Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
You must not have a rent payment or pay very little. Ours is $600 a month for a tiny apartment. Electric runs $100 to $150. Internet went up and is now $80 they only have the one speed here so no other plan. Our cheapest bill is car insurance which is $36 thanks to hubby being a Vet. Add a $50 cell phone on that and then you have your living expenses such as gas, food, home goods....etc.
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I'm in rural Arkansas, in a small town of 3500 not near a large city so prices are generally lower here. My rent, being HUD subsidised, is about 1/3 the going rate for apartment rent here. Actually they charge the same as other places but HUD pays 2/3 of it. It's part of one of HUD's elderly housing programs.
I don't have a car. If I had one I'd have to pay insurance and car payments and I'd be broke. Without a car my Social Security is more than I need to live on with my HUD subsidy.
The internet costs about as much as satellite TV, maybe a little less, and my phone bill is paid for by the government. So here I am, well below the poverty level, fully eligible for SNAP, and living in reasonable comfort as long as nothing goes wrong.
I don't see this as a problem. I worked very hard all my life. I paid my taxes and paid a lot into the SS system since I made a very good living. I feel like I've earned the help that I'm getting. It's our system and it's working. I helped pay for it and now I'm benefitting from it.
I have a strange situation here since my SS payments are higher than most of my neighbors. They're mostly convinced that I have some kind of hidden wealth. I don't. I do have a couple of neighbors who make more than I do but they're not as good as I seem to be at economizing so they're always broke. Nobody thinks they have hidden wealth.
Barry