Me 2:
That sounds relatively reasonably. I am sure people can nitpick, but there are also a lot of unexpected expenses that could take care of any discrepency.
From all of these posts it does not appear that on budgets of 125-150 in taxable income there is much room to cut or save; and they are certainly not what anyone would consider luxurious.
Ultimately, it appears that those making in the 70-85 range who don’t pay much in taxes (let alone that many seem to have off the books arrangements for at leaset partial income) and have programs, end up in the same ballpark as the 125-140 range (who pay between 1/3-1/4 of total salary) taxes and have to contribute to health insurance etc. and may even have 200-500 in student debt to contend with.
Do people in the lower range realize this? What about yeshiva tuition boards? Any comment?