“It feels like I’ve been working harder and harder and sliding backwards down the scale,” she says.
Making $50k in a small town and still “scraping by” is scary. Maybe I’m just old, but I’d hoped that kind of income would be enough for some kind of comfort.
Maybe you agree with this, but where’s the fat? Is a vet not allowed to have pets? It’s still a barebones budget.
And the thing to realize about high stress professional jobs is that you have to eat out more and make use of services to save time and energy. It’s a tough demanding job, especially for the pay. There’s a reason why vets have amongst the highest suicide rates of any profession.
Vet techs too (family member manages a vet hospital) with the suicide risk.
There are so many frustrated, worried people coming in who don’t understand the vet is busy doing so much with so few staff and the reason your appointment has been bumped is because the vet is gone, either left the city, the profession or this plane of existence. All too often the last option, and everyone’s working through the fall-out.
And vets largely don’t see people unless during the exam with an animal; the rest of the time its vet-techs or reception/admin staff. And people lose their metric shit at appointment changes, bad news, or even the bill (because it’s always high; get insurance, kids). Admins and techs take the full Karen tornado, which while understandable is still not justifiable. Not cool.
So they shed a customer and sometimes they lose staff too. And they’re no longer losing the slackers who don’t care about animals: they’re losing the animal nuts whose hearts used to be in it. Sometimes those people leave this life as well. It’s that bad, that often, for that long.
So yeah, they blow off a lot of steam and leverage those social peer bonds, and I don’t see that pressure valve here. You’re either gonna spend money on frivolity, psyche sessions, or worse. So those numbers need to be higher for the short term.
Her utilities are higher than my 3 bedroom house’s. Phone bill is a bit high, Internet bill is double what it should be, property tax and insurance are high, haircuts, cosmetics, shopping all could be reduced. The cat bill is ridiculous, unless those are some sick pets with long term illnesses or she has about 30 normal ones.
Bottom line is that is not the budget of someone who’s “Struggling” in life. Struggling would be not having the money to do half the things on that budget.
Thanks for informing the group that you’re out of touch and don’t know what you’re talking about.
Whatever, I’m the one who’s out of touch but I have a very good budget and all my bills are paid. Do you own a house? Because I do and I manage all the household bills and I do know how to make ends meet on a budget.
You are free to ignore my info at your own risk.
Do you own that on the mentioned vet’s salary?
I bought it when I was making about $40k salary actually