Still working on the big WalMart post

It's been kind of hectic around here lately, kids, household, work obligations. Here's a soothing moment from a recent winter hike, though.

I'm working on a long post about WalMart, but I haven't been able to finish it! Here are some other things that I've been reading.

Boston Gal posts a link to this story about a working-class family living in Peabody, Massachusetts (a middle-class town north of Boston).

In the Desmond-Zeuli household, socking away for the future has mostly become a thing of the past. With three children, ages 9, 5, and 4, the bills seem to be adding up to more than the paychecks from Desmond's job as an office administrator in a Wakefield financial services firm and Zeuli's machinist position in Essex.

Grocery shopping has become a hunt for sales, coupons, and generic brands. Gone are most snacks for the kids: melted Monterey Jack cheese over nacho chips, a favorite, is a faded memory. Fruit is bought in bulk because it's cheaper.

The couple is paying $200 a week for day care and after-school programs, while shouldering $300 monthly car payments on Desmond's 2003 Ford Taurus, which has 90,000 miles on it. And then there is health insurance, car insurance, utility bills, and $1,850 rent on a four-bedroom, two-bath apartment, which includes heat. They are struggling to save for a house, let alone for college.

Like most of Boston Gal's commentators I don't think the numbers quite add up. $60K isn't much money for two full-time people to be earning; if he's a competent machinist and she can run a PC, they should be able to find employment that pays more than $30K each. Also, paying $1,850 in rent on a a $5,000 gross monthly income is on the high side ($1,250 would be the recommended 25%). Finally, there is that pesky cable bill.

Still, the article does a good job showing the impact of higher energy costs on working families: You set up a budget that reflects your priorities (a nice house but only one car, for example), and then oil costs blow a hole right in the side of it.

Of course leave it to the New York Times to tell you just how bad things really are, and how much worse they are going to get:

“The question is, Are you going to get the bad news week after week for 10 years?” he asked. “Or are you going to get the bad news right this year and then you’ll learn to live with the reality that your home is not worth what it was?”

Oh well.

Finally, I've been ruminating on the question of rich or poor. On the one hand, our just-barely-cracking-six-figures household income puts us at about the 85th percentile of US households. On the other hand, we make less than half what the typical family in our town does. We run a pretty tight ship, financially, and we benefit from a pro-family, fairly progressive tax system, but keeping a family of four going on $100,000 a year isn't simple. More about this topic to come.