Slog
News & ArtsThursday, December 22, 2011
2012 / Money What Can YOU Do With $40?
Posted by Eli Sanders on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM
- Jarrod Erbe / Shutterstock
- $40 = A lot of bread sandwiches.
Some people say the benefit of the much-debated payroll tax cut—latest drama here—isn't all that much.
After all, it only gets the average American family $40 more per paycheck. Who will miss it if House Republicans block the tax cut's extension?
The Obama administration, quite powerfully, has countered with tales of what $40 a paycheck means to ordinary Americans.
But since Slog readers are no ordinary Americans, it seems worth collecting our own tales of what can be done with $40. I bet they'll be quite impressive.
So: What can YOU do with $40?
2
$40 is a week's worth of breakfast food at the grocery store. Breakfast and lunch if I stretch it.
9
I could buy a month's worth of meat and rice or
I could buy a month's worth of produce. I could use it to pay dentist bills. I could donate it to keep a Republican out of the White House.
I could buy a month's worth of produce. I could use it to pay dentist bills. I could donate it to keep a Republican out of the White House.
10
just think what we could buy if there were NO FICA taxes taken out of our paychecks! sounds like an election-year winner - let's do it. what's the worst that could happen - a deficit?
11
I'm trying to think back to how I got like $200 "extra" in about 2001 from Bush, but it was really just an advance I had to pay back in taxes the next year. Remember that? I was supposed to go buy a new Washing Machine or something to simulate the economy?
12
40 dollars a week x 4 = 160 dollars a month x 12 = 1920/yr. That's a lot for someone who makes less than 30k a year. That's around 1/15th of their total income or more! However, if we don't have taxes, the government has no revenue, which means they cannot provide services. However, if we reduced our military budget substantially, we'd still be able to offer services, allow inflation to occur, reduce our debt, and possibly actually stop the madness.
But what imperial nation wants to do that? Not the fucking United States, that's for goddamn sure. After the actions of our military and leaders, I'm surprised we're not already embroiled in World War III.
But what imperial nation wants to do that? Not the fucking United States, that's for goddamn sure. After the actions of our military and leaders, I'm surprised we're not already embroiled in World War III.
14
20 Fried wings from Quick Pack and seven 32 oz. bottles of Miller High Life. That's what I would do with $40.
16
Pay for all my daily and Sunday newspapers (Chicago Sun-Times, Tribune, plus the NYTimes) for the week, plus the buck a day I give the homeless guy outside the El station.
17
$40 is my copay for doctor's appointments (which went up to that from $25 this year, meaning I already spent time debating about if I was sick enough to spend that money).
Or it is my monthly electric bill plus a week's worth of laundry.
Or it is the extra amount I'm paying on my student loans every month so I can get rid of the damnable things a couple years early (that'll probably have to stop in the new year).
Or it is two weeks worth of lunches.
Or it is my monthly electric bill plus a week's worth of laundry.
Or it is the extra amount I'm paying on my student loans every month so I can get rid of the damnable things a couple years early (that'll probably have to stop in the new year).
Or it is two weeks worth of lunches.
19
Approximately 640 multi-colored "Happy Birthday" napkins from the dollar store. Before tax, of course.
But seriously, that's my electric bill right there. Or half my car insurance payment. Or one week's worth of food from the farmer's market.
But seriously, that's my electric bill right there. Or half my car insurance payment. Or one week's worth of food from the farmer's market.
22
Now, most people don't get paid every week, but every two weeks. If it's 40 dollars a paycheck, times 26 paychecks, it's about $1040, which is less, but... still that can be a lot, especially for frugal minded people.
Now, what would I do with 40 dollars? Man, that's food for a week if I want to live on sandwiches and large crock pot soup mixes (for the leftovers). I can buy the really good bread and meat too. I could buy fresh produce from my local market to cook really great meals every once in a while.
Now, what would I do with 40 dollars? Man, that's food for a week if I want to live on sandwiches and large crock pot soup mixes (for the leftovers). I can buy the really good bread and meat too. I could buy fresh produce from my local market to cook really great meals every once in a while.
24
Keep Social Security solvent?
I'm all for whatever political points Democrats can score against Republicans from this, but in general, please raise my taxes.
I'm all for whatever political points Democrats can score against Republicans from this, but in general, please raise my taxes.
27
Ditto on the $40 is my new co-pay on my medical insurance (which I'm lucky to have at all, I admit), up from $20. So that's one physical therapy appointment.
Or my electric bill.
Or my electric bill.
28
Eighty hardbacks or one hundred and sixty paperbacks at the Goodwill "Yard". Not in one trip though, eesh.
29
I'm for stimulus spending and we need all we can get right now, but I don't like the "you can spend your money better than the government" bullshit games when the Republicans pull it so I'm not going to indulge in it now.
30
November was open enrollment, and I opened an HSA. I opted to put 2k a year into it, contributions spread out over 24 pay periods. My contributions start in 2012, just like this tax adjustment. I don't want to underfund social security, let's split the difference with those human-corporations and have them contribute also.
32
@29--It is not bullshit when you are talking about who is effected. I make $24,000 a year. That means raising my taxes hurts me A LOT. Same cannot be said for folks making over $250,000, or even over $50,000.
34
I think it's a stupid question given the real issue and question is why do we allow the wealthy in this country pay little to no tax while people who work are left holding the bag. The $40 meme is nothing more than political posturing to avoid harder questions.
35
@32 Not all taxes are the same. Even the same tax isn't the same on all income levels. Social security was created to give everyone some kind of income after they retire. Usually not enough to live on, but something. The payroll tax pays for that something. Everyone except the poorest among us contributes to social security to get their something back after retirement. That's the social contract of the New Deal.
I'll bitch about the lowering of the top income tax rate from 94% to 35% over the last 65 years until I'm blue in the face, but as I said, not all taxes are the same. The payroll tax cut must expire eventually, hopefully after the economy recovers some more.
I'll bitch about the lowering of the top income tax rate from 94% to 35% over the last 65 years until I'm blue in the face, but as I said, not all taxes are the same. The payroll tax cut must expire eventually, hopefully after the economy recovers some more.
37
@12 - the "Cold War" was World War III, and now the "global war on terrorism" is technically World War IV. Both of them are (or were) global in scope and heavily financed by the various superpowers. We'll never have a global ground war like WWII again, not with nukes, satellites, air power and drones.
As for $40 - I can buy a bottle of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters and serve up a pile of Manhattans to my friends, with a little change left over.
Or a half-hour message that I could really use right now.
As for $40 - I can buy a bottle of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters and serve up a pile of Manhattans to my friends, with a little change left over.
Or a half-hour message that I could really use right now.
38
I also go with the notion of $40 supplying me with a week (or even a little longer) of food. I love food but hate how much I go grocery shopping because it always seems like I run out of something. I make waaaaay less than $30,000 a year, and my parents make even less than me. It's really important to know that this "$40 less per paycheck" could mean choosing between food, bills, gas to drive to work, or health stuff for a lot of families.
40
It will help with new car payments even though my new car is at the body shop for the next month and a half after I was in an accident (not my fault).
42
at least 4 grams of bud and if i'm adding the 40 dollars on to what i was already planning to spend on bud, it could go even further :)
43
or it could buy 9 bowls of Pho. 8 bowls for 40 and 1 free cause I got all the holes punched in my pho tran punch card!
45
Books and music. That's where all my extra money goes to. I make enough that I wouldn't mind paying more in taxes (although I resent paying a higher percentage in taxes than the company and executives that I work for), but it would matter to a lot of people I know.
46
Well, after being employed for over a year and a half (at a new location, I've been with the company for 5 years) I finally got a $.50 raise, which means that if this is taken away they just took away my raise. I make an extra $40 per check right now due to that raise. What good is one step forward, one step backward? Mind you I've been with my company for 5 years and took a $2.00 an hour pay cut when I switched locations, so I'm still making less than I was 2 years ago.
$80 a month? That's my electric bill and a tank of gas, and a tank of gas lasts me 2 weeks! I don't even have internet at my house because I can't afford it, no TV for 5 years now (which is a good thing) so I think you may get the idea of how I live. $40 every 2 weeks is a big fucking deal to me.
I wouldn't be pissing it away, that's for sure.
$80 a month? That's my electric bill and a tank of gas, and a tank of gas lasts me 2 weeks! I don't even have internet at my house because I can't afford it, no TV for 5 years now (which is a good thing) so I think you may get the idea of how I live. $40 every 2 weeks is a big fucking deal to me.
I wouldn't be pissing it away, that's for sure.
49
$40: a box of diapers. A tank of gas. My mom's birthday present. Our monthly gas bill. Swimming lessons for my baby. Four bottles of decent cava. A new pair of Converse.
51
sack of weed if i still smoked it , or more likely most of a tank of gas. but best answer is "35 dollar car tabs thanks to" tim eyeman " ! woot !
53
I lived on forty dollars a week (not counting housing expenses) for about eight months, even though I was buying groceries for two and needed medicine on top of that. Forty dollars is a lot of money to me.
54
$40 is about a week's worth of groceries for me, more if I plan it out well and have some good coupons for things I actually need.
55
Those people claiming that $40 would help them so much because they earn so little should know that they will get less than $40. The $40 per paycheck assumes you earn $50K and are paid twice a month. @38, for example, who makes "waaaaay less than $30,000 a year" would get way less than $25 per paycheck.
56
@17 (Sheryl): "$40 is my copay for doctor's appointments (which went up to that from $25 this year, meaning I already spent time debating about if I was sick enough to spend that money)."
@27 (MLM): "Ditto on the $40 is my new co-pay on my medical insurance (which I'm lucky to have at all, I admit), up from $20."
Your $40 copays are more than the FULL BILL for a routine visit to a French GP (23€, or ~$30) and even to most categories of specialist (25€, or ~$32.50). The highest actual out-of-pocket you'd usually have to pay would be 1€ (~$1.30) plus 30% of the balance, or 7.60€ (~$10) for a GP and 8.20€ (~$10.70) for a specialist. And if you were indigent, or were being treated for a serious long-term illness, or had reached your daily, monthly, or annual cap on copays (which is quite low), or had a cheap medigap policy (which 85% of Frenchmen do), your actual out-of-pocket would typically be either zero or 1€.
To add insult to injury, the taxes the French pay to fund their universal health insurance system are *lower* than the taxes *we* pay to support our *non-universal* publicly subsidized healthcare schemes (Medicare, Medicaid, VHA, Tricare, health insurance for federal, state, local government workers, deductions for employer-paid premiums and itemized medical expenses, etc.). In fairness, though, I don't know if the cost of the free education provided to French medical students is factored in to that calculation. (However, free medical school may be part of the reason the French produce around 3.4 physicians per 1000 inhabitants compared to our 2.3 -- after they flunk out 80% of first-years.)
Finally, French doctors make housecalls. Ouch. No wonder those chain-smoking, wine-and-liqueur-guzzling frogs live longer, healthier lives than we do.
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@27 (MLM): "Ditto on the $40 is my new co-pay on my medical insurance (which I'm lucky to have at all, I admit), up from $20."
Your $40 copays are more than the FULL BILL for a routine visit to a French GP (23€, or ~$30) and even to most categories of specialist (25€, or ~$32.50). The highest actual out-of-pocket you'd usually have to pay would be 1€ (~$1.30) plus 30% of the balance, or 7.60€ (~$10) for a GP and 8.20€ (~$10.70) for a specialist. And if you were indigent, or were being treated for a serious long-term illness, or had reached your daily, monthly, or annual cap on copays (which is quite low), or had a cheap medigap policy (which 85% of Frenchmen do), your actual out-of-pocket would typically be either zero or 1€.
To add insult to injury, the taxes the French pay to fund their universal health insurance system are *lower* than the taxes *we* pay to support our *non-universal* publicly subsidized healthcare schemes (Medicare, Medicaid, VHA, Tricare, health insurance for federal, state, local government workers, deductions for employer-paid premiums and itemized medical expenses, etc.). In fairness, though, I don't know if the cost of the free education provided to French medical students is factored in to that calculation. (However, free medical school may be part of the reason the French produce around 3.4 physicians per 1000 inhabitants compared to our 2.3 -- after they flunk out 80% of first-years.)
Finally, French doctors make housecalls. Ouch. No wonder those chain-smoking, wine-and-liqueur-guzzling frogs live longer, healthier lives than we do.
58
Buy a month's worth of daily meds for my kid and me.
Pay for hot lunch for my oldest kid for a month.
Pay a copay and anti-biotic if someone in my family gets sick.
Drive my Stage 4 cancer-ridden mother 2 hours away to the teaching hospital.
Buy a case of diapers for my youngest.
Today I wrote a check for $39 for hair cuts for my 3 kids.
Pay for hot lunch for my oldest kid for a month.
Pay a copay and anti-biotic if someone in my family gets sick.
Drive my Stage 4 cancer-ridden mother 2 hours away to the teaching hospital.
Buy a case of diapers for my youngest.
Today I wrote a check for $39 for hair cuts for my 3 kids.
59
$40 is 2/3 of the amount needed to have unlimited use of the MBTA Subway and local busses for a month (in and around Boston).
Peace.
Peace.
61
@60 (aardvark): The ACLU filed an amicus brief supporting Citizens United, and however you parse the legal analysis, Citizens United and its money=speech predecessors turn the public forum over to the highest bidders. In a formal democracy with a Third World distribution of wealth and income, that's a recipe for de facto plutocracy. Two thumbs up on Planned Parenthood and the EFF, though.
62
I don't have a job..but I wanted to give small gifts to my family for Christmas. I 'donated' my plasma, and I spent $40 on the following: Goodwill sells new merchandise from Target, often with the tags still on. I bought a screen print t-shirt for my brother for .99, and three dress shirts, one each for my Dad ($1.50), brother-in-law ($3), and my sister's boyfriend ($4). I also bought a bottle of Yves St. Laurent perfume (don't ask me which one...it's still under the tree) for $6, and a pair of slippers from Menard's clearanced to $5. I bought my niece a shirt for .99, and my Sister-In-Law a new Tigers t-shirt (also from Goodwill) for $3. At a local hardware store, I found two sci-fi books for my Dad clearanced to .49 each, and a large box of what are pretty good chocolates for $3.49. With the remainder, I bought my older sister a wine aerator and silicone guards to protect you from burning your hands from hot oven racks. Aside from the $40 I spent, I received two different 'free gifts' of $5 towards magazine subscriptions from a magazine subscription website I used last year to buy cheap subscriptions for my brother and sisters. On my birthday received a 'free' $10 towards magazines at Magazines.com, so my Brother-in-Law got a subscription to a vegetarian cooking magazine, my little sister got a subscription to the New Yorker, and my Sister-In-law got a subscription to a women's fitness magazine (all of those were at no cost to me). I won a $25 gift certificate to Home Depot from Wazzamba, and bought Mom a cute book safe for $8 (with the rest as non-Christmas...Mom and Dad needed some flashlights for around the house). Finally...I DID go $3 over budget, I guess... I got a $10 off $10 coupon for JcPenney, and for myself, I bought a pants/shirt set to sleep in that was originally $34, marked down to $13, and after the $10 coupon...cost $3+ tax. Yes...I know Chritmas is about the people you love and not things...but it has been very difficult being unemployed for so long...and honestly, I would have felt worse feeling so poor that I couldn't put a little something under the tree. and you know what...I think I did a pretty good job! It is very possible to make $40 stretch a long way, but it's a learning process on how to make your money stretch and make a penny beg for mercy.
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