to save money and for morality reasons. We grow a lot of food. We are an ingredients household and don't buy convenience food. We do free things for fun like hiking and going to the beach. It's tight but allows a lot of freedom in many ways.
How are all those bills (except for Internet) so low?
So they should do nothing about it and not try to make it better with budgets?
Ok so what's your solution? If you sit around and bitch without doing anything about it you're never going to even have a *chance* to escape your problems.
My family has to budget on 50,000 a year and we make it work. If you’re pulling in six figures. And still not making ends meet. Then a budget is part of the of issue. And need to consider a lifestyle change
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Pinching every penny to feed 10 people on less than $50K is an insane life and you shouldn’t be defending our current system because you will never retire in it. You are not living the American dream.
We make 60k a year and I have 4 kids. I own a home in a nice neighborhood and don't have a car payment. I drive an old reliable car (1998) to work and have a 2017 van for my family. There's no generational wealth. We just avoid spending any unnecessary money. That includes having cheap phones and a cheap phone plan. Rarely eating out and avoiding unnecessary expenditures. The idea that a budget is somehow bad is totally stupid. My friends make more money, have nicer cars, and live paycheck to paycheck. Where you live makes a difference, but most people over spend and that includes food.
You’re poor. I’m sorry to tell you. You are not living the American dream. It’s going to be tough or impossible to withstand any emergency or sudden change in jobs. You aren’t going to have a good retirement at $60K.
That's gold. Definitely going to use that.
Op said in another comment that she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. I think this was the part she left out as to why she is struggling.
That’s some pretty important information to leave out lmao
Right? Lol, almost like playing dumb. 5 dogs and 2 cats can easily run you 20k in expenses a year.
5 dogs?! All those shit beasts do is eat and crap. Get rid of those and they might have a half a chance. 😂
We actually use a program called YNAB "you need a budget". It's been amazing. We have been able too pay off tons of debt and we use the amounts we allocate to each category each month and don't have to worry if there is enough in the bank cause we know we have it since we budgeted it out already. Highly recommend!
YNAB and the concept of zero based budgeting instead of after-the-fact tracking made an enormous difference for not just my household income but my entire relationship with money.
YNAB changed my financial life. We made enough money but had a cash flow problem. Having categories for everything made it easy to see what the problem was.
100%!! YNAB is the best
It's all about budgeting
Enneh, 100k salary minus 20k medical bills n 1k food. Where does the rest of it go lol
That’s the thing when you budget, you find out where it does go. I put a bet the OP is not living an over extravagant life. Rent is probably 30k
Op said in another comment that she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. I think this was the part she left out as to why she is struggling.
What? Although that’s a ton of pets this would be a small part of the problem.
We have two cats and it costs us around $2k a year.
A small part? Assuming she has pet insurance for each one, that could easily run to 20k in expenses a year for them.
If the 100k is before taxes then I can definitely see this. I make about thst much and have a budget. It's way tighter than I'd have imagined with most of my spending going to housing, paying down debts, and food.
Budgets are good no matter how much you make. When I started YNAB it was about covering bills and oil changes - we have more breathing room now but it’s still a critical tool in deciding how to allocate finite resources. Even Bill Gates has to make decisions with his money - private island or clean water for Africa? Budgets just help inform decisions
1k for food is crazy to me. OP needs to look at every aspect of where their money is going. And I don’t mean just “oh. 1k goes to groceries.” They need to look at what they are buying. How often are they eating out?
Food for SEVEN pets is part of the issue
Op has seven pets?
Yep. She says in a comment - 2 cats, 3 inside dogs and 2 outside dogs.
For 4 people a month, including any eating out, that doesn't seem crazy to me.
Seems crazy to me. Time to cook more and eat things you buy in bulk. Cook things on the weekend that are put up in the freezer.
I agree with this, we don’t eat out at all and I easily spend that on food and household items. My daughter is also on the spectrum and she will only eat certain foods and certain brands so deviating isn’t always an option for children like this. When you find something they’ll eat it’s a huge win.
100k is about 5700-6700 after tax, benefits, and retirement. Rent is going to be 1-2k per month. Food is another 1k. Medical stuff they said was 2.7k. That leaves about 1000 dollars for everything else.
Reading these threads, it seems like the number one problem is medical costs. I suppose those are perfectly healthy are doing just fine in this economy but any kind of long term medical condition just kills your budget.
Tell me about it. I pay 1200$ a month in Insurance Premiums and an additional 1500 for my daughters various therapies
Do both or either of your employers provide healthcare benefits? That is a ton of out of pocket after tax income and is definitely the main culprit I’d say. Note that you can get tax breaks on some out of pocket medical expenses; helps a little, not a lot. Also $100k between 2 incomes is likely below average (depends a bit on the city). If you can find opportunities to distance yourself from the lower $100k and get up closer to the $200k range then you’ll find some breathing room. Side gigs can also help a lot. What is your housing situation like? Rent/mortgage?
Right, OP mentioned earlier that they haven’t been able to find a better position in their field in their area than $22/hr, but if that is not factoring in differences in benefits for roles that may pay the same or slightly less, it may be one thing to consider in this search. My benefits include family plan max out of pocket at I believe $12k, and I also get the equivalent of several months’ sick leave at the time I begin the position and accrue another couple during the course of the year. Altogether, those benefits and savings for someone in this position may make a world of difference in circumstances even if salary on paper was lower.
Not OP but I have health insurance through my employer for my SO and I and we have already spent thousands in medical bills this year alone. Health insurance is a joke..
Jsyk, in some states an ASD diagnosis is an automatic qualification to have Medicare for the individual, regardless of the parents’ or family’s insurance!
You need to better budget. Your post said 20k a year medical costs, but $2700 a month is over 30k a year. You need to be cognizant of exactly what your costs are, and I'm sorr but that's not on the economy.
For real. In more ways than one. Just had to quit my job due to health problems...
Obviously the medical costs are a beast. Aside from that, you need to make a budget, then pull a few months worth of expenses and compare them to the budget. It's also worth sitting down with your accountant or financial planner or just making an appointment with someone at the bank to see where you can cut expenses and maximize savings. I'm wondering if part of the problem is that you're caught in a stress/convenience trap. I've known a lot of people who took second jobs to get ahead, but they're so tired and burnt out from overwork that they end up buying themselves presents and treats to cope, plus convenience food and items because they're too tired to cook or run to the store, and they spend more money than they earn at the second job coping with the impact of the second job. When I was a manager, most of my staff worked two jobs and were exhausted. We offered a money management course to anyone who wanted it (we were running it for clients anway) and after looking at their stress and convenience purchases and changing their budgeting, more than half the staff were able to ditch the second job. I doubt you're at that level, but you can probably carve a fair chunk out of your monthly expenses without sacrificing your quality of life.
Op said in another comment that she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. I think this was the part she left out as to why she is struggling.
Yeah...I'd love more than one pet but you have to keep in mind what you can afford. Especially when you consider they won't always be healthy and will need extra medical care
Right? Which to each their own. You want to have 5 dogs amd 2 cats, go ahead. But don't cry woe is me and "this ks a shit economy" when you have a luxury that most people can't afford.
I recommend trying to climb the ladder and get paid more for your skills vs killing yourself by working a second job at the gas station. Maybe one of you can attempt this and then that will be an opportunity for the second to increase their career. $100k a year is a decent amount but it’s not much considering you are collectively working 4 jobs and huge overtime. Life is extremely expensive right now. I wish you the best of luck
I've been keeping an eye put for better jobs but my main is 22$ an hour and I haven't stumbled upon any better so far. But yes. Life is very expensive right now :/
Prioritize getting great health insurance. $20k/year in out of pocket medical = $10 per hour. You should easily be willing to trade a few bucks of cash compensation for that and need to think strategically about that trade.
Are you in a career with upward mobility?
Yes but can't move up til I hit a year with the company. I left my last job because there was no career advancement opportunities so I've been with this company about 7 months now. I'll be up for advancement in October and a raise in February 2025
Sounds like you are on a good path then. I am rooting for you both
Thank you :)
r/povertyfinance
Get a job for the government. It won’t pay super well (actually might be better than your current job tbh) but your healthcare costs will go down to near zero. I pay maybe $160 a month to insurance and my copay is pretty minimal. In total, I probably pay about $300 a month for insurance, meds, therapy, and my doc appointments. I’m on the spectrum too btw.
are there any government programs that would help pay for your daughter’s care? I recently switched to a high-deductible HSA-backed insurance plan, and I find that it has much lower maximum out-of-pocket. So at a certain point, everything is completely free. And I have access to the same doctors. So you might look at your available health insurance with different eyes.
OP I'm a financial advisor and I have a few things to say. Respectfully to everyone else here, you don't really have a budgeting problem I would guess but let's try to break down your big spending categories instead of nitpicking the little stuff. I'm just spit balling here but at $100k you're probably spending around 20% in taxes between federal, SS and state (not sure where you live). Then another $20k in health related costs. So right off the top you've got $60k left which is $5k a month. Assuming you're in a MCOL city, I'm guessing your mortgage/housing expenses are at least $2k. I'm also going to assume you spend at least $1,500 on daycare etc. You said your groceries are $1k a month which is not surprising for someone with a kid. That leaves you with a whopping $500 for everything else - assuming you have a fully paid off car, $500 a month is extremely tight for everything else like car insurance, phone plan, utilities, so on and so forth. Here's what I'd recommend for you: 1. Spend 15 minutes putting pen to paper on the big expenses as I illustrated above. 2. Start with the big expense items - for example, are you on the right kind of health insurance plan? Could you get a different plan that covers more of what your daughter needs so your out of pocket isn't so expensive. If you have an expensive car payment, are there change you could make. Do you usually get a tax refund, if so, that means you're overpaying on a monthly basis and you could adjust your withholding to smooth out cash flow. 3. Both of you need to seriously think about ways to increase your income. You can scrimp and save on grocery store coupons all day but saving $10 every week will be way less effective than earning $1k-$2k more per month. 4. See if you can find out if where you live has a "Financial Planning Association" chapter. They offer pro bono services and you could work with a planner to help you with your finances. In the fullness of time, I would still build a detailed budget to see if there's any areas where you can cut expenses but that's not where I would start because that's not what's going to be most effective. I'd be happy to offer my pro-bono services as well but not sure if that's against rules here.
What on earth were you think getting 7 pets which require proper food, veterinary care, annual booster shots. That’s a bit irresponsible considering my next piece of advice, would be to consider finding loving families to adopt them. You clearly can’t afford to care for them properly, so find others who can take that financial burden off of your shoulders.
How are you spending $1k a month on two adults n two small kids? Parents, sit down and look at where the money is going. Figure out a budget that will work. Separate necessities from wants. See how much your entertainment spending is. Are you making meals or reheating crap and eating out often? Sit down and compare plans of your cell phone, Internet, cable bills, see if you can switch to less.
Op said in another comment that she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. I think this was the part she left out as to why she is struggling.
Ah yes, a very vital piece of info. I always wonder how and why people keep so many pets in one household *and* have kids. In this economy? And dogs eat a lot too, especially the bigger they are.
So many animals! Pet food plus vet costs must be through the roof!! Not sure why she left out this obvious piece of info
Right? People do that sometimes, it's weird.
That is quite a lot. You know the maintenance on 5 dogs??? And two cats?? Jesus
I started cooking more at home and buying things they could heat up so we wouldnt eat out. It seems to be working against me tho. That grocery bill does include diapers for my youngest which is about 200 a month and dog food which we spend another 150 a month. Not to mention I not only keep our house stocked but have to also provide my daughters food for her therapy cuz she goes for 6 hours a day and they don't provide her diet.
What might help is to get a Costco card and a chest freezer. You can easily save on dog food and diapers. Cut down on buying heat/eat meals n just find ways to make them yourself and freeze.
This. Double up and freeze meals, crock pot and other time savers. You are spending more are ready to heat/eat than you realize I am betting
You might try and get the diapers on a subscription. It helps quite a bit for us.
Ahh diapers and pet. Those 2 things can add up. My husband is the only breadwinner, $108K, 3 kids. I spend about $100-150 per week on groceries. When our youngest stopped wearing diapers and graduated preschool, it’s a bit of a relieve. We don’t have a pet since can’t afford its care. If the pet was sick, we wouldn’t have the budget for the vet bills. We live pretty comfortably, but we don’t have the budget for luxury things, like summer camps or vacations.
Lmao u all definitely starving on that
Not true, our family of 4 spends between $130-$150 per week. We have two dogs and a cat. It’s very doable but you have to plan and bulk buying helps a lot.
If you have the freezer space consider prepping things ahead of time that can be heated up later rather than buying premade. Like one of the things I always have in my freezer are little lasagnas in mini loaf pans, you can do the same with microwavable dishes instead. That can really help bring down the coast of food.
How many dogs do you have?? We have a 50 lb hound and I think we spend maybe 5-10 dollars a month on her food.
Maybe stop buying single use diapers?
1k a month is not that much on groceries. Especially with two kids. This is the normal for groceries.
I would focus on getting a job that has better benefits to help your healthcare costs. Or maybe relocating to a city with a lower cost of living. Sorry to hear about your hardship.
It's tough to compare because it's never apples to apples. Like others have said - make a budget. Grab your bank statements and input everything (spreadsheet, app, etc) for the last 6 months (although a year is more accurate). Categorize the expenses. Groceries, travel, pets, insurance, etc. Determine what is a need. This means groceries, shelter and all expenses related to survival. Then determine wants. Then find where to trim.
Check out a tool like Rocketmoney. When I joined, they offered pay-what-you-can, so you could pay a couple bucks a month for it. It makes it so much easier to track all the expenses.
Maybe give up some of your 5 dogs and 2 cats. Have you calculated how much you spend of pet food & vet bills?
I have 1, although small dog. Dog food is really really cheap imo. I buy a big bag of dog food for like $40 and it lasts me months. My big costs are grooming (she is long haired), vet bills and boarding. Of course if I was financially struggling boarding would decrease as I wouldn't be going on vacations. I wonder how many skip out on vet bills to save some money.
You spend $1,000 a month on groceries? That’s over $30 in groceries every day. Are y’all eating prime steak every night?? I do sympathize on the therapy costs. Our son was diagnosed autistic (high-functioning) and those therapy bills were no joke, especially since insurance barely covered half, if any of most of his appointments.
You have to go to the cheapest grocery store like Aldi Don’t assume your kid has to have the most expensive therapies. If the therapies really won’t change anything, learn to do them at home.
Blame the shit economy I work in the IT sector, my wife is in psych: child mental health. Combined income about $130K and we have only one car and I feel broke. We budget every dollar. Go out to eat maybe once a month (mainly to spend time with family or friends we haven’t seen in a while) our only luxury expense is our gym membership. Lately I feel like anything under 200K is not enough for a family to live the classic middle class lifestyle; 2 cars, good food, a mediocre house and money for kids activities
The "Classic Middle Class Lifestyle" is something our parents had. The actual middle class in the US earns 50-150k a year, to afford owning your own house, a few cars, a few vacations a year and a comfortable lifestyle, you need to be pulling in well above that. Skyrocketing medical expenses, education expenses, food costs, and mortgage rates/hous prices have pushed "the american dream" firmly into "top 10% territory".
* $12,000 groceries * $20,000 health insurance premiums That’s $32,000 already. Don’t forget other taxes and withholdings that could easily be $25,000. Your meals all need to be prepped. * Slow cooker rice and beans and cut up chicken (like the Costco rotisserie chicken for $4.99). * Bread, mayo, ham or chicken or tuna, etc. * Julia Pacheco-inspired casseroles and slow cooker meals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIivFUJVJw)
The biggest thing is she has 7 pets, 5 dogs and 2 cats. That's what's keeping her poor.
What?!? /u/Standard_File8255 didn’t mention that in her post! No wonder! 5 dogs and 2 cats on **food alone** is at minimum $300 per month of take-home pay on food alone, and that is $3,600 per year. More than enough money for 3 to 6 “emergencies” per year. Most people contribute to their own financial situarions. This is clearly such a case.
Mhm. As per her comment. "2 outside dogs and 3 inside and 2 cats. Its a lot but they were homeless when we found them. 3 of them were suppose to be fosters but no one ever adopted and our shelter is a high kill shelter. Idk what else to do" It very much is her own doings, she knows why she's financially struggling.
My wife and I make more and we aren’t thriving. Everything is an arm and a leg nowadays, coming from an accountant who checks our financials daily.
I'm a single dude, and 20k/year in medical costs would severely hamper my budget. Are you sure the therapy is worth it? I understand the desire to help your child, but at the expense of your entire family's well-being? People are criticizing 1k/month for groceries/pet expenses. I don't agree with them. For a family of four I don't think 1k is that crazy. But the 5 pet thing is kinda nuts. You need to learn to separate WANTS from NEEDS.
She's nonverbal and severely delayed, what kind of parent would I be if I didn't try everything possible? And believe me, needs are definitely prioritized. We don't do anything extra. No vacations, no out of town trips, no extra costs or vices of any sort. We work too much for that. Now the dogs yeah they are a lot. But our area has a kill shelter and we've never been able to find anyone to take any of them. 3 of them were suppose to be fosters but no one would adopt and aside from dumping them like they were when we acquired them, idk what to do.
Your medical costs are crippling. I'm not sure what the answer is for your daughter. But I'll flip that statement around..."What kind of parent would you be if you and your children ended up homeless?" Can you find a speech therapist doing Freelance work? You guys really need that money. Maybe you're able to scrape by on that 100k. But what about when emergencies happen? Car repairs? Etc.
First: rehome the pets. I have a child in the spectrum, too. Therapy is worth it.
The best money saving advice I have is work opposite shifts as your spouse, split the child care evenly and save any child care costs. It will only be temporary until they are both in school. This has saved me tens of thousands of dollars and it keeps us from fighting as much as we see eachother less
51F I am disabled, my guy works but delivers. Our car has been out for 2 months, we have had no income except disability from me.(and my son) we live on less than 2k a month for 3 adults. I need healthcare but that’s impossible on our salary. We are one check away from losing our home and being on the street.
Kids are expensive. A lot of people are opting out and choosing childfree. You guys atleast get a massive tax break.
You’re Living beyond your means. Housing, cars. How much per month?
I'd say 1k on groceries per month is kind of extreme, I'm sure you'd be able to find some room there. Otherwise, I don't think you're a failure at all you guys are making decent money and with such health costs it would be rough.
For a family of 4? $1k a month is pretty good.
They are also including the price of diapers and pet food… of which op has 7 of them
Oh yeah that'd definitely drive up the costs a bit, hadn't read the rest of the thread so didn't know about the pets.
Well yeah 100k combined isn’t a lot in 2024, especially with kids
Yep... some people on this thread seem to think differently apparently tho. Smh
They probably live in a dirt cheap area. My rent alone is 3k. I’d be struggling too if my HHI was only 100k
OP said housing was $1200 and made another post saying they spend over $80/week on energy drinks at the gas station. Their income is not the issue, they need to learn to budget.
Lol I missed that part about the energy drinks. That’s absurd
This is going to sound aggressive and I apologize for that. It comes from some cultural trauma and a need to make sure autistic voices are heard when it comes to how we are treated by the medical community. If the therapy is ABA therapy highkey get your kid out of there. I know it’s what you’re “supposed” to do but any autistic person I’ve ever spoken to who’s gone through it talks about it like it’s actual literal torture. Like it’s conversion therapy for autism. If it’s not ABA then carry on, thank you for getting support for your kiddo. If you have a yard, you could try growing some of your own food? Also, how much are your other bills? After healthcare and groceries you should still have around 4500 a month.
You're doing something wrong. The economy isn't bad despite how many social media feels and vibes say it is. You can't blame this on that. The healthcare costs are the #1 issue here, but there needs to be a total overhaul of your budget in other areas as well.
Same for me. I make a good salary, and I drive Uber as a side gig. My wife make okay money, but it’s contract work, so not consistent. Still paycheck to paycheck. Although, not all negative. Lots of equity in our house, cars are paid off. Most of my expenses are CC debts, which is hard to keep low balances.
Post your budget so we know where money goes then you can get sound advice.
I’d start with the insurance expense since that’s so high by going on to the autism board and asking around about insurance options and jobs that have good insurance that cover these treatments. You might take a pay cut working for the government or a certain company but end up making up for it with much lower health care costs. It’s hard to help with the rest of the budget if we don’t know all the details of where the money goes.
i would guess health care costs for the average 4 person household is closer to 10k a year . you work 2 full time jobs that each pay about 35k a year?
Do you have any kind of HSA account through your job that you can take pre-tax money out of your paycheck and use it for medical bills? Especially if you know those will be consistent for a year.
If you have online banking and mostly use a debit card , print out a month or 2 of statements grab a few highlighters and a cup of coffee. Go through EVERY single line item. One color for necessities (Utilities, mortgage, insurance, copays) one color for food and fuel, one color for everything else. The everything else is probably where the bleeding is . If you are charging on a credit card STOP. Take a look at the everything else category and you will be astonished at the amount you overspending. For me and especially my husband having it in black and white was very helpful. From there I was able to establish a simple spreadsheet and refer to that when needed. At one point we were spending 350.00 per month on dunkin. Thats almost 2 weeks worth of groceries, SMH. You will be pleasantly surprised when you see how small changes can remove the financial noose
Yes 100k per family is not a lot.
girl I love my pets as much as the next person, but your pets are a HUGE strain on finances. I have 3 cats and 2 fishtanks. its NOT cheap even when you buy all the cheap stuff (which i don't unfortunately, but pellet litter has brought the costs down in that area). I can't imagine have dogs in the mix too. idk the breeds but bigger dogs obviously eat more plus any vet bills, grooming, and washing, assuming you do any of that. you can blame the economy all you want because it absolutely IS shit, but thats not going to get you anywhere. id really look into how much you spend on pet care and possibly re home some of them which im usually AGAINST as they are family, but what happens when one of them needs surgery or even just putting one down. you are doing a disservice to everyone involved in that scenario. secondly, do you use coupons? I'm not saying you have to be the crazy coupon person, but just using some is a big help. you didn't put much of your finances on here so I really can't help in figuring out your issue and where you can save, but you have to really dig down into where your money is going and see if there's anything you can live without or live with less of. 100k isn't what it used to be but its also how you use it.
Realistically, if you make 100k, budget like you're living off 70k. This puts 30k away as well as pays for any emergencies.
It’s probably not an income issue rather an expense issue. I would highly recommend to analyze your monthly spending habits & work backwards. 1. Pay yourself for retirement 2. Mandatory expenses (you should still look to see if you’re paying the best rate possible) 3. The extra fat (biggest cuts here) Most people keep 4-6 subscriptions a month for entertainment purposes continuously running. I always encourage people to go in cycles like switching your subscription every 3 months. (Netflix,HBO,Disney+ etc) there isn’t an activation fee so take advantage of this flexibility. I’m not saying this maybe 30-40 savings would change your life. I’m just trying to show that small decisions may add up to help you.
100k today is actually like 50k 30 years ago. It's not you being a failure. The only thing I would look into is the health care and therapy for your son. He might be eligible for Medicaid and the therapy could be covered under that, possibly. My sister is an eye doctor and her husband has a good job as well. They had a kid with special needs, and they didn't know it at first, but after a year or so, they were able to get him on a Medicaid plan.
Making 150k from 80k in the last 4 years. Prices have doubled on everything and we didn't get a big enough boost to keep up. We are struggling more now than we were 4 years ago.
That's because 100k is the new 60k. It took me a while to wrap my head around this too, as I'm from a generation where 100k was a lot of money.
It’s a really rough economy right now. Inflation is an all time high so 6 figures used to be impressive whereas now that’s just barely surviving
Unfortunately, 100k is nothing. Especially for a family of 4 and pets. That’s a lot of expenses. Need to look at your monthly costs and figure out what do you really need and what can you do without. And what can you change to lower certain costs? (Change to cheaper pet food, store brand foods, not have expensive car payments, cut out subscriptions, etc).
Thanks for reminding me to never have kids
Vote for candidates that support universal healthcare, downballot, especially if you are in a red state. Local, federal, every election matters.
Everyone is saying budget but I think you need more income. 100k is 70k after taxes and insurance, then 50k after her stated health care costs. 4k a month isn’t a lot when rent is 2k, childcare is 1k, gas/maintenance for two vehicles is 500.
Honestly I’m not surprised you are struggling because 100k is only about 5k a month take home give or take. You said your health insurance plus therapies for your daughter are $2700 a month,right there that leaves just $2300 for food,car expenses,housing,clothing,etc. So don’t feel that bad as you just have some unusually high required expenses.
Just wanted to say that regardless of current circumstances I’m very impressed with you guys. You are working really hard and dealing with a lot. Wishing you happiness and prosperity.
Wtf kinda dog food are u buying? 50 bucks at Costco lasts me like 4 months, I reluctantly advise you if you need to give the dog away... 150/month plus yearly vet stuff which should be around 4-600 a year ish.. that could be invested and growing, look out your long term financial health for God sakes
she has 5 dogs and 2 cats. the only way they're going to save on petfood is by getting rid of some pets. and I say this as a massive animal lover. they will be stuck letting an animal die over eating plastic or whatever because of this. she needs to get rid of some of these. and I'm on the side of id rather die than get rid of my pets.
Yes. I have a child in the spectrum and we used to want 4 children. But with one in the spectrum we decided, 2 are enough. Because I love my children. And I want to give them the attention they need. With one in the spectrum that needs a lot of attention there is not enough time/energy left for more than one additonal child. If you love the people/creatures in your family you stick to the amount you can handle. And you don't add family members you can't afford financially, timewise and energywise.
She definitely could get rid of some of her pets. 5 dogs and 2 cats isn't mandatory, it's a luxury to have that many pets.
You have three jobs between two adults, making over six figures and call it a shit economy with super low unemployment and record high stock markets?
You're living above your means. Some of us are making do with $50k/yr and are in position to buy a house.
It’s the economy and your circumstances. I can’t even afford a dog in this economy, let alone a child, let alone a child with complex needs. It’s a struggle
Yet OP affords 5 dogs and 2 cats additionally...
Its a horrible economy but you can get creative
The hours ye work and the care needs of your kids , one with extra needs , make it highly likely ye dont have time to actually sit down and see where your money is going, how to budget for groceries and bills and have a good handle of whats what A rough guide that works for me is take your salary, immediately minus off your insruance and tax. That's what you actually have. Divide this by 52 for your weekly amount or by 12 for monthly Draw up a calendar , just 12 columns.for each month works put all expenses on it. Add up your expenses, things like mtg, car payments etc. Utilities Every expense ye have, literally i pop kids birthdays ,pet care, glasses every two years, heating fuel for winter, upcoming weddings, an allowance for back to school in august, and everything on it I save for additional expenses weekly , some weeks, there is more money that covers the weeks that have the bigger expenses. I have an allocation for groceries, never spend the full amount , you may need something during the week like milk and bread. And be really cognizant of it. It doesn't make me feel like i have more money , but if your groceries have shot up that much , you need to trim it back unless you can actually see other areas where you can cut back The hardest part is getting in front of expenses I now pay things in full instead of by dd which costs more etc Theres been times when I'm not on top of my budget that i feel stressed out and unable to spend because i didn't realise exactly what i had available, seems easier to be completely on top of it
For my family of 5 groceries are at about 600 for a month. $1,000 for just groceries a month is ridiculous. Credit card debt? Car payments? My husband and I make no where near that and we are comfortable and have what we need. 100k, we would be set.
Grocery prices vary from place to place. You two may be buying the exact same stuff and they could still pay more than you. Feeding 5 people with $600 a month feels impossible to me. My family of 4 spends $300 a month at Sam's Club (bulk store if you are unfamiliar) just on snacks and misc items. considering the 2 jobs and medical needs, it sounds like there might not be time for OP to do proper comparison shopping or couponing. "Struggling" is also subjective. For some folks it means "i can't save money, but my bills are paid" and to others it means "I don't know where the next meal is coming from"
After reading your replies op, you're struggling because you have 7 pets. I know pets are line part of the family, but you can't really afford 5 dogs and 2 cats right now. I'd suggest keep trying to rehome some or just knuckle down for the next 3 years.
I certainly don’t understand why you can’t make it. If you have monthly payments for things you don’t need get rid of them. It appears that you have purchased too many things on your want list rather than your needs list. See what you can do and get back on track I understand kiddos on the spectrum need specialized treatments that is expensive but with your six figure income should not make you live from pay cheque to pay cheque
You need to sit down with an accountant and have them dig through your budget. Something can give and they may have solid advice.
Capitalism is showing its cracks. Hard to get around this simple fact.
"this shit economy" is not to blame if OP has 5 dogs and 2 cats additonally.
Having so many pets to feed is showing the cracks here.
100k is 6 figure and 999k is also 6 figure, but they are different!
I don't understand anything about this. you in America work for 100 thousand dollars and barely survive, you have to work two jobs. I work here in Germany for 43 thousand euros, I live normally, you even save money at the end of the month. I do not understand.
She has 5 dogs and 2 cats. That's where all her extra money goes.
My husband makes about 50k before taxes and my family of 4 lives comfortable off and we pay a mortgage. I get Kindergeld 500/month and I save the Pflegegeld I get for my son with autism. We always have money over at the end of the month.
Time to figure out how to make more per hour and fast. Yiu can only work two full time jobs for so long. Each year is time off your life and stress on your marriage and kids, it's also no way to live. You either need to cut costs, move to a lower cost of living location, or one of you need to make more.
Can you receive SSI for your disabled child???
We make too much money for it
Do you qualify for TEFRA or looked into it? That could save you a lot!
If you have any time to read a book I would recommend the barefoot investor - don’t let the name turn you off, it’s not about investing in the stock market, it’s about investing in yourself. In any case, it has a very easy and useful guide on dividing you pay packet up which was a god send for me after years of struggling pay check to pay check, living under a mountain of debt. Since reading the book and taking on some of the advice, my earning hasn’t increased that much but I now have emergency funds saved away, I have money for a holiday each year and we were able to buy an apartment to live in. I def recommend
You need to look at debts this is where most people’s money goes what’s your car payments you rent/mortgage these are the things that eat up all the money if you have 2 cars is it possible to go to one? 100k in todays money isn’t a whole lot considering how expensive everything is but there’s a leak in the finances somewhere that needs to fixed
It's not you, it's the monetary system itself that's failing. Power lust is out of control.
Weed out any unecessary purchases. Many ppl when asked what they actually spend their money on will say well yes there is ____ and maybe I don’t need that. Is he at amazon?
I think together we make about 170k (I'm in my 40s), and everything is bleeding us dry. Vehicle maintenance, kids going to college, insurance not paying for hospital services, house things, groceries, etc. 100k is great for a single person, but it barely makes a dent in supporting a family. It's almost like when women hit the workforce, costs rose to ensure that two earners can't really get too comfortable (labor stopped keeping with production output in the 70s).
Those 20k a year are the difference
What state are you in? You need to list your expenses.
Yes, you make decent money, but you have unique expenses $20k of expenses that most of us don't have changes things. It might be to your advantage to look for a job that pays a bit less but has insurance that would cover your medical expenses. A $10k pay cut but insurance that pays that $20k is a raise. My wife works at a hospital. They pay a bit less but the benefits are great.
You need a budget.
Blame billionaires, corporations and the politicians in their pockets.
All the comments here saying budgeting. How the hell do you budget for 20k health care costs a year. What the actual fuck. How are Americans okay with this situation..
100k is not a lot of money in 2024…unless you live in Rural Alabama or something
Hey, no advice, just wanted to let you know you're not alone. I hope your situation improves.
I don't think it's either one. I think when you have higher medical expenses, low six digits isn't all that high.
Do you know if you’re maximizing the state scholarship programs for children on the spectrum? In another life I was an expert on funding available for this and consulted in several states but I have moved on. It’s my experience that many parents are not properly informed on the grants, scholarships and funding available. What state? Mostly you NEED to budget for your reality. Over analyze everything purchase you have made in the last few months. It makes a huge impact on your finances.
Budget for sure but 100k right now with 2 kids and one of them on the spectrum is not a lot unfortunately. It’s absurd for sure but it’s a fact. Budget though 100%.
Do you guys have debt or car notes? One thing that helps me and my lady no car notes and we don’t have debt from school, she also works but those two things help us when it comes to saving and doing what needs to be done without feeling the burn.
This is the reality of middle class families. Living from paycheck to paycheck and God forbid that you find yourself with an unpredictable situation requiring few ks. You can scrap up that not so fancy deserved vacation. We have 3 kids and our oldest son 20 has just moved out.
My wife tells me all that stuff that Dave Ramsey and team teach and sell is what we have been doing a long time ago before you heard of him because that is what people used to do. You lived like no one else so then that later you could live like no one else. He is hard-core about getting out of debt. But we do use a credit card and pay it off every month and we have borrowed short term for some rental properties that we paid off in two years. Look up Dave Ramsey and team, you do not have to buy his material as you can get the information from a podcast or radio broadcast. But me I like a paper book to refer to.
I think the root of it is that the terms we use for being wealthy or well off haven't changed in decades, and haven't kept up with inflation. "6 figures" and "millionaire" mean far less than they used to.
My family is in a similar situation. Teenage daughter with ASD make low 6 figures. We are fortunate to not be struggling due to a combination of low housing costs, great health insurance, and some other variables. That said I totally feel you in the costs of raising a special needs child and even though we aren’t struggling, we are still cost conscious. Our largest chunk of expenses is by far my daughter. She’s sensory seeking and rough on clothes. We buy thrifted clothes to keep the cost down (we’ve always been thrift store shoppers even before then). Adult diapers were a huge expense. Walmart branded ones are like half the cost. That took a huge chunk out of our monthly bill. They are also FSA though it looks like your daughters expenses exceed anything you’d have in FSA anyway. Just a thought if there’s a medically lean year. We buy essentially generic everything. We would buy from Aldi but they don’t have them where we are in the west coast. A lot of people in this thread aghast at your grocery cost may not be taking in the full picture. Our grocery costs doubled moving from South Carolina to Washington state. Between not having an Aldi or Aldi substitute and general cost of food out here, it’s nuts. It went from 150/week for a family of 5 to 300/week for the same amount of food. Then add to that a growing family with higher demand for caloric intake, less diapers for more money because it’s now specialized for a larger person, extra clothes always ready to go because your child might leak through their pull up or get food all over their shirt, don’t forget the extra laundry because they go through so many outfits every day, oh if they’ve also got blood sugar issues you’re probably monitoring and feeding them regularly, also she is sensory seeking so to prevent her from fecal smearing we make sure she gets what she needs with shaving cream which is added to the grocery bill - 1 a day is $2 and that’s an extra $60 / month just for that, and all that added up can drive up the grocery cost. Our current grocery bill is between 400 and 500 every week. All the extra things she needs outside of groceries also adds to the cost (medical, 1500 cash to have her anesthetized for have her dental work done in addition to the actual cost of the dental care, all of the cost of her meds, constant specialist visits, time away from work to put out fires related to issues at school or with a specialist, repairs needing to be done to the house because your child is unintentionally destructive and you can’t change the behavior overnight). I’m only sharing this info so others in this thread can understand the added challenges of a child with special needs and consider thinking twice before scoffing at the grocery bill. In terms of working multiple jobs…one of your jobs is WFH. You should look into overemployment. There’s actually an overemployment subreddit targeted at women: https://www.reddit.com/r/OverEmployedWomen/ If the insurance gig is hourly it might be hard to do, but if you can manage it, you’ll free up bandwidth by being able to do both jobs at the same time. Strategically for jobs you’re looking at, when you’re in a better position and less is at stake, go for one that has good health insurance. My families health insurance covers everything at 90% in network. It really helps keep the costs down for my daughter’s care.
As others have said: full budget breakdown. 100k and “scraping by” is suspicious. There’s probably a lot of adjustments you guys need to make.
$1,000/ month on GROCERIES for 2 adults and 2 kids?? That is CRAZY!! What in the world are you guys eating?? If that is what you are spending on that my guess you are spending A LOT on other stuff and not even realizing it. First step... Itemize where EVERY DOLLAR is being spent over the next 3 months. Then start cutting where you can. I GUARANTEE you can find places to cut.
That’s the new normal. You’d have to quadruple that income just to begin feeling ok. If you were able to do that, the money would still all disappear. It’s just that you’d be able to afford some basic things without feeling broke all the time.
I feel you, I am a single parent and I make way less... I work 50 hours a week around my 2 kids (9 year old non speaking with ASD, 7 year old ) and I am drowning, barley have my head above water and it keeps getting worse, I know a lot of people have said budget and that helps its also hard when the cost of basic things is climbing. This is not a great advice. I skip 1-2 meals a day so I have enough to pay for kids meals and I am raw dogging with no health insurance because its too expensive, sad world we are living in
* Does your family keep a budget report? If not, you should. Write up literally everything you spend on, small or big, in a spreadsheet. Write up all your income (that's usually simple, very few items) * Then check what you're spending on most, and evaluate if the spending is required or not * So therapy for your kid is essential, but stuff like eating out or ordering take-out isn't * Next, do an **actual** budget - which is different, report just shows what you spent on, budget is deciding in advance what you WILL spend on. And make sure not to exceed it as you go. Obviously it has to be realistic and based on your budget reports from before. * Learn to save money. You mentioned grocery costs. * **Are you buying food in bulk?** * Are you buying generic stuff or brand names? * Are you buying things that are... optional? (cakes, cookies, soda, other junk food). * Are you cooking 100% of buying store-prepared foods, frozen foods, and takeout/eat-out? Are you throwing out any food that spoils, regularly? * Lastly, you seem zeroing in on "feeling". Sorry but how's that helpful? If you blame yourself, OR the economy, or lizard people, you still have the same salary and same expenses either way. How's that help anyone other than make yourself feel worse and take away time from actual useful actions?
Let's hone in on one thing since it seems be one of your single biggest expenses. Have you been buying the exact same groceries? My grocery bills have gone up too, but by a THOUSAND dollars a month? Even for a family of four that seems pretty extreme unless you're in some kind of crazy high cost food desert. Why don't you compare some grocery bills from the last couple years and see which are the high hitters and make sure you haven't accidentally fallen prey to lifestyle inflation instead of cost inflation.
To me what jumps out is the 1k monthly grocery bill, thats where I would start tidying up immediately. Something you didn't mention but I find to be a drain for us is subscriptions to everything; tv, movies, podcasts, internet, cell phones, that iphone watch thing. Usually theres some waste there as well.
Depending on where you live 100k can absolutely be barely scraping by for a family of 4.