Wanted: People who earn $50,000 a year OR LESS and have 2+ kids

**rachelj** · 04-21-2010, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by Greebo

Well, jojo, the debate was weather one could set that money aside early on and simply save it up. IE: What would happen if people didn't have any insurance options.

I, of course, took the side of "If people plan ahead properly and set money aside for that kind of emergency, yes, they could weather it." Just like people can save up for cars and houses in cash, if they commit to doing whatever it takes.

You all backed me up w/o even knowing it.

(And of course, it's purely hypothetical - because there *is* insurance out there)

Yes, but if we were to total up all of Maggie's medical bills since her diagnosis, we would be looking at well over $500,000 - probably approaching 1million. That has been since mid Feb of '09. No we haven't totalled it - too scared to!

We have amazing insurance and have been blessed. But there is nothing that could have prepared us for this - besides having excellent insurance. She was 3 when diagnosed with cancer and a very aggressive and scary one at that!

**Greebo** · 04-21-2010, 04:16 PM

Originally Posted by rachelj

Yes, but if we were to total up all of Maggie's medical bills since her diagnosis, we would be looking at well over $500,000 - probably approaching 1million. That has been since mid Feb of '09. No we haven't totalled it - too scared to!

We have amazing insurance and have been blessed. But there is nothing that could have prepared us for this - besides having excellent insurance. She was 3 when diagnosed with cancer and a very aggressive and scary one at that!

Oh there's no question that there are medical situations where $5k a year just won't cut it - even for 200 years. However, you also must admit - Maggie's situation is one of the extremes.

It's like the $1,000 baby emergency fund. Will it cover ALL emergencies? HECK no!

Will it cover most of em? YUP.

**leighcat** · 04-21-2010, 06:01 PM

I make $17,000.-$18,000. a year, not counting the $360/month child support that I get. I only have $3800.00 in "savings", much of that was from my income taxes. My goal is to save about $2000.00 or more a year. I am slowly building my savings back up. It is actually a second checking account until I am in the new house long enough to get a good solid budget together for utilities etc...
I am debt-free currently, minus the mortgage.

**Lora88** · 04-22-2010, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by Greebo

Oh there's no question that there are medical situations where $5k a year just won't cut it - even for 200 years. However, you also must admit - Maggie's situation is one of the extremes.

It's like the $1,000 baby emergency fund. Will it cover ALL emergencies? HECK no!

Will it cover most of em? YUP.

Greebo My Dad was in the hospital for 3 weeks in NYC total cost 75,859.39 and wasnt even sick it was a mental facility I have been adding up his medical bills for 2009 taxes and even with medicare his outlay was over 100,000.00 and quite honestly there was nothing really wrong with him ie cancer heart diease etc. My mom spent 4 days in hospital in Nj bill was over 40.000.00 I think that by living way below your means you can save money however when it comes to health care the bills are so out of control you could never self insure

**Greebo** · 04-22-2010, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by Lora88

Greebo My Dad was in the hospital for 3 weeks in NYC total cost 75,859.39 and wasnt even sick it was a mental facility I have been adding up his medical bills for 2009 taxes and even with medicare his outlay was over 100,000.00 and quite honestly there was nothing really wrong with him ie cancer heart diease etc. My mom spent 4 days in hospital in Nj bill was over 40.000.00 I think that by living way below your means you can save money however when it comes to health care the bills are so out of control you could never self insure

The point here wasn't to get into a debate on the topic, so I'm not going to.

The original discussion was a while ago - but as I recall, part of what we were considering was a huge what if - what if there were NO health insurance? It was all a huge hypothetical.

The point of *this* thread was to illustrate to some people who hold some different views on the subject that people who earn 50k with families *can* live below their means to the tune of 10% savings, if they commit to it.

**kita** · 04-22-2010, 12:37 PM

I think a better solution for what I have read on this thread is ...
people could survive with just "disaster" medical insurance. A high deductable but it pays for bigger issues like hopital stays etc.

**Tai** · 04-27-2010, 03:39 PM

We're a one income family of 5 living on 30-35k per year. 10% of that is 3-3.5k, or just under $300 per month. As soon as we're done paying off debt, we will be saving over $500 a month.

We don't have car payments, our housing (heat, lights, rent, phone, net, cable) comes out to under $1000 a month so we are living very inexpensively, especially for Massachusetts.

Let's put it this way- if DH were bringing home 50K per year, our debt would be gone in under a year (as opposed to the 3 it will take us), we'd have 10k saved by the end of the 2nd year- and that would be after loosening up on the budget a tiny bit (hello, adding vacation fund line item in the budget!)