If you were canned

What is the minimum amount you could get by on each month? That incudes rent/mortgage, food, debt payments and everything else and assuming no drastic lifestyle changes (i.e. keep phone, cable, internet, blah blah)

Me, I would estimate 5k per month ± 10%

2.5K per month

Location is an important variable in this survey.

guessing USD7500. 60% of that is mortgage though, so would be putting the house on the market pronto if I lost my job.

what currency are we talking about? That would swing the answers drastically.

What is the duration of unemployment?

Currency is USD converted from local. duration is unknown but no drastic lifestyle change assumption means you tightened you belt but you feel a job could come “soon” so you have not stopped feeding the cat but your not buying a new car either.

5k a monf, 7.5k a monf! good grief! I’d live easily on 1.2k a monf.

Rent is dirt cheap. Loans are almost paid down. And I’m a value eater.

Ahhh but I have a wife, a two year old, a car payment (new SUV for the kiddos stuff) and a mortgage. Grocery alone is like 400/mo.

time of year would be big for me. It snows and gets very cold in winter. I have to buy 4 cords of wood to feed the wood stove for the winter and thats and easy 1k. Though it beats running the furnace (400/mo avg)

My bad. I’m a single guy. A family is a whole new world.

Yeah, if I was alone, no wife and kids, no childcare costs ($120 a day, 4 days a week!), 1 car only or even no car, renting, and eating the way I do when I was single (i.e. really simple cheap stuff), I could get away with WAY less.

I don’t even know if $7.5K covers it now that I think about it. It’s totally ridiculous.

These are estimates:

$4.5K mortgage (house prices in Oz are ridiculous, and interest rates high)

$2K - childare

$500 - 600 - back of the envelope guess for running 2 cars, insurance, repairs, gas

$1500 - Food (it’s expensive here, I go to the store and get dinner and get odd thing or two and I’ve spent $65)

$500 - Phones, internet, electricity, water, council taxes

$500 - petty cash for stuff that always comes up that you can’t avoid.

These are just estimates, in my experience, it’s ALWAYS ALWAYS more. Like when you get your credit card statement and you’re already dialing the credit card company to report a mistake and then you start looking at all the numbers and they all start to add up.

Today I could get by on a 1k a month living in Asia like a king.

Family? Nah. No family.

oh yea, you really get rap*d on daycare costs. Maybe I should start one and make a bucket of money to fund my investment in syn diamonds idea

^ The dude that owns the daycare that my daughter goes to has the nerve to park his nice new 6 Series convertible right infront of the school with his “Goddard” license plate. Everytime I see it I want to grab a bat and smash the hell out of it. I don’t like shelling out $1,400/m to begin with, but then you rub your brand new beemer in my face, the one I’m paying for?!?

you guys are some true ballers…

Here in America we don’t have to pay our mortgage so it’s not that bad. I’d say about $1000 cash would do it. No car payments, no childcare…wife stays home anyway. Just the essentials…cable tv, internet, beer, food, electricity, gas. Out of the $1000 I’d set aside a couple hundred a month to be sure I could still get the newest iPad and iPhone.

^respect

Does anyone pay for health insurance?

400/mo on groceries for 3 people is pretty good… oh but that’s probably not 3 meals a day right?

prepared food you might buy around work is probably extra on top of that

Brilliant! Here in America we also pay people not to work, so you can “earn” that $1,000 from the comfort of your own home! The American Dream, live it.

Lol! This.