Living as a VISTA, part 2

Living Surviving as a VISTA, part 2

As promised, let's now take a look at how our typical living expenses balance out against poverty-level income in part 2 of my series. For the purposes of our exercise today, I'm going to use Taylor's and my income and our actual combined living expenses. We share an apartment and all of our resources, so it would be difficult to calculate my share of the expenses alone. And besides, that's just not how we do things--we share our expenses because we share everything else (thank goodness).

(Note: I have Taylor's permission to use our own budget for today's post. While this is our particular experience, it is intended to shed light on the challenges many VISTAs and other people living in poverty go through from month to month. It is not meant to speak for everyone, but to serve as an example. He and I both think this is an important learning experience for my readers.)

Let's begin with the money coming into our household. You already know that I earn $833/month, which translates into payments of $383.87 biweekly, before taxes. Taylor works for an ambulette company and earns $7.65/hour. (Note: minimum wage is $7.25 in Ohio, as of July 24, 2009.) He has tried to get 35 hours each week (which is considered full time), and so he typically brings home around $400 every two weeks. He also works part-time at Miami University at the Outdoor Pursuit Center, earning $7.75/hour. He gets an average of 6-10 hours per pay period, and brings home around $50-70 every two weeks.

Did I mention that Taylor is a full-time student too? There are days when Taylor leaves the apartment at 7:30am and doesn't return home until 10:30pm after work and classes. He is working hard everyday, all day, to pursue his own goals while still keeping us afloat.

Moving on, that brings our grand total to: $1667.74 for four weeks of work, more or less.

Let's break down our expenses and see how we balance out. First, we have rent for our 1 bedroom apartment. We selected this place based on its price, location, and neighborhood quality. We pay $540/month. Gas heat is also included in the lease, so in the winter we can save money that way, fortunately.

Sure, we could have lived in a much cheaper apartment at $390/month, but at the cost of safety and peace of mind. One week, the newspaper showed one such complex that we toured to have generated at least 4 police reports (accounting for one fourth of the city's section), all violence-related.

$1667.74 (income) - $540.00 (rent+heat)= $1127.74 (remaining income)

Next we pay electricity, including air-conditioning expenses. We usually set our thermostat at 80 degrees and keep our blinds and curtains pulled to reduce expenses. We have also filled plastic bags with water to keep our freezer full, reducing operating costs. We are conservative with our light usage, and we always unplug the laptop and cell phone chargers when not in use. Still our last bill was $59.69/month.

$1127.74 (remaining income) - $59.69 (electricity) = $1068.05 (remaining income)

Let's examine the phone situation. I have had my own cell phone plan since I left home for college, no family plans here. Individually, I was paying $52 every month. There was no way we could afford that kind of an expense now for a single phone. I bought out of my contract for $120 (eventually we will absorb that cost in long-term savings), and bundled our phone service. We get Taylor's cell phone, my cell phone, our landline, and internet service for about $110 a month after taxes have been added on.

$1068.05 (remaining income) - $110.00 (phone+internet) = $958.05 (remaining income)

Now we have arrived at our water bill. The billing cycle from the water company is backlogged one month, so based on our first bill, I project a $42 water bill/month. The bill is determined by taking the entire building's water usage and dividing by the 12 units in the building. No matter how much we conserve, our neighbors ultimately determine what we pay.

$958.05 (remaining income) - $42 (water) = $916.05 (remaining income)

We don't have cable--too expensive. We use an antenna and a digital cable converter box that my dad gave me to get a handful of channels. We are also loyal library patrons, and spend much more time reading (and blogging!) than ever before.

$916.05 (remaining income) - $0 (cable+library use) = $916.05 (remaining income)

Insurance--health. Now, I have health coverage through Americorps VISTA. Taylor has been able to stay on his parents' health insurance as a full-time student. That will most likely end in mid-August when his program ends. From that point on he will be a part-time student so that he can devote more time to working and studying (and sleeping). As of right now, we have no health insurance costs but check back in about a month.

Insurance--car. Taylor's dad recently signed his vehicle over to him so that we could find a lower priced premium. We switched his coverage and are spending $86.19/month. In August we'll be picking up my car insurance too, but not for another few weeks. Again, check back later.

Insurance--renter's. We don't have a lot of stuff, but the stuff we do have, we need. If a fire or flood were to come through this building, we would lose everything. We couldn't afford to not have renter's insurance, and at an average cost of $15.17/month. We'll take it.

$916.05 (remaining income) - $101.36 (renter's + 1 auto policy) = $814.69

Because we wanted to find a lower insurance premium, we had to essentially "buy" Taylor's vehicle from his parents. We will $100/month for 2 years until the car is paid off. As part of the deal with Taylor's dad, after two years, we will receive the entire sum back. But in the meantime, it's $100 we have to come up with every month, so it goes on the list of expenses.

$814.69 (remaining income) - $100 (car payment) = $714.69

Still with me? We also subscribe to our local newspaper. We felt that it was important to keep up with the happenings of the community, plus we receive all of the coupons throughout the week. It's a small fee at $7.32/month.

$714.69 (remaining income) - $7.32 (newspaper) = $707.37 (remaining income)

One of our biggest expenses has been in gasoline. We live in Fairfield, one mile away from Shared Harvest, which is great for me. But Taylor has to drive to Cincinnati every day for work, and then up north to Butler Tech for night classes. In a typical month, we're paying about $100 at the pump, which will increase as I start traveling more with my position.

$707.37 (remaining income) - $100 (gasoline) = $607.37

I' m sure you're wondering about our food costs. As I mentioned at the end of the last post, Taylor and I qualify for food stamps. Since May 19th, we haven't had to spend a dime on food, which has really helped us. But food stamps don't cover household goods that you often buy at the grocery store, like toothpaste, deoderant, paper towels, etc. We guess that we spend about $50/month on that kind of stuff.

$607.37 (remaining income) - $50 (household items) = $557.37 (remaining income)

One last thing--laundry. We're renting and don't have washer and dryer hook ups. Using the coin-operated machines down the hall from our unit, we tend to spend around $7.50 a week, which multiplied by 4 is about $30.

$557.37 (remaining income) - $30 (laundry) = $527.37 (remaining income)

At the end of the month it looks like we have $527.37 left over. Right? Not exactly--that's our remaining amount on paper, which only takes in to account the regular expenses that we are guaranteed to incur over the course of the month. Last month we needed to change the oil in my car and rotate the tires to keep up our maintenance and keep our second vehicle. There were some books that I wanted to keep for my own reference, so we had a small bill from Amazon. We had haircuts yesterday. We also have a balance on a credit card from the past few months of school, not to mention student loan debt to start paying down. And of course I had my dental co-pay last week to factor in. At the end of the month, we might have some money left over from our paychecks, but life pops up and soaks up those funds. Additionally, any money we have left over has been designated for our savings account. If we don't want more debt on our credit cards, we need to be saving towards an emergency fund for those little incidents that could cost us a lot of money.

We hardly have any money left over to do something fun, like get an ice cream cone or go to the movies. And if we do those things, we feel guilty the entire time for spending the money on a $1.99 frozen yogurt.

For those seasoned bill payers out there rolling your eyes and saying "ooh poor baby!" to this post, I hear you. Yes, we're adults and we have bills to pay--we're okay with that. Neither of us expects to be rich. It's the living paycheck to paycheck mentality that we're not okay with. Like most people in poverty, we're constantly worried about money, to the point that when Taylor and I needed haircuts yesterday, I cringed as we wrote the check. We're naturally frugal people, but when we have to decide between getting a package of undershirts or a bottle of mouthwash, there's a problem.

In my first post on this blog, I talked about how joining Americorps VISTA and spending a year in poverty was a choice. Yes--it was my choice, but it wasn't Taylor's. I'm sure when he asked me to marry him that he thought I'd be contributing a little more to our household. I am lucky that he has embraced this experience and encouraged me to follow my passion. Maybe at some point he can post his perspective on all of this--I'd be interested to see how he really feels about our situation.

In the last post of this series, I'll document our journey in receiving food stamps. If you're not familiar with the process, you should find this portion of the series particularly fascinating.