Who's Mean's Are Livable

President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman stated to the Great Falls Tribune in a May 1, 2019 article "We have to get back to the point where we live within our means to some degree."

It is here you as the reader will look at the means that I have to live within. From this exercise maybe some of you will have a better understanding of how important, Affordable, WorkForce, Low-Income or Government Subsidized housing is. Not only that may you also come to understand that living with Government Subsidies is no walk in the park, especially under this administration.

In order for me to live within my means, I must work only with the amount I receive from Social Security Disability, as I can only work 12 hours a week now. I don't know of an employer who has those kinds of hours to offer. So we have our $851 in hand and are ready to go out and get a place to live on our own, without government help or in a government-subsidized building. This means we will be looking at the real rental price and all the other bills that go along with it.

"The median monthly gross residential rent in Montana was $759 in 2017 according to the Census ACS survey.¹ Average gross rent was $772 in 2017. The median rent more accurately depicts rental rates in the middle of the distribution of rents and is thus preferred in the analysis below. 2018 Montana median and average rent data will be released in September of 2019."

Now, in 2017 the average gross rent was $772 a month of a one-bedroom apartment, $851-772=$79 left to pay utilities, auto insurance, food (as we can not use SNAP, we must live within our means), gas for the auto, phone service, doctor's visits, prescriptions, toiletries, and to feed our service animal. No cable tv, or internet, eating out, going to the movies, or even for a drive. $79 is not going to go very far, even in Montana where you don't have to have cash every day to ride a bus or park your car.

This scenario tells me I need to look for a lower-cost place to live as it is my biggest expenditure. So let's take a look at alternative living arrangements that can be done with $851 a month without breaking the bank.

To share an apartment with someone who has rented a place at $772 a month, we would have to pay half of that plus half of the utilities, Rent: $386 a month, lets say utilities run $100 a month, so we add $50 to the rent of $386 and we get $436 over half of my income so we know that is not going to work either.

Let's see what the math would be to live in a motel with monthly rates, the only one available is in Butte, that is a 68 mile drive, so we need to factor in the cost of gas to get there: 68 miles x $2.75 a gallon of gas= $19 or about 7 gallons of gas if we get 10 miles per gallon. Now the room for a month in Butte will be $119 a night for 31 nights plus $19 in gas to get there = $3,708 total just for housing a month. Well, that will never do.

Our next option is to look at campgrounds and sleep in our vehicle. Now in the state of Montana, there is plenty of places you can pull over and stay for free without having to be in the city limits, or you can stay at Walmart for the night for free and have sketchy things take place under the cover of darkness. These two choices fit our budget, but they do not allow for bathroom usage, we will need to haul water so we can clean and cook for ourselves.

To stay in an established campground for a night can cost you anywhere from $14 General to $7 a night if you are disabled and a senior, this cost is without electricity, and for a rustic site is $6 dollars a night for senior and disabled residents of Montana, $12 General. You are only allowed to stay 14 days in a campground, so we will have to move to another in two weeks. We want to get by as cheaply as possible, so we will take a rustic site at $6 a night (we won't factor in the gas this time as it will be less than $5 to move to a campground down the way). $6 x 31 nights stay =$186 for 31 days.

$851 monthly income - $186 monthly camping fees = $665 left to pay auto insurance, food, toiletries, gas, phone, groceries, doctors, prescriptions. Hmmmmm, it seems to me that this is well within my means.

Well, you can't camp in the winter! It's too cold! Waite a minute, it wouldn't be too cold if I had a portable electric car heater for the interior of the vehicle, no CO2 emissions as it runs off the cigarette lighter, there are more sweaters I can put on as well as build a fire, or drive into town and visit friends, family, walk around shopping centers, or go to the library during the day.

In this article, I hope that I have shown you what it means to live within my means. I would love to live this way for a year just to be able to save some money for a rainy day, but alas if you choose to live this way you can expect to have unwanted visitors thinking you are of the wrong element, need to receive mental health services  or should be run out of town before other's think they can do the same thing.

Some of the homeless are not really homeless, as they have chosen to live within their means and not put up with all the negative connotations about taking from Uncle Sam, using so-called "Entitlement" programs that actually control how much money you can make, save, and get yourself out of poverty.