is $18 an hour livable in New Braunfels? (live, pay)

[CamillaB]

Originally Posted by TexasRedneck

Yeah - it's going to be tight. A lot depends on your lifestyle. If you know how to live without all the fancy cable and high-dollar cell phone bills, it's doable. But if you think $250/mo for cable and $300/mo for cell service is "normal", then you'll have a hard time with that anywhere.

I don't understand why anyone would ever enter into a cell phone contract these days. There are so many services available with unlimited talk and text and very reasonable data packages for so cheap. I've been using H20 for something around 5 or so years now and I pay less than 25 bucks a month for unlimited talk and text and if you go up to about 30 bucks or 35 you get a heap of data. That's just one service. I also don't buy insanely expensive phones. I get Blu and the like, anything unlocked. These run less than 200 bucks (usually about 150) and work fine.

People are getting caught up in that whole "status" hype of thinking they need an 800 dollar phone. You can have great service and a phone even with bells and whistles for so much less today.

TV service is a huge scam. Spectrum will quote you a price then won't include the $30 in fees and all that which are tacked on. Just get Netflix or Hulu or just watch You Tube. There are many free streaming channels now like Pluto as well.

[TexasRedneck]

Originally Posted by CamillaB

I don't understand why anyone would ever enter into a cell phone contract these days.

Lots of things folks do that don't make sense to others. For some, it's a comfort zone - for others, there's special needs that we may not know of....for still others, it's because that's what they want. I've learned to let 'em do as they wish - unless they complain about something caused by their choices.......lol

"I can't afford that - the govenment should give it to us!".....while holding the $1k iPhone in one hand, a $3k purse (or $80k truck key) in the other.

[NBTX11]

No, 18 dollars an hour is not enough to live on in New Braunfels. Home prices are high for Texas to buy and Apartment or home rentals are also quite high. Try 30 dollars an hour needed, either by one person or 2 people making 15+ working full time.

[ged_782]

Originally Posted by NBTX11

No, 18 dollars an hour is not enough to live on in New Braunfels. Home prices are high for Texas to buy and Apartment or home rentals are also quite high. Try 30 dollars an hour needed, either by one person or 2 people making 15+ working full time.

$30/hr. translates to $5,200.00 monthly for a full-time worker. I find it hard to believe that kind of wage wood be the minimum need anywhere around this region.

[NBTX11]

Originally Posted by ged_782

$30/hr. translates to $5,200.00 monthly for a full-time worker. I find it hard to believe that kind of wage wood be the minimum need anywhere around this region.

30 an hour would be 1,200 a week or 4,800 over a 4 week period (maybe a little more than that for the extra 2 or 3 days that would make a month.

Now start subtracting out of that health insurance, taxes, 401K, etc. and your true take home pay is probably somewhere around 3,400 a month or so. Maybe less actually. Health plans alone can cost 500-800 a month or more. If you contribute 10 percent to a 401k, that's another 500 bucks gone, then the government gets their share in taxes.

So let's just assume you are making 3,400 take home. Any idea what the average mortgage or rent is around NB? Almost half of that. 1,400 or 1,500 a month for a modest 3 bedroom house for a family. So you have 500 bucks a week at most for everything else...food, car payments, utilities, phone, cable, internet, etc.

So yes, 30 dollars an hour is pretty close to what you need to live any type of moderate lifestyle in NB. Maybe you can get by on 25, but certainly not 18. Unless maybe you're single and rent a one bedroom apartment. I am more thinking of families when I said 30.

[supfromthesite]

You can actually find a small rental for around $1200. I would agree that $25 an hour or close to that is probably the least you could live off of. That is $52,000 a year and $4,333 a month.

That would be a solid amount for a single person, but for a family of 3 it will be much more difficult.

edit: family of 4

[ashbeeigh]

My paycheck is about $5400 a month. I believe that's between $35-37 an hour. After taxes, TRS and health insurance I get about $3800. Up here I am paying $1435 for a newer small apartment. There are 47 houses for rent in 78130. There are 60 "near New Braunfels." Adding condos and townhomes it jumps up to 147. I'm sure there's lots more if you add in apartments. I'd probably say, like supfromthesite, that about $20-$25 is the lowest you could go. Or add on a part time job or both parents would need to be working.

This is a nice thought experiment for the regular posters, but OP has not returned to discuss this further. The last time he posted before this was in 2018. Use your energy wisely in responding.

[Azure110]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

This is a nice thought experiment for the regular posters, but OP has not returned to discuss this further. The last time he posted before this was in 2018. Use your energy wisely in responding.

Probably didn't like the answers.

[supfromthesite]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

My paycheck is about $5400 a month. I believe that's between $35-37 an hour. After taxes, TRS and health insurance I get about $3800. Up here I am paying $1435 for a newer small apartment. There are 47 houses for rent in 78130. There are 60 "near New Braunfels." Adding condos and townhomes it jumps up to 147. I'm sure there's lots more if you add in apartments. I'd probably say, like supfromthesite, that about $20-$25 is the lowest you could go. Or add on a part time job or both parents would need to be working.

This is a nice thought experiment for the regular posters, but OP has not returned to discuss this further. The last time he posted before this was in 2018. Use your energy wisely in responding.

If you are working 40 hours a week then $5400 a month should be $64,800 per year and $31.15 a month. I made an excel document to quickly figure all of this out

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by Azure110

Probably didn't like the answers.

Most likely.

Originally Posted by supfromthesite

If you are working 40 hours a week then $5400 a month should be $64,800 per year and $31.15 a month. I made an excel document to quickly figure all of this out

It's probably a bit more given that my salary changes in August. It's hard to decipher given I'm on a school year contract. Also, I get social security and Teacher retirement taken out so it's even more of a mess to figure out.