And I really couldn't give one, at least in this setting. And really I've yet to see a good estimate for cost of living. Full time in minimum wage-land is 35 scheduled hours, less if you are let go early. Getting behind on bills also constitutes additional fees.
As far as what I remember, I ended up having about $100-150 left after bills per pay period. There are other factors here as well, bad roommate, car accident, that I'm not going into.
I'm kind of disappointed, I was hoping for a bit more than a "rich people get obsessed with getting richer" type of story (still a good piece).
Freedom is indeed bought with money, but not in the way that most people think. There's a shell game going on right now for the lowest class worker.
At the time the US economy had it's "oh shit" moment around 2007-2008, I was working at a marketing research company. At the time I was working from home being paid by the hour, but there wasn't a lot of work coming in. I was broke most times after paying bills, so I had to find a quick patch job.
I began working at a McDonald's. At this point I was staying available online for most of the day until the afternoon, at which I would go to McDonald's and work all night. I found a bartender gig and started to work that on my off days of McDonald's.
At that point, I was making good money, but there wasn't any time I had to myself. I ended up quitting the marketing research job, as I was making more from McDonald's alone.
Now I was making OK money, but still not having a single day off. The bartender gig was getting more and more violent (I worked at a rough R&B club getting paid under the table). I eventually left the bartending job (there was a shooting there less than a week later). I don't think I need to explain what life was like working only at McDonald's, even if I was being paid more than most non-managers.
It's a bit hard to communicate what was exactly wrong with this picture. As a low wage worker, it was impossible for me to both have time and money, or leverage either of them to get myself into a better position.
When I had money, I had no time to leverage it. I couldn't finish a degree, I couldn't even keep a girlfriend. It was easy to slip into depression and substance abuse. I drank a lot. When I did get the chance to go out and have fun, it was to the extreme.
When I didn't have money but I had time, it was equally as bad. I couldn't go out to bars, I barely could keep up on bills. I couldn't take time off to go to the doctor. I couldn't afford to lose hours, nor afford the doctor's visit. When I had to go to the emergency room, I had to take the hit to my credit. I couldn't go across town or go to the show, I was behind on either electric or gas most months. And electric people have no qualms in shutting off your power and then laughing in your face when you say you can't even cook food.
It's interesting to me that when you're in that trap, it's almost impossible to pull yourself out. On one end of the spectrum, if you have the money to better yourself, you don't have the time to do so. You can't leverage the three jobs on resumes, nor is that a replacement for a degree.
On the other end, if you work one or two jobs, you don't have money enough to get a degree, or take a vacation, or take sick days, or go to the doctor, or change cities, or go to a concert, or have a night on the town, or even (sometimes) keeping internet.
So yes, I would argue that the real use of money is to buy freedom. It's just that most don't realize it, until they are stuck at the very bottom wondering how the hell they can get out. I'm not saying I did everything perfect, but I don't feel I did anything horribly wrong either.
And I'm doing fine now. I ended up getting with a start up doing Node.js and frontend JS work, which was enough to jump start my career.
As far as what I remember, I ended up having about $100-150 left after bills per pay period. There are other factors here as well, bad roommate, car accident, that I'm not going into.