$49.44

My wife works weekends so that I have the boys on the weekends or at least Sunday if I'm working sauturdays (pretty much May through December) so we only have to find a sitter once a week. There is no way we'd make it on just my income. I have no idea how families similar to ours afford daycare on top of groceries and everything else.
Yep, I work weekends and wife works during the week. We are still doing daycare because we have no one close to watch the girl and when I was busy with work I had rotating weekdays. $600 a month for daycare.
I’m ramping up my job search and am looking at finding a night shift and ditching daycare.
 
Ugh!!! I’m in that boat

I think a bag of my dogs good has went up close to $20 in the past couple years. I figured out a bag lasts me about 28 days. So close to $80/month to feed two labs
That too. We’ve cut back on the dog food as our two were fat and lazy. I personally save almost every table scrap I can for them to eat but still trying to get the wife to do the same when I’m not home.
 
Awesome! I have (26) four year old crowns I'm ferning out for the last time. I didn't cull the females since they are growing 4-5 shoots per crown at almost 2 inches per day and those little pencil thick shoots are tasty over any grilled meat.. Asparagus is definitely for folks in the " long game" but what other garden vegetable is going to produce for 10+ years off one planting?
Plus nothing goes better with a ribeye!
 
$55.69 at Wally world tonight got me a package of Johnsonville brats, 2 boxes of shore lunch fish batter, 2 avocados, 1 orange, 4 bags of water softener salt and 6 pack of spotted cow.

The time I spent looking for a checker outer aisle open-priceless.
 
Good grief, and used to think the threads about point creep were a depressing subject. The pain is real and it’s everywhere. I’m in the diaper buyer camp too, thankfully my mom keeps the baby and saves us some on that end at least.
I was in the grocery store just a couple hours ago looking for strawberries and all I could find were the ones in the giant center display with the loathesome word “organic” emblazoned across the front. After griping to myself in my head about there being “no way I was paying extra for that crap, where are the regular pesticide laden fruits and veggies that a man can actually afford, sick of these dang crunchy hipsters trying to dictate what’s in the produce section” etc. I realized I was talking out loud and there was a woman looking at me like I needed therapy… She’s probably right, but with grocery bills like these who can afford therapy?! And I’m only 40, this doesn’t bode well for me when I actually am a grumpy old man.
 
Groceries just plain suck lately. When they had the Covid bonus added to our LINK card it would pretty much cover our monthly food costs if I was careful. Now that the "emergency" is over we were cut down to $160/month. I went Friday and found some meat on sale but didn't go crazy at all and just bought a couple things. Got what I needed and they rang it all up at $157! Damn it! Now I'm on my own until next month. Time to dig into the freezer and see what I can make for a while. Just paid the property taxes today and my pension checks will be $1000 less from now on because I turn 62 Friday. Won't get my first Social security check until July. Or not. Depends on what DC does with the debt ceiling. Good thing I have some venison to eat!
 
Good grief, and used to think the threads about point creep were a depressing subject. The pain is real and it’s everywhere. I’m in the diaper buyer camp too, thankfully my mom keeps the baby and saves us some on that end at least.
daycare costs are nuts. Love my daycare but dang it’s expensive. Can’t wait until the kid is in the public school system I’ve been helping pay for with 25 years of taxes already
 
Old fart at store.
I gotta watch my words in a supermarket in a mormon town.
I went last week and the line at the deli sent me off 1st. Bailed at that and went and got a couple loaves of bread, on sale , 4.99...I laughed out loud to myself. That got a look.
I mumbled to myself thru the produce and got some lettuce and maters. I scored a couple small boxes of blueberries for $5.00. And I laughed...
I went to the peanut butter & jam isle. $6.00 for a jar of peanut butter. MFers I said, then I saw they have the apricot jam I like. $7.99 now. For a cup and a half of apricots and sugar. MFer. Out loud,in an isle packed with blue hairs. The sorry about that got a couple chuckles.
I lost it in the coffee isle. No french roast in the big bag deals. Another MFer as I grabbed 2 bags of Peet's. Folks down the isle moved farther away. I got looks.
I almost just shoved the old guy laying on his cart when I saw the ribeyes. $15 for bone in. I just reached and grabbed 2. The looks.
More looks in the check out...word had gotten out.
$173 for 4 plastic sacks and 4 donuts.

I'm heading back over today for the new meds and I'll go to Safeway and try not to be another uncle Larry today. LOL I'll try.
Uncle Larry would approve. Eff em if they can't take a joke.
 
I couldn't really say about our grocery bill because that's the wife's territory and budget. I know she's pretty serious about having deer killed and a large garden grown - all by me. She does the processing and canning. And she keeps the chickens. Seeing as practically all the meat and eggs are no to low cost to her I guess she is able to handle it OK. I have heard complaints. The only things we never have are sodas and alcohol but that's choice not budget.

We eat a meal or two per week that's 100% not from a store. Doing so all the time would require one of us to quit work and make it a full time job. With the current rate of taxation, I do not see that happening for anyone living middle class or better.

Anyhow, here's the scary part of all this to me: home and vehicle prices. My mortgage is less than 20% of my personal take home pay. The last time I replaced our vehicles, I bought two new ones for less than the current price of a new truck. If I needed to replace a vehicle today I could replace it out of savings and have replaced the savings by the time a used vehicle wore out. The market value has more than doubled since I bought. If my son makes what I make just starting out, not starting out lower and then working up, his mortgage will be half his take home pay. How in the blank will our kids afford to live?

I understand my situation is very different from others. It's worse for most people now and will probably be impossible for their children.
 
We pay $990/month for or 2 year old. That will decrease next month as turns 3 on the 26th. Excited for that extra $100 per month.
Now imagine having 4 kids like my neighbor under the age of 5 or 6. You might as well quit work because all you would be doing is paying for daycare :) I figured it would be $3000-$4000/month for them, that would mean you need to make about $80,000 and that is just to pay for the daycare after taxes :)
 

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