Topic: How do you manage your finances and family if your income is low range? - page 11. (Read 1772 times)

Many can relate to you. It is what happened to the most in the labor markets where most jobs were gone and many employees were laid offs by their companies.
That's the need that they're seeing and did it for the sake of their companies. While the competition is very tough, many does have to accept those low offers because of survival while waiting for a better opportunity.
Maybe this or by next years, things will be better for the employees that are earning in the minimum wage or even lower than that when most opportunities comes again to the majorty of us.

It's the same thing, whether you reduce the number of servings or just the amount per serving - you eat less food. Good, nutritious food is an absolute basic need and you shouldn't be looking to save on that, unless you're out of any other saving options. Especially when you have kids - the amount and quality of food will have a huge effect on their development. Many people don't fully realise that.
If possible, try eat as close to the nature as possible, avoid processed foods, grow your own fruits/vegetables and hunt/fish yourself, if you have such possibility.
Ordering takeaways is the worst option possible: it's hardly ever fresh (usually get saggy in the transport), almost always unhealthy (produced with cheapest ingredients/fried in an old oil etc) and much more expensive than cooking yourself. I'd drop that completely.

In our case, we did not reduce the number of meals per day but rather we decrease the amount per serving and also some ingredients for it. In that way we can still have the good number of meals per day and we can manage our finances so well. We are avoiding spending in house deliveries of foods and other items , maybe we will only by those things if there's special occasion. We prioritize things that we need over our necessities, inflation is hard here.

If the incoming fund does not suffice to meet the basic needs of 3x meal a day, then the family need to adjust by reducing the meal, or the provider looking for an additional source of income.  Very low does not necessarily means it is not enough for the basic needs.  These families manage well because they do plans and budgeting in order to make their income fit the budget.  The family is probably does not engage in extra spending and mostly each penny in their hands is smartly budgeted and allocate to needs.

I would start by saying, if you don't have a stable income to take care of a family don't start one. Alot of problems can be avoided by not doing this because when you start a family that you can't take care of them you'll begin having problems like Feeding problem, education problem, housing problems and other problems. Also don't get married to a liability, don't marry a girl that you'll have to provide everything, for the rest of her life. You're getting a partner and not a entering into a sponsorships. You'll love your wife and provide for her but it shouldn't be a situation that if you don't have she can't take care of herself. Before marrying make sure she has something doing so the both of you can put food on the table as you can never know what the future holds for your current job.

In a circumstance that something unfortunate happens and you were comfortable when you go married but now your income and that of you wife isn't sufficient to take care of your family, here are some suggestions of mind, adding to what others have said;

• Equip yourself and your wife with skills that's based online so you can apply for a job that you can use as your side hustle to take care of some bills that would had removed money from your income. Instantaneously when income isn't enough, the first thing to do is to get another job or do something to add more income.
• As you get more income coming in, you reduced your expenses so you can have enough to take care of your family. You can change schools for your kids from private to government, change house to a less costly one to maintain and get rid of many liability that you have in the house.
• You can then use the money which you'll get as extra after doing the second advice to invest in assets, you can invest in business that'll give you passive income or in assets like Bitcoin that gives capital gains. You can also pick interest in building a business that gives you cash flow to increase your income.
• When you do all this and it goes as planned you can easily bounce back to your former self, and not to forget to plan your money before it comes as that helps you to live on the minimum budget but to other it seems you have enough but all you're doing is living on a budget.

There is one thing that I can say from my personal experience, and it is that you actually spend money based on how much you earn, which means that when you are earning a lot of money, you will see that there is a lot of money being spent, but if you are suddenly downgraded and now you are earning way less than before, you will see a considerable drop in your expenses in that period, you and the family will obviously start spending more carefully in that situation so things start to become manageable after a short while.

It happened to me in the last couple of years when I saw very bad times, I lost my job that was paying me very well and then I struggled to find a good job, and the jobs that I did in between were paying me way less than what I used to earn, maybe about 3x less, however, we used to manage as a family and we went through the hardships and things started to become good after that.

When you go from very good to bad, you actually learn a lot of things, and the main thing among them is that you start to understand the value of money that you might have not realized before when you had a lot of it.

Such stories are heartwarming. In today's fast-paced, consumerism-driven society, this family's approach to life reminds us what matters. This family's effort to live within their means and enjoy the simple things is admirable in a time when the economy encourages excess

Would our economy collapse if everyone practised minimalism? Or would it become more sustainable?

Material possessions don't guarantee happiness. Prefering public transport to pricey outings shows the family's strength and adaptability. They inspire by their dedication to education despite financial limits. Though basic, it was full of purpose and delight

well having education is one way to make earning money for food become easier, i can't bother elaborating about how essential it is to have proper education in this modern world.
quite literally everything is based on education, even more so if you are ivy league graduate, you're literally gonna be accepted anywhere where the salary is proper for you.
you want to get into big fortune 100 company even FAANG its piece of cake for those ivy league graduates, but its definitely impossible for those without education, so basically by not getting education you isolate yourself from all the opportunity in this world to put it bluntly.

It is a mistake when someone who's still employed and started his/her own business and then you're not performing well on your job. That's not what the company signed you for and you don't have to compromise your job just because you are having your own business.

From there, your professionalism is also at stake because you're showing to the company that you're not capable with that. It's hard as we've said but you need to show that you're eager in doing things on your own without compromising and sacrificing what you're up because you're paid there for your salary.

We've got ways of dealing this problem but make sure that you don't have to compromise what you're committed to.

While it is true that some people can live without education, we can't ignore the reality that such a thing makes life more difficult for them. In today's world, competition is everywhere and if you want to have an advantage education is always the way hence education is now seen as essential much like food, shelter, and health.

Well here's the thing, either you are an employee or an employer. When you work for others, you are getting paid from them. And as you said about business, some other people are getting paid by you because they are working for you. Their living is coming through your hand. Or if you doing the whole business on your own, then you are selling things to get paid by others(buyers). The main focus is work. If you work, you get paid. I just used that example to prove this point.

People like logical statements better. Because whether you are religious or not, it will make sense. But the logical things could be manipulated. Imagine someone talking total BS but he is able to explain that with some logic. People will believe that. This is what politicians do. Well, that's just another topic. But yeah, if something can be proven from every perspective, then we are bound to believe it. And work to earn is an eternal truth. So no doubt in that.

EDIT: I enjoyed this conversation a lot. Thanks for your time. 

I try to maximum time live in a very simple life with limited expenses but sometimes there are some problems is make difficult situations, I try to be happy and smile maximum the time. I want people around me to be good. What I have come to realize is that people who live very ordinary lives and are always happy are the ones who are most restless and even though physically they seem to be really happy. But on the side of danger, trouble always surrounds them.

Yes it is true that no matter how low class a person is he can support his family. Some live a very luxurious life and some live a very poor life.  But in this case, it can be seen that everyone is happy from their place. It is not possible to measure the happiness of people with money. However, money is an inevitable thing to fulfill basic needs.  Food, shelter, health or treatment are three very important elements. No class of people can live without these three.  It is possible to live without education but it is not possible to live without food. Even a minimum income person cannot live without these three.  You have presented the issues very nicely.

That's easy, you don't spend too much on the lifestyle and stay within the limits. I have learned this trick from a family that stays very close to us and is almost like a second family. In India, the neighborhood is always at its peak and there is a lot of sharing of thoughts, festival reunions, and bonding. I have seen that family living on minimum wage for many years. The condition is due to uneducated father and mother who is doing laborious work every day and if they earn something for that day then they would eat otherwise they would just let go of the dinner or lunch. They have a daughter who is doing her graduate studies. Her father made tremendous efforts by applying for the scholarship and then only it was possible for her to take admission in college. But he succeeded and finally, she is pursuing her dream education.

Fact though they have (almost) no money, still she takes care of her family by not being burdened with extra expenses. She would generally walk to college, do a part-time job, and survive on that money for her college needs.

The only thing they would avoid is going to any entertainment stuff (movies, concerts, paid trips, long tours etc), or they would use public transport for almost everyday and every commute. They avoid eating outside since that could eat up their days of ration in a single go! They would not go shopping where you have to flaunt fancy clothes and pay 10x the cost.

These are really small things that they keep doing but they are still happy in small bubbles. They still make it up to every function and cultural programs and festivals with everyone else. It feels no difference and they are happy about it.

I would say a simple life with a smile on your face all the time.

Decreasing your spending is not all that possible, do not let people who think that is possible to fool you, inflation will make sure that you can't live all that easily. I have seen plenty of people who try to argue that if they had 1 million dollars today, they could live off that for 50 years if they can live that long.

If you do not use it and turn that into an asset that gains value, just putting it in the bank may not be enough depending on where you live. Most people end up with something that would hurt you for a long time. I get that it may not be simple but you should be trying to do something that can help you one way or another. I believe that we are not going to end up with something that should not be doing anything special, I believe you could end up with a greater return whenever you can.

How do you have a life when income is very uncertain? I don't think it's that simple even if you have set up all the solutions you think you should because commodity prices are increasing day by day because of inflation. Not to mention there will be unexpected things happening in life that we cannot predict, if you have a very unstable income, how can you deal with that? There is no effective solution other than finding ways to increase income, but increasing income is not easy. Everyone wants to have more jobs to earn more income, but when the economy is in recession, finding a job is not easy. It's easy to say, but when you're in that situation, you'll see how difficult it is.
But of course everything has its solution but it's not as simple as what you say.

Talking from an experience, there are some things that I think I did right and other things that I did wrong. The first thing that I did right, the first thing that I did right is that I focused on developing my skills that will make me earn more. Some people told me to invest and such thing, but I don't have enough money to do both investing and develop my skills, so choose to focus to develop my skills and I didn't do any investment, then when I have good enough skills that make me earn more money I started to learn about investment.

Other thing is that I safe money, but I don't buy cheap stuff with low quality, I don't buy overprice stuff either, I bought a good stuff with good quality with fairly higher price but it's durable and actually useful. It actually safe more money than buying low quality stuff even though it has lower price.

Things that I did wrong is that I was rushing to start a business that I actually not really understand. This really harmed my financial condition.

It's actually very simple to live life even though your income is very uncertain, because suggestions like what you said can also be very reasonable for everyone who wants to live a comfortable life without excessive burdens. Examples include establishing a simple lifestyle even though the income is large and sufficient to continue following a modern lifestyle.

But people who are smart in managing their finances will definitely not easily spend all their money into their lifestyle continuously if they know to put that money into more useful things such as investment and business aspects. This means that those who are smart in looking after their money will always make considerations when they want to spend their money on something so that they can continue to live more comfortably without feeling the burden of excessive difficulties in their own lives.

As every person's life is different, the problems in people's lives are also different, in this case, there are some things that you can never exclude. Now many people advise that if you do as needed and do nothing outside of necessity, you can save much money and avoid many problems..  Many people have faced such problems like me many people have trouble meeting the total need of money to run a family. Now we all should plan ahead because future days will be worse and economic problems will be created worldwide as it happened during COVID-19.

If we succeed to live that lifestyle where we are away on luxurious things then provably we can survive even if we only earn low. Its just we need to settle up according to our needs and ignore our wants for awhile if no budget excess comes to our wallet.

Its just proper financial handling since if you are good on budgeting for sure we will never get a problem on finances. This also needs a proper cooperation to other family members and they should learn to settle according to the family income so that they can help in budgeting.

I know budgeting is hard but for current economic and high inflation we need to settle on what we can afford so that we will not decide to take a loan and buried by the interest rate asked by this corporations.