Show me the MONEY

AHH the sweet smell of payday!

 But if you are anything like me you have your money in your hands for about 15 mins on Friday afternoon and then it’s gone faster than a Mexican on the Arizona border.

The word “budget” has become synonymous with money and with the American people. We all have to “tighten the purse strings” for different reasons, whether it be for monthly bills, gas money, school supplies, clothing, ect we all have to be “fiscally conservative” with our money these days, but where does it all go?

The average consumer has a budget that is split into a number of expenses monthly and yearly. “The average American spends $49,639 a year on a range of necessary and desired expenditures” (cnn.com) this comes out of an annual income of $63,091, before taxes. The average consumer owns 1.9 vehicles and 67% of them are homeowners. Housing in America is the largest expenditure of a household income. Housing takes up 31.4% of the yearly budget of households, which is around $16,920 spent on housing. Broken down its more like this:

                1.) Around $10,000 on shelter

                2.) $4,000 on utilities

                3.) $1,000 on household operations

                4.) $600 spent on housekeeping and 3.6 % of that is spent on furnishings and equipment.

The second and third largest is transportation and healthcare, (no surprise to me) “the cost of vehicles purchased is an average of $3,244 per year, making it 6.5 percent of the average budget” (cnn.com) with the cost of maintenance for a car, the average is $9,000 a year! This is around 17% of a yearly budget.

Healthcare, where Americans spend on average $3,000 a year, is “expenditure for an American family, granted this is an average for a family making about $65,000 a year. Food on average is about $3,000 on food a year.

 

With an American family living on a fixed income, where do you cut? The average low income family makes $24,000 a year before taxes (this includes a married couple and their 2 children)   If the above family making $65,000 cab barley make it, what gives the family who makes $24,000 a chance. Being a college student, I do still live at home, but I pay rent, I pay for books, I pay fees, a car, gas, clothing, food, Netflix, gym membership. And working in retail is not much for “making a living” I make $8.23 an hour and I have to work at least 35 hours a week to make my bills each month. Did I mention I don’t get 35 hours a week because I was not hired for full time?

Yeah I have a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, but it’s hard to find a job, I have applied for at least 50 jobs! I got two call backs! There is no way that anyone working in retail or in the minimum wage industry can even survive in the world today! I see so many people working 2-3 jobs just to make rent! This cannot and should not be happening. These people ( like me) making less than $24,000 a year cannot and will not survive much longer in this economy.

(information and figure 1: "Where does the money go" taken from CNN.com)