Here's a little assessment that Madison wrote about her recent visit to Junior Achievement's Biztown:
I apparently never went to college, but that meant that I didn't have to pay for a student loan or debt. My Net Income was surprisingly high. It was around $74,000 annually and about $6,000 a month just by my self. This is because some how I was the local store manager of Publix. The thing is that I only had a high school diploma. My gross monthly income was around $4,000, and including my "spouse's" gross income, around $5,000. The taxeswere just straight up annoying because that is less money to have for other things you need. Since I had one kid that was 8 years old and a spouse, the budget had to be tight. Our house monthly income was around $5,100, so I tried to prioritize the things we needed the most such as a house (rented), clothes, food, and kid's day care. Also, I had to pay a full on $115 for a science project for my kid, but that's life. I also had to put some money towards credit card debt, and of course the water bills, electricity bills, and transportation. Since I had a credit card debt around the range of $2,000-$4,000, I had to budget money towards that. Budgeting was really hard because you have to think about everything, not just one certain item you wanted. We couldn't own a house, so we rented one because I was also trying to get other expenses and items we needed such as food, insurance, water and power bills, credit card debt, etc. Also, I didn't have enough money to budget on vacation or some of the electronic stuff such as the internet, phones, and cable. There were some stuff that I was able to get that I could afford such as a concert, date night dinners with my spouse, going to the park, and going the the fair. They had said a few times to pay yourself first, so that is kind of what I did. Some of the expenses that had surprised me the most was the food and the clothes. I didn't expect the food to be that much for the spouse, kid, and me altogether. Same with the clothes. Whenever I'm shopping with my parents, I never thought about how much the clothes had cost. The food I thought wouldn't be witing the high 100's. I thought that the food would cost around maybe around mid $50-low $100's ($100-$110). I think I had to pay over $120. I didn't exactly get everything everything I wanted out of Finance Park. I thought that we would use the debt cards that we were given, and go around and buy things from other places like we did last year. To be honest, it kind of caused me to have some anxiety. It was a lot of presssure to do all of the budgeting.A big takeaway from the whole experience was that it was just super stressful. Another was that I thought we would go around and actually pay stuff at the different stores with our debt cards. One idea to improve the Finance Park is that they could do it more of in the 8th grade-9th grade grade level because in my opinion, that was way to stressful on my part. Also, the calculators were kind of hard to use, so maybe try to use a different type of calcultors that would be easier.
Anyway, good grades rolling in today, and we also had a nice night with taekwondo, and some work on a science assignment at home. We're learning about organelles, those tiny cellular structures inside cells. Madison hasn't been thrilled with science lately.
The weather finally dried out today a bit - although it was overcast. Still, better than nothing. There's more rain on tap though. Too bad the temperature is a little too warm, otherwise it would be a fairly snowy season here. Fortunately, we did have our one snow event, and I'm glad we got out and took advantage of that. We're grateful.
Not long until Madison gets her next belt in taekwondo. She got her third stripe now, and is all ready for testing next week. She's doing a great job with her form, and feels very confident currently. She's moving up to brown belt next week, or a chocolate one, as they like to say. Why not? We have a camouflage belt. So why not a chocolate one?
But we learned something tonight that leaves us heartbroken. It was difficult to even talk tonight, or even write anything here. We read, we prayed, and we prayed some more. Madison doesn't know yet, but it will be a very painful moment when she finds out. It's a very painful moment for Mommy and Daddy right now, a feeling shared by many of us in the taekwondo family.
I apparently never went to college, but that meant that I didn't have to pay for a student loan or debt. My Net Income was surprisingly high. It was around $74,000 annually and about $6,000 a month just by my self. This is because some how I was the local store manager of Publix. The thing is that I only had a high school diploma. My gross monthly income was around $4,000, and including my "spouse's" gross income, around $5,000. The taxeswere just straight up annoying because that is less money to have for other things you need. Since I had one kid that was 8 years old and a spouse, the budget had to be tight. Our house monthly income was around $5,100, so I tried to prioritize the things we needed the most such as a house (rented), clothes, food, and kid's day care. Also, I had to pay a full on $115 for a science project for my kid, but that's life. I also had to put some money towards credit card debt, and of course the water bills, electricity bills, and transportation. Since I had a credit card debt around the range of $2,000-$4,000, I had to budget money towards that. Budgeting was really hard because you have to think about everything, not just one certain item you wanted. We couldn't own a house, so we rented one because I was also trying to get other expenses and items we needed such as food, insurance, water and power bills, credit card debt, etc. Also, I didn't have enough money to budget on vacation or some of the electronic stuff such as the internet, phones, and cable. There were some stuff that I was able to get that I could afford such as a concert, date night dinners with my spouse, going to the park, and going the the fair. They had said a few times to pay yourself first, so that is kind of what I did. Some of the expenses that had surprised me the most was the food and the clothes. I didn't expect the food to be that much for the spouse, kid, and me altogether. Same with the clothes. Whenever I'm shopping with my parents, I never thought about how much the clothes had cost. The food I thought wouldn't be witing the high 100's. I thought that the food would cost around maybe around mid $50-low $100's ($100-$110). I think I had to pay over $120. I didn't exactly get everything everything I wanted out of Finance Park. I thought that we would use the debt cards that we were given, and go around and buy things from other places like we did last year. To be honest, it kind of caused me to have some anxiety. It was a lot of presssure to do all of the budgeting.A big takeaway from the whole experience was that it was just super stressful. Another was that I thought we would go around and actually pay stuff at the different stores with our debt cards. One idea to improve the Finance Park is that they could do it more of in the 8th grade-9th grade grade level because in my opinion, that was way to stressful on my part. Also, the calculators were kind of hard to use, so maybe try to use a different type of calcultors that would be easier.
Anyway, good grades rolling in today, and we also had a nice night with taekwondo, and some work on a science assignment at home. We're learning about organelles, those tiny cellular structures inside cells. Madison hasn't been thrilled with science lately.
The weather finally dried out today a bit - although it was overcast. Still, better than nothing. There's more rain on tap though. Too bad the temperature is a little too warm, otherwise it would be a fairly snowy season here. Fortunately, we did have our one snow event, and I'm glad we got out and took advantage of that. We're grateful.
Not long until Madison gets her next belt in taekwondo. She got her third stripe now, and is all ready for testing next week. She's doing a great job with her form, and feels very confident currently. She's moving up to brown belt next week, or a chocolate one, as they like to say. Why not? We have a camouflage belt. So why not a chocolate one?
But we learned something tonight that leaves us heartbroken. It was difficult to even talk tonight, or even write anything here. We read, we prayed, and we prayed some more. Madison doesn't know yet, but it will be a very painful moment when she finds out. It's a very painful moment for Mommy and Daddy right now, a feeling shared by many of us in the taekwondo family.
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