Quote:I guess we're considered lower middle class but we struggle. And what's sad is we have no mortgage and no car payments. But we are taxed out the butt here in NC for every single thing. Not to mention we have state income tax here. Which apparently most of us are owing the state this year. We tried to make it to where the most money possible stays in our pocket monthly as opposed to a check once a year, but somehow we still 'loan' the government enough money that we get money back, aside from state this year.  

 

And the the dollar in NO WAY goes as far as it used to.

 

Don't even get me started......

 

I know your pain.  Been there done that.  With age and kids growing up and moving out, it gets easier.  Can you believe that we (me and my wife) were once able to survive on E-4 pay from me and her working as a Manager at McDonalds?  At the time we had all three of our children in the house, and yet we were able to scrimp and save to buy our first home.  (This was back in the early 1990's).

 

We probably couldn't afford that house today because it's probably worth a heck of a lot more now.

 

However, we did make a few "smart" (lucky) decisions during the run up of the dot-com bubble, and that enabled us to "move up".

 

Without disclosing too much personal information, I will say that a portion of our income goes to supporting family members financially, so cash flow is something that I watch.

---