Greetings fellow serfs!
I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking about how much they’re struggling financially right now. There are plenty of us serfs getting pretty desperate since we have no idea how we’re going to pay our bills.
One of the first principles of building a budget when you don’t have enough money is that you start with the costs, not with the income. Then you work backwards to create a budget. This helps you figure out which essential thing you’re going to go without, in order to survive.
To demonstrate, let’s start with what it costs to live a basic, ordinary, non-luxurious life. And then let’s compare that to what most of us are actually living with. (Since I’m mostly familiar with the Vancouver area of BC, in Canada, the discrepancies here are glaringly obvious.).
This is what I came up with, as of now:
Here’s how I came up with those values: Cost of Living Calculator. Have a look and see what you think.
This is all based on estimates, guesses and projections of course, and as my dad always says, “the one thing you know for sure about an estimate or a projection is that it is wrong”. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile… it gives a useful tool for solving problems.
Try it for yourself. Make a copy of the worksheet: Cost of Living Calculator
Put in the values that are representative of the average costs for average people in your area. How does it line up with minimum wage?
It is no surprise that we’re struggling.
Those numbers will change as inflation does its dirty work. (And if I think of an improvement, I may update that calculator.) But the principle remains.
If you can’t figure out how to pay your bills, or if you get to the grocery store and can’t stay in the budget you set for yourself, you’re not alone. We’re living in the final stages of a massive Monopoly game, when the player that is eventually going to win has put hotels on all their properties and has managed to buy up most of the board.
(The original “Landlord’s Game” was designed as an object lesson, as a way to teach people about the nature of monopolies and land ownership. See here: Do Not Pass Go.)
The next stage is where the losers (aka us) to get slowly ground into the dust until they’re all bankrupt. Unless someone gets mad and flips over the board, I suppose.
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