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Key priority is a roof over the family, food, and valueable family time. Without knowing more can only postulate. 5400 gross per month is plenty in some places and barely getting by in others. 90 hours a week means no days off and looking like something like a minimum of 14 hour weekdays, 10 on weekends, but could be as rough as back to back 16s or worse and a few hours on weekends.

I'd look for the cheapest feasible living conditions. Are three bedrooms needed? Or can it work with 2? Be open to mobile home living if possible

Having 3 jobs is extreme strain. Is it possible to reduce to 2, forgoing some income and still survive? Goal here is to free some time that can be redirected to quality time, destressing, and any outside hobbies or training that makes life worth living

Cut all nonessentials to reduce expenses that may be driving part of the job demands. Any excess save for buffer, family vacations, amenities, general improvement, towards a down payment on better living conditions

Reduce/eliminate items where tco is not worth it. E.g. any extra vehicles, trailers etc where insurance, registration, or other recurring tax has to be paid

Ask for what you want and need without begging or scamming. Many people want to help others and will part with items or their personal tome easier than money when they know it will be appreciated

mrecheese 🧀 4mo ago

If you say hypothetical guy doesn't want to take any gubmint money, he's getting $4800-ish a month after taxes.

I kind of ran this in the Houston area. Not super expensive, but not backwoods cheap. Somewhere you could actually get to 3 part-time jobs.

I think mobile home/tiny house would be the only way. Probably in a trailer park, because a land payment is out of budget. Assuming no helping hands here with spare land, etc.

Figure $750 for a car/cars, insurance, maintenance, gas. Can't be a crap car, because it needs to run 3x a day 7 days a week.

Groceries, trying to live a healthy life, feeding a family and a working man 7 days a week, I figure $1500 a month.

Phone, electric, gas, water, trash, probably $350 a month.

That's $2600. So $2200 left to cover that mobile home in a trailer park and clothes, medical, savings, vacation, etc. That's a rough life unless you get a lucky break in there somewhere.

And you have to work 90 hours a week. And inflation steals it away faster than you can get a raise.

I paid for most of that stuff with extra money falling out of my ears on $14/hr at 40 hrs/week a mere 20-ish years ago. Pretty crazy. I guess that was the point. I just caught myself thinking about how it would shake out today. I could basically do it, but at double the hours with nothing extra and no life to live. Bitcoin fixes this, if you have anything left to buy it with, or time to earn it.

I also considered that the dude could be making $30/hr on 40s as a degreed higher-skill worker and still have most of the same problems. At that pay, he'd have no extra at all because he'd have student loan debt and probably bought a suburban house with that leftover $2200/month. Yuck.

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Discussion

Nice and Kind Vic 4mo ago

$1500/month seems high for groceries for a family of 4 on a budget. I see a lot of family packs of chicken and pork chops in play, and the inevitable spaghetti or rice bases meals for dinner. Kool-aid and sweet tea instead of sodas. Drip coffee filling a thermos every morning. PBJ, Bologna or Ham and Cheese sandwiches as a common lunch staple. Maybe some Little Debbie snack cakes and those Hunts Pudding cups

mrecheese 🧀 4mo ago

Overestimated for trying to eat healthy. Chicken, beef, pork, etc. Gotta fuel that 90-hour machine, too. This dude is probably burning 3000 cals a day on that schedule. But yeah, beans and rice otherwise. Little Caesars hot-n-ready would get you there, too.

Nice and Kind Vic 4mo ago

Very valid points on the calories necessary to fuel that.

Now it's got me looking forward to Dinty Moore stew commercials in the fall. Give us some blue collar folks in those commercials instead of celebrities