Earning just over $16,000 a year, keeping a functioning family is tough work. Working for $5.85 an hour at a entry level job that doesn't provide health benefits or paid vacation doesn't allow our family to afford the finer things in life. Living outside of the Metropolitan area in a two bedroom apartment, public transit isn't available so we have a used car. Gas and insurance payments are another monthly expense that takes away from our two kids being able to get things they want. Simple things like going out to the movies with friends are not an option for my two children. We have a son that is 17 years of age and a 6 year old daughter with a learning disability. Our daughter has to meet with a tutor outside of school to receive extra help. This is another lump sum out of our budget. After paying for the apartment, utilities, tutor bills, gas, insurance, food, clothing and car payments, our yearly budget of $16,000 doesn't stretch far. Managing a family on a budget like this is stressful. Although my wife and I are both working we can't afford to do things. We were forced to not have health insurance because our budget didn't allow it so we hope nothing happens with anybody in the family. After cutting every extra expense we managed to save just over $1,000 a year.
After receiving our life card, all of our money was taken. We were told to buy each child school uniforms. These uniforms took our entire savings resulting in us having to cut back on the little we had. To accommodate the twist in the path we had to get rid of our car and each person had to sacrifice personal items. Another thing to cut back on was on our daughters tutoring. After making all these changes we were able to afford the uniforms and some mandatory needs each month.
