Christian Homekeeping: Budget For a Family Living On $40,000 a Year

A good modest income in the area that I live in is around $40,000 or $20.83 hourly wage and most families make less than this. For a typical family with children, this gives you an estimate of $35K after taxes, so you need to budget for that amount. I did figure in a state income tax since most states have it and also figured in the tax return and/or deductions/credits for children.

Always give God his 10% first! I'm estimating costs here and these may vary depending upon location and other factors. This is just to show you an average budget for a family living on this amount a month with no debt.

*This is not my family's budget or income, I'm simply providing estimates for the average, lower-income family.

Budget - $35,000 = $2,917 a month

Monthly Budget for $2,917 (after taxes)
Tithe -$334
Offerings - your choice but estimating $50
Savings - $100

Housing
Rent - $730
Renter's Insurance - $15

Utilities
Electricity - $100
Water - $25
Garbage - $25
Phone - $30
Internet - $60

Personal
Food - $275
Toiletries - $120
Life Insurance - $10

Transportation
Gas - $250
Car Insurance - $80
Maintenance - $100

Medical
Health Insurance - $350
Dental Insurance - $60
Medical Bills - $100

Entertainment & Clothing
Fun Money - $75
Clothing - $25

Debt
ZERO!

You can see that in recent years, health insurance has risen so high that it is almost impossible for families to afford it at all. With this budget, I estimated total medical costs at $510, which is actually cheap insurance, so you have to pay deductibles and co-pays throughout the year and that can eat up your savings. Obamacare jolted prices upward, and they are becoming to where there is no way a family can afford to pay for them and this brings up the question about is it ok to use medicaid?

At this income you are putting in savings $1,200 a year + any interest. That comes out to about $6K in just 5 years and $12K in 10 years. If you live in an area like mine, which I blogged about here, you would have to put most of your "savings" into your rent or cut expenses elsewhere if possible.

Having an emergency fund set up should be your first goal and it is generally recommended that that should be $1,000. Then a savings for 3-6 months in the event your husband loses his job or becomes disabled and the rest you can invest. If you don't put aside 10% for these things or live so that you can do so, you will find yourself turning to a credit card or other debt. Stay chain-free and build wealth!! I recommend Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for anyone who is unsure how to budget, save or is in debt.

Quotes to Ponder

If you’re a friend to all and an enemy to none, then you’re leading no one. - Unknown

The objective in Christian homeschooling is not to teach children how to "deal with the real world." I do not want to teach my children how to merely survive this life. As believers in Christ, we are called to be overcomers! - HE magazine

The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes. - Oliver Goldsmith

Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world. - Charles Spurgeon

In a time of universal deceit, telling the TRUTH, is a revolutionary act . -George Orwell

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. -Winston Churchill

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Christian mothers too often neglect their home-centered role for the empty promises of fulfillment in the workplace, while they warehouse their children in daycare centers. Parents send their children to secular schools where God is outlawed, and they allow them to watch trashy movies and listen to vile music—and hang out with those who do the same. After years of training in the ways of rebellion through godless schooling, debauched entertainment, and peer association, Christian parents are somehow surprised when their teenagers rebel, forsaking the God of their fathers.- Philip Lancaster

You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God's fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts. - Charles Spurgeon

“Why do women want to dress like men when they’re fortunate enough to be women? Why lose femininty, which is one of our greatest charms? We get more accomplished by being charming than we would be flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error….”-Tasha Tudor

SECULARISM is a philosophy that claims that there is no God-or that if there is a God, He is irrelevant. HUMANISM essentially says that in the absence of God, humans can and should act as gods by judging, choosing, and defining what is right for themselves. The philosophy pervading the public education system combines these two philosophies into one.-Ken Ham

The true defining situation for a person is what they do when they are alone and don't have to do anything else. What do they do? Do they do frivolous things? That's when you define what you are. -Kevin Rollins, former CEO of DELL

How can there be too many children? That’s like saying there are too many flowers. -Mother Teresa

Fifty-nine modern nations are plagued by the high-tech benefits of birth-control pills. Each of them have waged a cultural war against babies. Each of them suffer below-replacement birthrates. Each of them face potential extinction. But concerns such as national suffering, dangerous international geopolitics and the disappearance of entire nations are matters that would require mature thinking – something that was successfully bred-out of the American people when they accepted the pill as, in the words of Hugh Hefner, the greatest invention of the 20th century. - Geoffrey Botkin

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength. -Corrie ten Boom

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