Living on $12,000 a year

Queenie

Not being picky cupid S, but that still works out at at over £7 per week and still represents 4x what you spend on Christmas or visiting family or even birthdays.

I'm not really being picky ... just throwing those comments into the mix before someone else who will scrutinise things far more closely than I :laugh:

PS: Bagsy be your lizard *bats eyelids fetchingly* :j :j :j

Churchmouse

Queenie wrote: »

PS: Bagsy be your lizard *bats eyelids fetchingly* :j :j :j

Yuck Queenie, do you really want to live on crickets and locusts:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Queenie

Churchmouse wrote: »

Yuck Queenie, do you really want to live on crickets and locusts:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Now you come to mention it ....

Locust Stew :whistle:

Chocolate Cricket Torte

Yum, yum! :beer:

ceridwen

hi Pandora123

Still struggling a bit with PM facility - got yr 2nd message, think reply gone back ok.

moanymoany

The comparisons between USA and Britain are very interesting. I've been looking at the about/frugal newsletters for about a year and one of the recurring themes is paying for prescription medicine. This is something we don't have to worry about for our children and when we are old.

Did you see the film on WalMart on the indie (I think) channel? I watched it twice, once on my own and again because hubby wanted to see it. It paints a very sad picture of life on a low wage and there are a lot of people who are in this position. The employees have to pay for the company health insurance and it is very expensive. They have to rely on charity health care for the children.

For about ten years now my husband has worked closely with a group of Americans - on what we would think of as good salaries - and they do worry about their health. The worry that their paid for houses may have to be sold to pay for a serious illness in their old age!

The protection for employees is not good, someone is cruising along quite nicely with paid health insurance then wham - the job has gone, the insurance has gone.

We in Europe are lucky, our cost of living may be higher but we have protection against adversity. The numbers of Americans living in dire poverty has grown hugely in the last 5 years.

This is why there are so many US sites on frugal living.

angela110660

JackieO wrote: »

When in the U.S. on holiday in April .....I think there probaly is as much poverty even in the richest country in the world as there is in most western countries .But go to the third world and there an awful lot of people exist on a dollar a day:eek: .Thats not living its just existing.
Many pensioners live on not much more than this, and are expected to be grateful for what they get. I don't complain as I can manage fairly well on my money,but there again I have no rent to pay as I own my own home .But any major repairs have to be paid for out of what I have .

Don't know what other people have found...but there are an awful lot of pensionable age people working in Disneyworld, Florida and other stores alongside the immigrant workers. Think this might back up the above comments.

hardpressed

Don't forget when you're buying car or house insurance to do it through Quidco, so far this year got £100 cashback on car insurance and £125 on building insurance, will do the same for contents insurance later in the year.

cupid_s

Queenie wrote: »

Not being picky cupid S, but that still works out at at over £7 per week and still represents 4x what you spend on Christmas or visiting family or even birthdays.

I'm not really being picky ... just throwing those comments into the mix before someone else who will scrutinise things far more closely than I :laugh:

PS: Bagsy be your lizard *bats eyelids fetchingly* :j :j :j

It's £8 per week we spend on their food approximately. It's more than this in the summer but less in winter. We do have 4 of them at the moment. And all their other food such as veg and fruit, which they eat quite a lot of, comes out of our food budget. I know they're not exactly moneysaving but I'd never get rid of them.

We don't spend much on going home to visit family as we cannot leave the lizards for long so only go a couple of times a year - so they do save us money in that respect!

And christmas and birthdays are mainly covered by what we get from survey sites so we only have to buy a small proportion of gifts out of our wages so that is why we spend so little on those.

And apparently locusts taste like chicken, and mealworms (which they get as a treat) taste like nutloaf! Not been brave enough to find out for myself though.

Gingham_Ribbon

cupid_s wrote: »

And apparently locusts taste like chicken, and mealworms (which they get as a treat) taste like nutloaf! Not been brave enough to find out for myself though.

Wow! That's some clever animals you've got there. How did they tell you? (Sorry! LOL)

cupid_s

Gingham_Ribbon wrote: »

Wow! That's some clever animals you've got there. How did they tell you? (Sorry! LOL)

Ah well you see they eat cooked chicken as well. And they just said 'mommy you know that tastes just like locusts'. They are very clever considering their brain is the size of a pea.