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[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Aquila

I take home roughly $2,000 a month. My rent is $790 alone. Add on utilities (electric, gas, water), a car payment, insurance, cell phone bill, and student loan payment, and I'm left with around $35 to $40 (on average) to get by on for two weeks. That means I have to make roughly $40 dollars cover gas money to get back and forth to work, child care, groceries, auto maintenance, any needs the kids might have, toiletries, etc.

Frankly, we'd sink without a second income. Because gas money alone is roughly $40 a week.

Oh, and we have only one vehicle.

People say, "Why don't you move? That rent is too expensive." Well, I could move, but I'd only save $200 bucks, and my kids would grow up in a meth infested neighborhood with gunshots going off all ours of the day and night.

So, the little lady works part time (almost full time). I pay the bills, and I cover my gas money. She pays for living expenses. Her job is within a mile and a half of our home, so she often walks or catches the bus.

The kids go to school, so during the school year they stay with a sitter for a little over two hours until one of us is home. That's only missing two hours a day with us. They do their homework during this time and play outside. So, they're basically doing what they'd be doing even if they were at home with us. So, no serious time lost.

I raised seven kids as a single income parent (wife is a homemaker). I worked construction, 10 bucks an hour, seasonal layoffs, had some down time (some lasting several months at a stretch). Got a job making 10 bucks an hour, after 8 yrs was making 16 an hour. I calculated inflation, discovered I was actually making less than when I started.

Raised seven kids, several dogs, bought a home paid it off in three and a half years, bought a suburban, paid cash, bought a van paid cash, bought second suburban when first went kaput, paid cash again, bought a nice 4x4 F250 king cab made payments of 500 per month and paid it off in a couple years. Homeschooled the kids the whole time. Did not take welfare, food stamps, or govt assistance. Lived in neighborhoods you'd be afraid to be in after dark but we never locked our doors and often just had the screen door keeping the world out. Never had a problem with any break ins.

One neighbor went to prison for shooting his wife's boyfriend in the front yard about 3 lots down from us. Once I had to go visit a neighbor with the sheriff deputy and politely inform the guy if he entered my yard again and said cross words to my son he wouldnt make it home again. In a previous neighborhood had a neighbor go to jail after they found a body bagged up in freezer bags in his refrigerator.

Once we lived in a neighborhood (long ago) where literally half the residents were parolees or released felons, about 1/3 were Aryan Brotherhood and another 1/3 were Latin King subsets, plus two pimps, lots of drunks, assorted crack heads and crank heads (meth addicts). They all knew who to go see if they needed prayer, though.

Half my kids are adults now. None ever went to jail or had any trouble with the law or courts. They know more than ALL of the public school kids they've ever interacted with from well to do cousins to local riff raff. They turned out way better than I did at their age, that's a guaranteed fact. They actually have morals and don't give two hoots about "peer pressure", they tend to lead not follow. They can handle themselves in a church sanctuary, a ghetto alley, a boxing gym, or a family picnic at the park equally well. They are generally frugal with money (more than I was for sure), have investments in real estate, can butcher wild game, build shelter in the wild with no tools, prepare fancy multi course meals or live on wild plants. One daughter is a CNA, another can perform tactical combat casualty care just short of running an IV, older son codes in C, C++, Python, and assembly, has built microbots, all of the older ones can debate a JW or Baptist into oblivion right on the doorstep, they all know how to pray like the world depends on them, and they will literally do whatever they can to help anyone out even to their own detriment.

We are living proof that it doesn't take a lot of money and a perfect environment to raise a family that knows God and can serve their generation. It just takes a bit of faith and some of what we in Texas call "want to".