When I started planning my life on minimum wage for myself and three other people, I realized that it’s practically impossible. An apartment for four people (with utilities) would be at least four hundred dollars and child care another couple of hundred alone. That’s at least half of my minimum wage budget.
The only food I could afford was things like ramen, soup, and macaroni and cheese. I could barely afford any meat or dairy at all and had a hard time fitting in fruits and vegetables. I would hate to have to raise children on such a diet. They would be malnourished and miserable eating the food I could afford. At the very least, they would be constantly protein deficient, which is very dangerous for growing kids.
I don’t think it’s possible to live on such meager funds. Maybe I could do it by myself (I’m a college kid, after all), but children need much more than noodles and diapers. They need clothes, vacations, toys, etc. Children need pets and to not have to worry about getting kicked out of their home.
Not to mention how completely helpless I would be if anyone in my family needed medical care. I remember a few weeks ago, I was having problems with my insurance company and I ended up paying for some of my pills on my own. Thirty days of medication cost me nearly two hundred dollars. There is no way I could afford medical care or insurance on my minimum budget. I don’t know what I would do except take out a loan, but who is going to loan money to someone who can’t pay it back?
I thought I would be able to complete my budget because I’m fairly frugal and a college student from a lower middle-class family, but there just wasn’t enough money in a month for it to work. I don’t know how people live on minimum wage. I couldn’t do it.
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