It Would Be Nice

My wife asked me today what it would mean if the new child tax credit got extended and the universal pre-K were to pass. She clarified that to mean would we still get the tax credit if we weren’t using it for pre-school and I told her yes. That would be nice.

I think about this often. We shouldn’t be struggling financially. We own our own business and make a decent amount of money doing so, but it keeps feeling like there is always more month than money. We keep cutting it closer and closer and I can never answer the question of where is all the money going.

It would be nice if we got to hang onto the money we earned instead of having to keep paying it and paying it and paying it out to all these insurance companies and what not.

I’ve been trying to think of different ways to save money. The lease on my car is up in ten months and the easiest way to pay less is to buy the car, but there are also options to get a different car. One that is much more fuel efficient. I did some math and some of the hybrid cars would save us up to $120 a month.

That is just one option to save money but I shouldn’t have to keep cutting here and there and everywhere just to keep barely getting by. That is where that universal pre-K comes in. If we got that and didn’t have to pay for the schooling and still got the child tax credit it would help our financial situation so much.

When people think about the people getting government assistance they assume they are people taking advantage of others hard work. When, in reality, it is middle class families working hard to get by. It is a common practice in other developed countries for everyone, or most everyone, to receive some form of government assistance.

I don’t know what we’d do with the extra money. I’d like to think I would use it to get the kids clothes or other things or put it away in savings for them. It is their money, after all. But the intention of it is to help families, and if it helps us get a better car or better quality food or anything else that helps the entire household then it is still going to good use. Let’s just hope congress gets their act together and gets this thing passed.