late night shopping for diaper rash ointment

I recently had to buy Desitin for one of our younger children. Desitin has the highest percentage of zinc oxide (about 40%) of all the products offered at walgreens.

Traditionally, we've slathered large amounts all over our children's nether regions. The zinc oxide seems to create a thick barrier that protects and "water proofs" there tender skin -- quickly dissipating emerging rashes and irritation.

We've tried many medicines, triple ointment, boudreaux's, etc... Desitin seems to be the hands down winner.

Although it was the least expensive by weight at Walgreens, it was still $15 for a 1 lb. jar. If I remember correctly, I was able to buy it for about $10 at Baby's R Us in the past.

I bought one jar for tonight, but i'll load up on several at baby's 'r us if the price is reasonable.

What struck me is that emergency creams, diapers, etc... available late night at the drug store are most likely to be priced like cold cereal or cigarettes at a convenience store.

I've always been one to plan ahead, but it strikes me as prudent to create a list of things you should always have stocked at home and buy them pre-emptively. Although this may be difficult in today's economy, the extra cost, might be an unaffordable penalty. What would you put on your list?

Regards, makingourway

What would you do with $100,000?

Early last year sold equities to pay down my HELOC. At that time the interest rate was still fairly high.

The HELOC interest rate now is much lower (as are returns for deposit accounts).

I'm wondering if I should pull the cash out of the HELOC and put it into various accounts (depository, investment, etc...). The number isn't exactly $100k, but it's close enough for this kind of thinking.

Why am I thinking this way?

I've heard rumors that some banks have been freezing lines of credit in some areas - though nothing specific in Chicago. I assume the coasts were hit more heavily as the value of home equity dropped there much more severely than in the Midwest.

I need some or much of this money as emergency funds in case I lose my job. (it's not my only potential cash source, but an important one).

Also, considering that the market is quite low, maybe it's time to put some or all of it back into the market.

What would you do? I'm really chewing on this issue right now. If you pulled it out, where would you put it?

To feel more comfortable about my legal situation with the HELOC, I may ask a real estate attorney his opinion on whether the bank can freeze my HELOC. How would you confirm it?

Regards,
makingourway

planning expenses in times of economic uncertainty

At the moment I'm feeling fairly unstable in my career - fortunately my wife's is reliable at the moment.

While our finances have improved and we're trying to eliminate a credit card debt that has crept up, here recent raise and mine earlier in the year made a positive impact.

Recently we've begun thinking about larger expenses:

1. holiday / vacation to a warm beach somewhere
2. possible wedding in europe for a family member
3. replacing some exercise equipment

Although the above are not huge, the family vacation can certainly be expensive. As my wife puts it, if i'm working like crazy - what do i have to look forward to? I told her financial ruin if we don't plan expenses carefully - she didn't like that. Once the second house is finally sold, we'll be far more able to examine vacations.

Until then, I've asked her to find the cheapest safest thing possible - apparently the popular mexican resorts are seeing 2/3 decline in occupancy and the dollar has significantly appreciated in portions of europe.

Now all I need to do is remain continuously employed with my current firm or an alternate to help fund the holiday. After all - who wants to pay for a vacation with long term savings?

i'll share what comes up.

Regards,
makingourway

when should incandescent light bulbs be replaced with compact flourescents (CF) - and hidden incandescents

Today, I noticed a bookcase light that we often keep on all night long. I noticed it because I turned it off - rather than another family member.

As I looked at it, I realized it's a smaller 50 watt flood r-20, but not the larger br-20 that can be found in a can light in the ceiling.

Flourescents cost about $7 at Menard's. I'll try to pick one up today.

It's amazing how many lights we have in our house, appliances and even furniture.

I wonder if a multi-day audit isn't worth doing.

With the cost of compact flourescents in transition - many dimmable or less commonly shaped bulbs are still expensive - I wonder if replacement is best done by prioritizing usage; i.e. what stays on longest should be changed.

The question is, who has time to audit their light bulb usage?

My thinking is that any bulb that's noticeably used for more than 3 hours a day - or as a night or safety light - is probably a good candidate for immedaite replacement.

Other candidates may be out of the way bulbs that are difficult to reach - they can be replaced opportunisticly when service people are available.

I've talked with friends and read articles about people who gradually replace incandescents with CFs as their bulbs burn out. I imagine this will lead to most bulbs being replaced within 2 years, however, it doesn't seem to have the immediate economic (and environmental) benefit of immediately replacing the high usage bulbs.

One category of lights we haven't replaced are our outside lights. While I've hesitated due to the importance of immediate light (sometimes we can't wait 30 seconds for the bulb to reach peak illumination), I wonder how often we use these lights due to timers.

Regards, makingourway

Weekend spending goals

This weekend looks like a financial success - predominantly becuase we've been so busy.

At rough guess we've probably spent $120 - $60 on a birthday gift.

We'll be entertaining - so the pool is helpful from that perspective.

Regards,
makingourway

Very intersting article discussing water heaters and formula to calculate water heater operating costs

I found a very interesting article here that discusses water heaters and provides an excellent formula for calculating water heater oprating costs.

For me, this was most useful in comparing the benefits of water heaters with various efficiencies.

The most interesting note was that the Lowes eSmart line of Whirlpool water heaters is more efficient, but the efficieny is not a significant monthly savings.

Regards,
makingourway

Living within $300 per weekend - status

Here are my thoughts and a quick update.

The reason I tried to cap weekend spending, is that it's the most likely period where we have time to spend our weekend budget.

If we don't use it for lots of spending we'll be less likely to spend the money.

So much of our weekend spending actually went to standard living activities like, groceries, etc.... My regular weekly grocery budget was $300, but we were averaging much more, maybe $500. Changing how we shop at costco will make a huge dent. In general fruits and vegetables should come from the mexican green grocers - they cost almost half. Grandma loves the big 4 pound tubs of strawberries at $7 each, but we can buy 1 lb for $1 at the green grocers.

Our first weekend was fairly on budget, but only because I used a store credit to buy several home repair items - so I'm not sure how to really count that weekend.

Our second weekend was a failure - we spent about $500 or so. Groceries weren't so bad, but I had to buy some birthday gifts and wine to host a party so spend went up.

I'm hoping we can do better this weekend. We'll certainly see.

I still think the goal and aspiration is worth doing.

Regards, makingourway

Reducing subscriptions and ongoing costs and new ones

Here's a quick update on the effort to reduce continuing costs:

1. We are cancelling the unnecessary insurance policy - will save $65 per month over the next 12 years. That's $9,360!!
2. Cancelled Park District membership. Saves $135 per month. Looking back the whole thing was a mistake. We can take classes without being members - if we were to do so - and it would cost $5-$10 extra. But we would never take so many that it made sense to join. Plus they receive a tax subsidy so my conscience is salved.

Total saved $200 per month

Less tangible - utility bill reduction

1. We have bought and installed additional compact flourescent bulbs. We have probably gone from 60% - 85% converted. This may have reduced the expense further since we've focussed the bulbs on fairly high use areas. I'll post more on this separately.
2. Pool heater - we've lowered the temperature so it may consume less resources.
3. Household - we've been trying to raise the household temperature to 78 - this may reduce our electric bill

Personal trainer - reduced 10 lesson package from $550 to $400 - we'll continue to do this every two weeks, unless we can lower it further, but it's not reasonable to go much lower.

Additions:

Medicine $65 per month - doesn't look like there's a generic for these.

This weekend I'll take a fresh look at year to date spend and try to eliminate a few more expenses.

Regards,
makingourway

The grail has been partially met - flame-tip and dimmable compact flourescents have been found!! -

I found both flame tip and dimmable compact flourescents at Menard's.

I bought the following:

Compact flourescent flame-tip AKA decor bulbs for approximately $4.88 each for $9.96 in two packs. These were not dimmable, but they do fit into ceiling fixtures, etc.... The ones I bought were made by Sylvania at 40 watts. The bulbs come with a small tip and a converter to the larger standard size.

For some reason the builders of my house force me to use these ridiculous things.

They are quoted at 300+ lumens with 8000 hour life span. They use 9 watts (equivalent to 40 watt incandescent bulbs). Competing bulbs use onlky 7 watts, but provide substantially less lumens. They are also longer and may not fit certain light fixtures.

I also saw a high end 25 watt flame-tip bulb with a 25,000 hour life span for considerably more money - about $12. I need to many to justify the expense. I may replace future bulbs once the flourescents expire - if I don't replace the fixtures.

I also bought several two packs of dimmable compact flourescent BR30 indoor flood lights for $17.99. Unfortunately, the builder of my house put quite a few can lights on dimmers - especially some of my higher traffic areas.

I am pleased to report that they do work - however, the precision they achieve compared with an incandescent is lacking. From my personal impression, it sees if there are three to four dim levels, rather than the gentle gradience one experiences with incandescent bulbs.

However, I never dim these high use areas, so I don't care much. Unfortunately, I can't eliminate the dimmers cheaply, so i buy the more expensive dimming CF's. So these more expensive dimmable comact flourescent floods come to about $8.00 each - i think you can buy BR-30's in packages of 6 for about $3.00 each - so there is a big premium.

Finally, the dimmable bulbs are not nearly as impressive as the other CF's. They do have the 8,000 hour life, but only provide 700 lumens - comparable to a normal flood.

I'm still missing dimmable flame-tip / decor compact flourescents. If I recall correctly, I did see them at another Menards, but the one I visited did not have them. I may have to wait a while for these. As I don't travel in that direction often.

At this point nearly all of the high traffic areas of my house have CF's. I do still have a great need for BR-30 dimmable floods in some less used areas, like my basement as well as dimmable CF candles for two fixtures. Also, I need dimmable CFs for my chandeliers - however, I'd like to wait for another generation for all but one of them. I'll need quite a few.

I still plan to buy dimmable candles for two more fixtures - they are high traffic. The rest of the house can wait until costco works out a great deal.

If you really need to buy dimmable CF candles, you might try on line - it's quite expensive - usually $12+. I'm sincerely hoping I can find the less expensive dimmables somewhere. Who knows?

At the end of the day, I wonder how much this energy savings effort is really worth? I did lower my electrical bill from $220 to $150, but summer cooling and pool filtration costs are driving that number from $150 to $550.

If I'm lucky, raisting thermostat temperatures will help somewhat.

Regards,
makingourway

PS The menards website is pretty hard to use. I couldn't figure out how to look in store product up on line, nor could I place an order on line to pick-up at the store - something you can do with circuit city.

I have found the grale of compact flourescent light bulbs!

I'll write more on this soon.
While shopping I took the time to stop at a few stores en-route and examine compact flourescent light bulb (CF) offerings.

although it's easy to find 60-100 watt non-dimmable spirals and 65 watt feflectors for Can / ceiling insets - I recommend Costco for these - especially now with the commonwealth Edison sponsored discounts (35%).

I have finally! Finally! found affordably priced decor flame tip style bulbs that are dimmable!

I'll explain what I've learned in the next post.

Weekend spending update $253 spent, $47 left.

Well...on friday we spent about $90 for camping equipment that we didn't need.
Today we spent $10 on lunch at McDonald's (happy meals).
And...$150 on dinner with a friend visiting from out of town.
I was truely bumbed by the size of the expenditure, but it was the least we could do when we couldn't have the friend over to our house.
We also spent $3.00 at the local library buying discarded books.
My son made out like a bandit - most books were under $0.50 each.
This leaves us with $47 left for the weekend, I recommended to my wife that we go to Aldi for grocer shopping as an alternative to Costco.

Otherwise, I have no guarantee there will be anything I like to eat in the house.
We'll have to draw up the shopping list carefully.

$47 budget left...can we do it?

Regards, makingourway

Goal $300 per weekend and 77 degrees HVAC

We've discussed the matter and agreed to the following:

1. We'll try to cap weekend spending to $300 on all things.
So far we've spent about $96 at REI and Target (preparing for a cancelled camping trip).

2. We've raised the downstairs thermostat to 77 degrees during the day and 78 degrees at night - we'll see if we can tolerate this.

3. We're going to focus on low cost actvities such as:
a. cinema - pre-bought discount tickets via costco
b. library - borrow new DVDs and perhaps read some books together
c. hanging pictures together
d. perhaps some board games

We've invited our rained out friends to camp at our house. This would be alot of fun if they join us.

We need to commit to the spend and temperature throughout the weekend.

Some things we'll be giving up:

a. High end tickets to places like cirque du soleil - we can go once a year, but not make a habbit of it.
b. Expensive vacations - though we won't go anywhere the rest of the year, anwyay.
c. Personal trainer two times a week - every two weeks for us

More thoughts later.

Regards,
makingourway

Changing spending habits to save money

I was a bit depressed when I looked at our semi-yearly money spend.

Mrs. MOW and I discussed it and came to a few conclusions (or at least I hope she shared mine):

1. Until 2nd house is actually sold, we have to live within the economic constraints it places on us; that means we can't spend $11,000 on vacations, $1,000 on weekend shopping, etc....

2. We may have to adjust our Costco habit; reduce trips to two times per month. Find alternative low price shopping locations for groceries. Do we need to spend $7.00 on strawberries or grapes? We may restrict Costco to dry goods, instead.

3. Accelerate our search for an SUV replacement - we're eyeing the honda civic hybrid but need to road test it. The thought of not using high test fuel is a big plus in and of itself. My thoughts are that we could save $200 on the lease amount plus another $100+ per month on fuel. We'll have to see what the lease surrender charges are on the SUV and factor them in. At the very least, we should investigate my wife's business travel reimbursement options.

4. New goal: constrain weekend spending to $300;
traditionally I've budgetted $80 for weekend entertainment, $80 for dining out, $20 for movies and $300 for groceries. I'm trying to compress it all into $300 - we'll see what happens. My thesis is that most money is spent on the weekends. If we can work together to avoid spending more than $300, we may not have time to do so during the week.

5. Groceries - we've been spending $1,800 a month on groceries. Mostly at Costco. I am a bit concerned that non-grocery items have been added in, but i usually try to pull them out into distinct categories. We'll see how this works. Costco avoidance may also help. There are a number of hispanic groceries in the region that have a delicious variety of vegetables and fruits and may be priced more aggressively than Costco. Though usually Costco is amazing on bananas at $0.29 per pound.

6. Vacations - no major ones planned the rest of the year, but the $11k in damage has already been done. I think we'll investigate camping alot more - it's quite a bit cheaper.

7. HVAC - I've raised the household temperature to 76 degrees all day. This is close to the maximum I think we can tolerate - but perhaps after a few weeks, we can go a degree higher? We'll see. I wonder how much impact this will have.

Questions and thoughts:

1. I have 3 refrigerators. None of them are very new - say 5-10 years old each. I wonder what they are costing me to operation? Does location matter? One is in the garage, the other in the basement and the third in the kitchen.

2. Should ceiling fans be running if someone is not in the room?

3. I have fairly high end single pane Pella windows. I've always read that replacement cost is very hard to recover. Will it make a big difference?

4. More compact flourescent lights - I have several light fixtures that are on for at least 4 hours a day - all use 40 watt flame tip candles. I remember seeing somewhere - but don't remember where - CF versions. Most websites offer 20,000 hour bulbs at $11 per bulb. That seems very expensive to me - but they are usually dimmable. Somewhere I saw flame tips for $5. At this point I think they're worht getting. Costco doesn't carry them yet, which is a shame. An uniformed oppinion postulated within a year.

5. Rent the second house - paper work is already done - now I'm waiting for a customer.

6. Consider quiting the local Y - I'm paying about $130 a month and not using it - however, I might once school season begins - tough choices - can i let it lapse? Then again I am using the personal trainer - is that included?

7. Reconsider cancelling an old 20 year term life insurance policy. It only costs $65 per month, but it's redundant with the policies we put into our ILIT's.

8. Consider cancelling our legacy vonage lines $42 a month - now only used to forward to our home and mobile. Possibly cancel only 1 on them - still $21 back per month.

9. I think we have to stop buying big ticket event items - we don't do it often, but it's $200 - $300 each time.

Regards, makingourway

What's the cost of cooling a big house in the summer?

Looks like it's $500 - or at least that's what my electrical bill was at.

I've recently raised the target temperature to 76 degrees. We'll see how this changes things.

Near the end of winter my electrical bill had dropped from about $250 to $170. It ran at that level for several months - I'm hoping it can be attributed to the increased use of compact flourescents throughout the house.

If our average electrical bill is perhaps $200, this means our cooling bill about $300. Interesting.

One thing I've done to cool the house more efficiently is turn the ceiling fans on in common rooms. This should help circulate air better.

Regards,
makingourway

$3000 spent on gasoline over 6 months

A few days ago I did a year to date search by spending category.
The results were quite disappointing.

One item in particular was a $3000 spend on gasoline.

Granted a few reimbursements for some business related travel were not included, but overall the amounts are large - $500 per month. Oddly, they do seem in synch with the $180 a car a month that some of my friends are paying.

Having 3 cars, we need to calculat how much we're actually spending per car. My wife, who commutes the most will have to consider filing for reimbursement for miles on the job - that will help some.

We'll also keep looking for hybrids. She was quite disappointment with the lack of power and performance in the Toyota Prius. We're wondering if the Honday Camry Hybrid will perform any better.

One question we don't have answered is exactly on which car are we spending the most money. We'll have to get alot better tracking gasoline charges for that to happen. However, i am confident switching from an suv to a compact hybrid should save quite a bit.

Regards,
makingourway

Compact Flourescent Light Bulbs (CF) - going for 100%

I've been pondering how we can both help the environment and reduce our electrical usage.

Last weekend at a cost of $110 I replaced the incandescent bulbs in almost all of our ceiling fan fixtures (we have 5).

I still have a large number of sconces and ceiling fixtures that use flame tipped bulbs. Although Costco does not have any, Target does for about $4.50 or so (+/= $0.50) - however these are for the normal ligh bulb width screw base.

I remember seeing a narrower screwbase with an adapter somewhere - but have to track it down.

I'll need 20-30 of them.

With the cost of summer air conditioning, i'm wondering how quickly i'll see a cost savings. Probably not too quickly.

we're currently setting our hvac temperature at 75 degrees. Outside temperature usually goes into the 80s in Chicago for this time of year. I'm wondering if we should raise it 1 degree to 76 - perhaps at night time? Maybe it won't be noticed. We'll have to see how the family accepts this.

I realized that I have not replaced the incandescents in the garage - that may be a morning project.

One of the most challenging projects is replacing the light bulbs in a lofted area of the house that are very high up. Somehow we'll have to tackle that - I imagine as soon as a light goes out we'll replace all of them with long lasting CF bulbs.

Additionally, we should consider converting outdoors lights as well, however, we don't use the outside lights very often.

One question I ask myself, does it make sense to spend $300 - $400 on CF bulbs? We certainly noticed a $50 per month reduction in electrical bills during winter, so i think it does.

One area, where we have little ability to convert are the dimmable can lights in the kitchen (6) and finished basement (12?). The kitchen is a high use area, however, the basement is not. However, I have not yet seen dimmable floods and I wonder how much they would cost. Dimabble flame tip or torpedo style bulbs cost $11+ each. That would be a very big investment!

In the next few years, manufacturers will stop making incandescent bulbs. I can only imagine that chepaer CF and CF dimmable technology will be created. One question remains - will it work with current dimming systems?

Regards,
makingourway

PS I wonder how we're doing lowering our carbon footprint. I have a sneaking suspicion keeping the swimming pool heated in September will not help.

what to do with an SUV coming off lease?

Well, our SUV is coming off of lease.

We had thought to buy a less expensive hybrid with better gasoline mileage, however, my wife was unhappy with the vehicle performance and prefers the higher seating / positioning of an SUV - she can more easily see over traffic.

The fact that it's a luxury SUV means that it's much nicer and more comfortable on the insides, as well - though I think that was less important in her decision making - she likes the HP / engine performance.

All said, we need to decide what to do.

We're paying about $620 per month for a vehicle that's depreciated about $15,000. It's worth about $26,000. If I refinance it with a five year bank loan it will be cost $580 per month (via Chase). I'd really like to save more money than that.

Leases are usually cheaper as you pay for the depreciation plus and loan fee (interest) rather than paying for the entire vehicle.

My next bet is to find a less expensive way to refinance the vehicle. Used vehicle loans are often more expensive than new due to lower collateral value, so I find myself in a pickle.

At this point I'll need to research how to refinance affordably. Our credit rating is high so we should be able to obtain good rates.

I do wonder if it's possible to lease the car again. That would may be the least expensive option.

Two other alternatives would be to either:

a. pay in cash
b. user our HELOC

I'd rather not do either in order to maximize liquidity. In today's market I do not feel secure in my employment (though I have been reassured by corporate leadership), so it's best to maintain as much available cash as possible.

I am concerned that:

a. doing nothing - I will overpay because the original lease was calculated at a $40+k principal
b. spend too much time on this as the monthly savings may be very small

Any thoughts?

Regards, makingourway

cash flow impact on our finances after new raise

I projected the results of my raise and the completion of my 401k contribution and the following became apparent:

Based on current cash flows, I have three negative cash flow dips, one each month from April - June. In July the modest cash flow impact of my raise accumulates to a point where I remain cash flow positive, the same seems to occur in August.

So at this point I have to identify a liquidity plan.

The immediate goal is to fund my operating accounts with enough cash to handle the biggest dip, which is $2700 in June. My first negative dip is $2000 around April 10.

I had planned to sell my ETFs and use them to provide liqudity, however, the stock market turmoil has made selling them quite challenging. At the moment they are more or less break even.

One of my ETF's EEM has done quite well, so at this point I'll certainly cash it out and opportunistically cash out the others as they approach or exceed break even.

Cashing out EEM gives me $4100 in cash.
I'll also sell a small mutual fund holding I had at schwab for $550.
Finally, I'll pull $140 of idle cash out of prosper. I've been disappointed by the high grade debt default rates and have been challenged with the competition for the better borrowers. As a result I haven't put too much time into it and will defund my account as the cash becomes available.

Getting my cash from the brokerages may be interesting as my bank accounts have changed.

If all works out I'll have $4790, which should provide a substantial cash cushion.

The next issue I'll have to deal with will be an assessment of significant cash outlays - especially investment specific choices that must be made by 4/15/2008, however the immediate priority is to provide liquidity for daily operations.

Regards, makingourway

Want to play what if with payroll deductions? Try this great pay check deduction calculator - oh i found out how i might get to positive cash flow

As you can imagine, cash flow is a bit tight with the second house. I've had to pay careful attention to our cash flow. Recent changes have made great improvements, but my operating cash has diminished, so attention to detail is critical.

One thing I decided to do was understand the impact of my pay increase on future paychecks, but unfortunately, I have several deductions, like a 401k contribution that muddy the water, as I've accelerated the rate of contribution and it will be satisfied soon.

What to do? I searched the web and found at dinky town this wonderful payroll calculator / paycheck calculator. Now keep in mind the results are only an estimate, but it's fairly accurate.

I tested it against several pay stubs and the results generally came out within $20.00 of the actual result.

One thing to be sure to do is make sure you represent the correct pay period; i.e. are you paid bi-weekly, bi-monthly, weekly, etc....

Another imprortant tip is to make sure you factor in any pre-tax and post-tax deductions. For example, I pay disability premiums post-tax to ensure the benefits are tax free.

The good news is that I should have about 30% more after tax cash per payroll for my pay checks. It could make a significant improvement in our cash flow. However, we also have to keep in mind that my wife will be eligible for her 401k - I'm a bit concerned as to how well it will be managed.

Her contributions would come out at a rate of $3,100 a month - ouch (assuming an August start). I'll have to model the impact on cash flow due to:
a. decreased federal income tax
b. at some point we'll stop paying the social security portion of FICA once we've satisfied the limit

If we're lucky the decreased income tax and reduced social security payments may balance each other out.

Of course there are always unplanned expenses. I have a nasty feeling our roofers didn't do the best job and some money will be spent on fixing it (or sueing them).

I just entered advanced transactions in through part of August 2008 using the new estimated payroll numbers for my paycheck, while holding my wife's constant. I learned that I'll have a series of negative checking account balances (periodic drops) running from April through June with the worst being about -$2700. By July, however, the numbers even out and my cashflow is positive. I'm hoping it holds going forward - it looks like it will. This is potentially wonderful news.

Homework assignments are:

1. Figure out how to increase checking account balance by $3000
2. While continuing to pay off credit card debt $8700
3. Factoring in money for over seas trip (personal) in May (I only hae $1000 budgetted) but might be able to use frequent flyer miles
4. Investigate refinancing mortgage - looks skeptical, my mortgages are at 6.5% and 6.0% - too low to make a difference with current rates
5. Decide what to do with car coming off of lease

I'll try to follow-up in a few weeks to see how accurate the payroll calculator actually was.

Regards,
makingourway

Living off of $1250 a month

$2M brought up a great point - $1250 isn't a small amount - however income and expenses are fairly relative to ones situation. For example medical costs seem minor now, but there are people with medicine costs that exceed my raise. For my situation it feels like a minor increase as it still does not meet the needs of myself and my family, but we're working on it.

Oddly, I have relatives who live off of social security, but they earn less than $500 per month. If it were not for family help (from guess who), I wonder what they would do?

I did read an article on just such a situation, quite a few americans have decided to move to less expensive countries, such as mexico and central america. while medical care is cheaper, there is certainly a gamble that the right level of skilled medical care would be available - especially when it comes to exensive daignostic capital equipment. Many procedures cannot be done easily in other countries due to the limited number of diagnostic machines available - one might have to wait (or incent) quite a bit to get it done.

On the other hand, when I was a student I was very poor - working and studying. I probably lived off of less than $1250 a month; I suspect about $400 in cash earnings and another $600 from savings.

Regards, makingourway