EXTREME BUDGET 💵 How Our Family Lives on $17K in the USA

[@bradlafferty]

You have done remarkable work in living and budgeting frugally. Thanks for this vid!

[@raisingwildflowers]

Thanks for watching!

[@kemi1486]

Love to see fellow Americans are finally living their lives by design instead of by default 🌻

[@grannyprepper1181]

That is amazing. I’m a single senior and I live on $15,468 per year. My housing is $480. a month just to park my 5th wheel, that’s my biggest expense and so on.

[@ashleybosvik3031]

My expenses are 8000 a year but I own my own home

[@joni1]

🏡

[@debbieframpton3857]

I'm a single senior living on Social Security of $1,272 a month I am able to put $450 into savings each month my monthly expenses of homeowners car insurance utilities is less than 350 because of my frugal shopping I'm able to live on this easily. I pay my real estate taxes once a year. Having a paid for mortgage a 2020 vehicle and no debt I feel blessed. I do have a small 401K Roth IRA and one CD that I'm not spending right now

[@CountryLadyInBoots]

Same here almost, 2 seniors on 13k per year .. installed a bidet , color and cut hair myself, stay home, never eat out, drive a 1998 vehicle, eat minimally (I've lost 30 pounds🙌) rent movies at the library, and we try to stay healthy with the Lord's help🙏

[@NoOneUKnow-c3y]

My husband and I are also working on trying to live differently than we have. Thanks for your tips and going through your budget. You are always inspiring.

[@TJ-yv3kp]

You go girl...keep living life on your terms❤

[@grannyprepper1181]

Yes, what happened to the thrift stores? They aren’t so cheap anymore.

[@ashleybosvik3031]

They are double what they used to be

[@JLD1960]

yep and rummage sales are very expensive. gone are the days where a person can get a bargin any where !😮😢

[@grannyprepper1181]

@ ain’t that the truth!

[@cynthia57169]

Resellers have stripped away all the bargains and online sales allow thrifts to sell their best items that way. 😢

[@tessramos8828]

Thrift stores in Pennsylvania are no longer affordable !

[@bikeangel05231]

I love your videos, all your helpful tips, and your upbeat attitude. Thank you for posting. ❤

[@StanRichard-w6i]

I'm glad you made this video it reminds me of my transformation from a nobody to good home, $34k monthly and a good daughter full of love

[@Mrs.Frugal-i6h]

Love your channel! I grew up off grid in Brazil, that was really fun as a kid.

[@flutingaround]

impressive. Working as a team it seems possible. Thanks for tracking and sharing with us.

[@kb8990]

I personally think you work very hard to not have to just do an income-generating job, but kudos for tracking your spending so closely.

[@lindc1070]

If you are happy with this lifestyle, that is what matters. But a rule everyone should follow is to always live below your income, as much below as possible. Those who fail to will some day run into a road block because emergencies occur in many forms to everyone.

[@thepovertyprincesssharonsa8122]

I would not be able to be so polite as you are in these comments. Hon you have patience and calm, qualities I do not possess in large quantities. How you choose to live is your business. I see no problem with it, sad other people do! Keep doing what you do to live YOUR best life! There is a trend I seen on TikTok of people voluntarily living in vans and cars and RVs because they can't afford high rent and prefer owning the vehicle they sleep in vs paying someones mortgage. Some people just don't understand the decision to break out of the mold and do what you can afford and what brings you peace and satisfaction. Merry Christmas ! I am going to try some of your recipes for my channel and cooking videos in 2025. I will absolutely credit your channel for the recipes I use.

[@raisingwildflowers]

Thank you so much! ❤️ I hope you enjoy the recipes! Merry Christmas 🎄

[@CassieDavis613]

To the lady who has peppered the comments section: Comparison is the thief of joy. I'd like you to work on regaining your joy. Only you can do that.

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

@CassieDavis613 If you are speaking of me, I have much joy. I have not peppered the comments: I have responded to comments made to me. Unfortunately, YT does not put the comments in order, so they appear disjointed.

[@SandraHay-kp3sc]

That was very well put

[@kateglastic9826]

I love your videos..what a beautiful life😍

[@sheryl_8713]

Greetings from Canada! I absolutely love your channel and your very detailed methods of living with frugality and intention. You are an inspiration. With gratitude and thanks!

[@yosoylily.]

Hello thank you so much for sharing with us 🫧✨

[@FrugalFunMum]

Well done! Love your videos! I am inspired with some ideas you share

[@tessramos8828]

Hi Katie 🌻 You are so resourceful and efficient . . . You Go Girl 🎉

[@royrosete7085]

Life is what you make it..... and they say, true wealth is living content with little... I admire this lady and her family... God bless.

[@AnaViolinViola]

Great planning, you guys rock! 😊

[@reginafisher9919]

That's absolutely amazing!

[@jewelskitchen]

Great job! I would like to see a video about vehicles. How did you decided to buy the truck you did and weighed the cost of a more expensive vehicle with the reliability factor and also insurance andgas mileage factors?

[@carolwoodward6141]

Can’t wait for your 2025😎

[@ClairenParkerontheRoad]

Can't wait to see the trip or whatever it is! Love you guys!

[@carolwoodward6141]

Housing in 2024 was creative and different, not weird.

[@Kittenmom2]

Those are amazing numbers 👍

[@ValerieLain-v1z]

Great video. Take Care.❤

[@sandraboose3686]

You guys are awsome!

[@Gioli565]

Wow! We have spent that in a month sometimes 😅

[@carolwoodward6141]

Property improvements equate to assets not living expenses.

[@raisingwildflowers]

Yes! That is what I was trying to say lol

[@nzmoneykarma]

That’s awesome

[@StanRichard-w6i]

I'm favoured, Getting my own Truck has always been my Dream for my business. I just acquired 2 recently, earning $32K weekly has been really helpful. I can now give back to the locals in my community and also support Charity Organizations.

[@Acr24608]

Damn, impressive!

[@AlexisManning]

Did that include the purchase of your land? (sorry havent been able to make it through the whole video yet)

[@raisingwildflowers]

No. We bought our land in 2023.

[@makeanddohandmade]

I would love to see you guys budget travel in Europe 💗🙏✨👌🏻

[@raisingwildflowers]

I would definitely love to make those videos ❤️

[@ashleybosvik3031]

Have you decided when you're going to start building your house.

[@raisingwildflowers]

It's been a slow process just getting everything set up to start building, so not yet 🙃

[@indsrnty707]

Question - have you done a video on how you all downsized from your house to your RV and living on your off-grid homestead? My family is in the phase of downsizing to do exactly that. So far we are doing it in phases, we have 6 months from now to downsize to live in an RV on our new soon property.

[@cleopatrablackwell3414]

Research minimalist living and learn to live with basically what you would have in an extended stay hotel. It's very similar living aside from dumping tanks.

[@raisingwildflowers]

I have not done that video yet - let me brainstorm if I can turn that into an interesting video :) But basically what we did was start with selling the bigger, most expensive items on FB Marketplace. Went room by room clearing out every closet and drawer. It's more of an emotional process of letting go than a physical one - at least at first, then it gets exciting to let things go lol. Each person in our house got one storage container for their fun stuff. Once we got a lot of that stuff done, we packed everything in a room away, then unpack something only when we really need it. This let us know what we actually use and we got more creative with multi-use items. We donated everything we didn't really need. I am excited for you guys! It really is freeing to not have so much stuff ... or room to bring in more stuff because then you save even more money 😁

[@indsrnty707]

@raisingwildflowers it is an emotional process like you said. Lots of memories are attached to things understandably. So we have been purging, by stages. Just last night purged first time our bookshelf full of books. We went from four full shelves to now one. And so we carry on. Thank you. To freedom

[@lynnquette]

Commenting to say i love your channel and that Jenny character is a massive jerk. Keep doing your thing!

[@joaquimrodriguez8961]

$17K? That's rough thumbs up

[@amiepant9349]

In my county in michigan , my property tax includes library tax 🙃. It is $61.00 a year.

[@raisingwildflowers]

True lol. The library is free in the sense that you don't have a choice so you might as well use it 😂

[@Cat22275]

Mine offers streaming service call Kanopy at least. I wonder how much our tax is now.

[@carolwoodward6141]

Hello fella Virginian 👋

[@tamarasmith1023]

Do you get any public assistance like food stamps? Are any of your children in school? If so, how do you manage traveling with school schedule? Thanks!

[@raisingwildflowers]

We do not get food stamps or anything (although I have in the past when I was a single parent). We homeschool so are able to travel and move easily 😊

[@tamarasmith1023]

@@raisingwildflowers Thanks!

[@ms.budgetmom8472]

How about a video on hour2025 goals?

[@galedobschuetz4007]

😊

[@WifetoJohn]

Does the 17k include your truck?

[@raisingwildflowers]

It includes insurance, maintenance, and gas on the truck. We purchased the truck the end of last year. It was more than $17K 😅

[@Sonoragrove4]

Are you able to save for retirement?

[@raisingwildflowers]

We are 😊 When your expenses are low, it's possible to save, even on a low income

[@mayaibarra5230]

How much do you spend on toilet paper??

[@nt6719]

Overseas travel?

[@raisingwildflowers]

🤫😉

[@bwillsboys]

@@raisingwildflowersMexico?

[@KarenDempsey-xy3fs]

You say a family of 5 BUT I just see 3 ? Where are the other 2 ?

[@raisingwildflowers]

I stopped showing my teenage daughters when I started getting inappropriate comments. Beyond that, adolescents need privacy and I am not interested in sacrificing that for social media.

[@KarenDempsey-xy3fs]

@@raisingwildflowers I see I didn’t know you had 2 elder daughters living with you…Good video

[@lindc1070]

​@@raisingwildflowersdidnt your eldest move out?

[@raisingwildflowers]

She did :)

[@landeeld9596]

The downside is that I had to sacrifice health care for 12 years while I was working. Because I could not qualify for Obamacare subsidies and couldn't afford the $700 per month payments, yet I had to pay for those like you, through my taxes so that you could have health care while you chose not to work traditional jobs. Kinda sucked.

[@lindawilson8434]

I agree with you Probably a lot think it but will not say it

[@WittyMcTwitty]

She is working. Content creators are self-employed and pay taxes. Just to clarify, you were too poor to afford healthcare coverage, but instead of blaming your greedy employer for not providing insurance that they could afford, you are blaming other low-income people. Make that make sense! 🤦🏻

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

@@WittyMcTwitty How do you know that the employer could afford the health insurance? You don't even know who he worked for. She is not a true low income person. She and her husband choose to not work traditional jobs. They just want to do KZbin and odd jobs so they can travel and do what they want. This allows them "freedom", all while they are perfectly happy allowing other hardworking taxpayers to provide the tax subsidies for their health insurance. Who is greedy here??

[@carolwoodward6141]

It is to ignore the Health Insurance Lobby which bribes government leaders to prevent universal health care in favor of billions to the C-Suite and wealthy shareholders. You need to understand who is really robbing us peons.

[@melodypaz7247]

That's how insurance works. It's also how our U.S. national budget works. If you don't like it, contact your government.

[@jessicatounkara8753]

I have no idea how you managed to live on this amount of money. Everything is so expensive.

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

She is probably not including WIC or SNAP benefits in her totals. If she can feed five people for only $360 per month, without any government benefits, she needs to go to work for the federal government to teach people how to do this so they can make their SNAP benefits go much, much further.

[@lindawilson8434]

​​@@Jenny-dg4sb she wont say if she gets Snap Probably does When seniors who can no longer work getcso little Would not want them to be role models for anyone in my family

[@raisingwildflowers]

@@Jenny-dg4sb We do not receive SNAP or WIC but I have in the past. I think maybe it would be a good idea for me to start a YT channel to help other people save money on their groceries too. Maybe I will do that one day 🙃

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

@raisingwildflowers Great! But the federal government would pay you better than KZbin, and you would have access to medical insurance for your family. However, you would then have to pay health insurance premiums like the rest of us.

[@raisingwildflowers]

@@Jenny-dg4sb I've actually worked for the federal government before (ACF) and qualified for Medicaid at that time lol. Sorry, it's a nice idea, but even a lot of government jobs don't pay enough for their employees to cover the insurance costs as a family.

[@Amanda-zd7ei]

But you have land

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

So you are living frugally so that you can have freedom to do the things in life you want to do without working much, and the rest of us taxpaying Americans are paying for your ACA insurance?? I hope you are thankful for the people who do work hard so you don't have to.

[@raisingwildflowers]

ACA is available to those households making up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. So for a family of 5, that is under $146,000 a year. Of course we should utilize this resource to save money on America’s extremely overpriced health care costs. It would be silly not to. We do work and do pay taxes so I have zero issues with it. The problem with EVERY persons ridiculously high health care expenses are not a result of the Marketplace.

[@nzmoneykarma]

That’s it, the US has high healthcare costs because it is a business….. rather than a public service. Healthcare is a right that everyone should enjoy, not a privilege reserved for those with $$$$

[@tessramos8828]

​@@nzmoneykarmaYou are correct

[@ClairenParkerontheRoad]

Lady, my brother is a practicing lawyer, and he has Obama Care.

[@Jenny-dg4sb]

@raisingwildflowers So, are you thankful to the taxpayers who afford you a no premium insurance plan? Because millions and millions of people work their butts off to pay the taxes needed to provide this insurance to you. It is a fair question. And the families of 5 making $146,000 per year do not get premium-free ACA insurance. It is a great benefit to your family, but it costs other families thousands of dollars in taxes for your family to benefit.

[@raisingwildflowers]

*My FAVORITE Budget Planner!* amzn.to/3K1VIW1 Low-Cost Phone Service *MINT MOBILE* mint-mobile.58dp.net/do4DnM *Health Insurance* www.healthcare.gov *Watch Next* How We Saved $10K on Groceries in 2024 kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmSYZGepebZrl7s

[@lindsaysimplified]

This is what I aspire to in 2025. And girl, you are so much kinder than I am in the comment sections. I instantly block any negative, trolling, just want to argue or nitpick comments immediately. 😂 How do account for your sinking funds in your monthly budget when using the Clever Fox budgeting journal? That’s the only “I’m not sure how this would work” moment I’ve had with it. Thankful for your channel! 🤍

[@lindsaysimplified]

I wanted to add some clarification - specifically when spending from your sinking funds? Do you account for it somewhere in your budget that you spent that money?

[@raisingwildflowers]

Oh, I do really want to be mean to them sometimes 🤣 I usually decide to leave up the comments so other people know they are not alone in all the negativity they receive. And it just makes those negative commenters look bad 😁 I really am generally laughing at their comments. I would never waste my time watching someone's YT channel and then posting negative stuff because what a waste of time 🤣 Honestly, I use to do sinking funds, but gave up this past year ... my ADHD brain isn't a fan lol. At least for the little things - I just budget those into our monthly expenses as we go (homeschool stuff, pantry stock-ups, etc). We do have a savings account that is kinda one big sinking fund for big expenses, and as an overflow if we have a month that we make less income. I throw all our extra money at the end of the month in there. If money comes out of there, I do count it towards our monthly expenses (unless it is an investment for our property.) Because our income is so inconsistent, I have kinda learned to go-with-the-flow more than I think most people would have to/want to 🙃 I hope that made sense lol