The Money Issue
What We Spent in a Month
What We Spent in a Month
Six American families open their doors — and their wallets — to show us how much life costs.
The Desper & Bibbus Family spent $7,953
Mortgage
$584
Utilities
$224
Cellphone
$344
Credit cards
$1,134
Cable/Internet
$290
Health Insurance
$55
Life Insurance
$67
Home Insurance
$132
Gas/Parking Ticket
$239
Groceries
$1,553
Restaurants
$899
Dental costs
$474
Clothing
$225
Personal Care
$30
School Supplies
$35
Book
$27
Pet care
$739
Pest Control
$69
Kids’ Activities
$365
Rentals
$447
Video Games
$20
Paula, a home health aide, and Aaron, a machine operator, are raising two children, Khailn and Destyni, in Lancaster, Pa. During the pandemic, Paula has had to scramble for hours. There’s a mortgage and bills to pay — plus karate for the kids and grooming for the dogs.
Paula: We’ve been together 11 years. The reason we haven’t gotten married is because Aaron owes back child support. I don’t want them trying to come at me. If you get married and one of you owes child support, you can get hit with it. We got engaged for the first time in 1992, when I was pregnant with our first son. After that, I just didn’t hear from him. And then in 2010, I saw him on Myspace and sent him a friend request. I always said that he was my soul mate. We reconnected, and a year later, he asked me to marry him again, and we’ve been engaged ever since. Read More
Now we live in a three-story rowhouse. I love owning my house. But with the pandemic, it’s just that extra stress. I wound up getting a second job about a year ago to pay for the mortgage and bills.
My mom passed Sept. 30 of 2020 from congestive heart failure. No link to Covid — she wasn’t taking her meds. I have money from her life insurance. I had to pay for her funeral, but the rest is for emergency cash. I wanted to remember my mom, so I got a butterfly, a sunflower, the date she died and her initials with her ashes in the ink. I already have three wolf tattoos.
With my work, it’s not a guarantee I’ll have a job next month. I go into people’s homes. So, if they get sick or something happens or they pass, then you have to sit back and be like, “Oh, crap.” Hopefully the agencies I work for are able to find me another client. I work 75 hours a week, for two different agencies, at $13 an hour. I really don’t see my children. I really don’t see my family. And that’s very hard. My grandson was just born March 19, and I’ve seen him two times.
This month has been more stressful because my hours at my one job have been lessened. The money that’s been in the bank for emergency funds is slowly dwindling. There are some days you just want to give up, you want to crawl in a room and sit there and cry and not want to do it, but who’s going to pay my bills?
Now we live in a three-story rowhouse. I love owning my house. But with the pandemic, it’s just that extra stress. I wound up getting a second job about a year ago to pay for the mortgage and bills.
My mom passed Sept. 30 of 2020 from congestive heart failure. No link to Covid — she wasn’t taking her meds. I have money from her life insurance. I had to pay for her funeral, but the rest is for emergency cash. I wanted to remember my mom, so I got a butterfly, a sunflower, the date she died and her initials with her ashes in the ink. I already have three wolf tattoos.
With my work, it’s not a guarantee I’ll have a job next month. I go into people’s homes. So, if they get sick or something happens or they pass, then you have to sit back and be like, “Oh, crap.” Hopefully the agencies I work for are able to find me another client. I work 75 hours a week, for two different agencies, at $13 an hour. I really don’t see my children. I really don’t see my family. And that’s very hard. My grandson was just born March 19, and I’ve seen him two times.
This month has been more stressful because my hours at my one job have been lessened. The money that’s been in the bank for emergency funds is slowly dwindling. There are some days you just want to give up, you want to crawl in a room and sit there and cry and not want to do it, but who’s going to pay my bills?
The details:
Paula: We pay a monthly fee for vet appointments and their shots. They’re big dogs. They get groomed every other month. But we love our dogs. We’d do anything for them.
Paula: I got a chipped tooth fixed ($368). Now they say my bottom four front teeth need bone grafting. I don’t understand why. I have no cavities. I floss, brush my teeth, mouthwash. A few months ago, they did a thorough cleaning with anesthesia. I have health insurance through my job. I pay for dental, but it doesn’t cover much.
Paula: I have a few credit cards: Capital One, Merrick Bank, Children’s Place, Walmart, Macy’s, Fingerhut. I owe money on all of them. The Walmart credit card — that is for groceries, and they just upped my credit.
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Paula: Somebody comes over to put out bait. They said the attic needs to be cleaned out, that’s the major problem. I mean, my daughter stepped on a baby mouse on the second floor. I have O.C.D., I’m very clean, and it’s just — there’s mice. When I call them about the situation, they say it’s coming from the neighbors because our houses are connected.
Paula: The kids are in karate ($329) and love it. Most months, they get a new belt ($10). They’re in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts ($26). They sell popcorn and candy; part of that goes to activities. Destyni’s going to Knoebels amusement park with the Girl Scouts for an overnight, and she’s going to need money for food and rides.
Paula: We got the Pac-Man table for the kids for Christmas ($47). They played it twice. There’s no sense to be paying on something they’re not playing.
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The Tran Family spent $11,269
Rent
$2,270
Mortgages
$1,714
Utilities
$229
401-k Contributions
$971
Law-School Loan
$1,952
Car Payment
$694
Internet
$35
Car Washes
$20
Groceries
$521
Restaurants
$528
Medical Costs
$566
Clothing
$63
Shopping
$94
Gifts
$49
Donations
$1,275
Personal Care
$55
Compostable diapers
$233
Brittany, a lawyer and YouTube vlogger, and Huy, a marketing manager, had their first child, Ezra, in the middle of the pandemic and invested in a compostable-diaper service to avoid landfill waste. But much of their income went toward paying law-school debt and covering rent on the one-bedroom apartment in Mountain View, Calif., where they’ve been working from home.
Huy: I don’t think we could have asked for a better situation to raise a baby. We got to see him grow up. Our expenses are a lot less, just living at home. We got to keep our salaries at the same level. Not many people in the country have this luxury. Read More
Part of the silver lining to the pandemic is that we get to work from home. With my flexible schedule, I was able to dive into other hobbies. One of them was day trading. I did, like, 20 trades a day. I’m trying to step back now and take it slower, because with our kid, ever since he was born, I realized I wasn’t really spending as much time with him, and I couldn’t just trade from 6:30 to 1 p.m. I thought to myself, What am I doing?
My paternity leave started in mid-March and goes until the end of May. I really enjoy cuddling with him after I feed him. There’s something about just being able to hold him. Play time, he’s usually more active, squirrelly. Changing the diapers — that’s where we share responsibility. Not necessarily the pee diapers, but when he actually poops and there’s accidents where it goes all over the clothes and everything, that’s when I typically ask Brittany if she can handle some of it, because it just grosses me out a little too much.
My mom was very big on saving. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s an immigrant — she immigrated from Vietnam during the war. Anytime we wanted to buy anything she would ask us, “Oh, do you really need it?” Sometimes it’s more about waste. Using the baby as an example, do we need to buy, like, five different toys when we don’t even know if he’s going to enjoy them?
With the tax deadline coming up, we’ve been saving up more money in order to pay off our capital-gains tax from my stock trading last year. I’m making that up by reducing our retirement contributions.
As for the vaccine, we got our first shot last week. Brittany messaged our friends and asked, “Hey, do you want to hang out and see Ezra for the first time?” Something I’m looking forward to: Our favorite restaurant is in San Mateo. It’s called Taishoken, and it’s ramen noodles, and that’s one of the things that you have to have fresh. It’s not the same taking it to go.
Part of the silver lining to the pandemic is that we get to work from home. With my flexible schedule, I was able to dive into other hobbies. One of them was day trading. I did, like, 20 trades a day. I’m trying to step back now and take it slower, because with our kid, ever since he was born, I realized I wasn’t really spending as much time with him, and I couldn’t just trade from 6:30 to 1 p.m. I thought to myself, What am I doing?
My paternity leave started in mid-March and goes until the end of May. I really enjoy cuddling with him after I feed him. There’s something about just being able to hold him. Play time, he’s usually more active, squirrelly. Changing the diapers — that’s where we share responsibility. Not necessarily the pee diapers, but when he actually poops and there’s accidents where it goes all over the clothes and everything, that’s when I typically ask Brittany if she can handle some of it, because it just grosses me out a little too much.
My mom was very big on saving. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s an immigrant — she immigrated from Vietnam during the war. Anytime we wanted to buy anything she would ask us, “Oh, do you really need it?” Sometimes it’s more about waste. Using the baby as an example, do we need to buy, like, five different toys when we don’t even know if he’s going to enjoy them?
With the tax deadline coming up, we’ve been saving up more money in order to pay off our capital-gains tax from my stock trading last year. I’m making that up by reducing our retirement contributions.
As for the vaccine, we got our first shot last week. Brittany messaged our friends and asked, “Hey, do you want to hang out and see Ezra for the first time?” Something I’m looking forward to: Our favorite restaurant is in San Mateo. It’s called Taishoken, and it’s ramen noodles, and that’s one of the things that you have to have fresh. It’s not the same taking it to go.
The details:
Brittany: They send you a case of diapers every month and then you send back the dirty diapers and they compost for you. It’s labeled “hazardous,” and there’s only certain FedExes that can take it, I guess because, maybe, if it exploded? It’s really human waste, technically. For us, it was worth it because we want to be more environmentally friendly. (Note: $233 covered a two-month supply.)
Huy: It’s nice to have a beater car. It allows you to be a little more relaxed when you go into places like San Francisco where you don’t want to park in certain areas.
Huy: I have rental properties in two states — Texas and Ohio. Property in California is overvalued in my opinion. We can get a better return on our money by investing out of state.
Brittany: For me, tithing to church ($1,200) is very natural, because I saw my parents do it. The way we view it is, like, our money is not our own. God blessed us with the money, right? I’m not adding up exactly what we make and taking 10 percent; it’s more of a rounded ballpark number, because our income fluctuates month to month. My husband didn’t grow up as a Christian. It did take a little bit of explanation.
Brittany: The boba shortage made me want to get it while I can ($46). I can’t imagine if there’s no boba. It sounds bad, but what else would I look forward to on the weekends?
Brittany: I wouldn’t say it was a dream since I was a little kid. I graduated, took the bar exam, passed, and I’m like, “Well, I guess I’m a lawyer now.” I didn’t think of the future, how long I’d have to pay these off. When I first graduated from law school, because my salary was low, the six-figure loans were more daunting. I have four years left. I don’t notice them as much.
The Campbell Family spent $5,705
Rent
$839
Utilities
$140
Investments
$100
Credit Cards
$100
Debt Settlement
$300
Cellphone
$85
Internet
$65
Subscriptions
$52
Insurance (Car, Renter's)
$93
Car Wash/Gas
$42
Groceries
$810
Restaurants
$382
Medical/Dental
$2,503
Sporting Goods
$28
Personal Care
$146
Pet Care
$20
Tarah lives with her son, Taryn, in Canandaigua, N.Y., and works as a medical secretary for veterans and an in-store Instacart shopper for Wegmans. While she spent some money on tanning and dining out, her budget was dominated by medical costs.
Tarah: I had to stop therapy for six months last year. I had to catch up on bills. I had been waitressing. But with the pandemic, I wasn’t getting hours. I was in a hole. By Dec. 5, I had Covid. I had to stay away from my son, and he had to stay away from me. He wanted to help, but I couldn’t go near him or get in the car, and he had to make his own food, and we’d Instacart for groceries. Read More
Taryn came down with symptoms a week after I did. I begged to continue to work. I was so sick I couldn’t see my family during Christmas. My doctor had to take me out of work in the first week of January.
I decided to start therapy again in January 2021 because I needed it — a breakup, the virus, I was a hot mess. My doctor and I both thought I was losing my mind. I was going through a hard time. I had hundreds of dollars in therapy bills to pay off from last year. Now I’m trying to pay as I go. I paid $100 when I got the stimulus.
This month was less stressful because I had Instacart hours. I had an extra $50 or $150 a week, which was helpful. Plus I got the stimulus check. I would normally freak out about paying for Taryn’s birthday and his baseball gear, but I had a little cushion. Taryn wants to help out. He just started babysitting Colin, a younger kid who lives in the building across the way. His mom is an E.M.T. and works late nights. She pays Taryn to help with math homework and play ball with him on Sundays and Tuesdays.
I have a fatherless child. My girlfriends go out every other weekend. But parenting Taryn is only on me, and it’s always been only on me. Taryn is behind on his orthodontics because I forgot about an appointment. I forgot. It’s embarrassing. They’re super kind, but I friggin’ forget. It’s hard to keep track. I have so many calendars, and I try to keep track of everything. I just don’t know when to fit things in. I work during the week and weekends and at night. I seem to make things work; we seem to make things work. Taryn reminds me sometimes of bills I have to pay. But I’ll take all the anxiety and hurt and emotions and make it work.
Taryn came down with symptoms a week after I did. I begged to continue to work. I was so sick I couldn’t see my family during Christmas. My doctor had to take me out of work in the first week of January.
I decided to start therapy again in January 2021 because I needed it — a breakup, the virus, I was a hot mess. My doctor and I both thought I was losing my mind. I was going through a hard time. I had hundreds of dollars in therapy bills to pay off from last year. Now I’m trying to pay as I go. I paid $100 when I got the stimulus.
This month was less stressful because I had Instacart hours. I had an extra $50 or $150 a week, which was helpful. Plus I got the stimulus check. I would normally freak out about paying for Taryn’s birthday and his baseball gear, but I had a little cushion. Taryn wants to help out. He just started babysitting Colin, a younger kid who lives in the building across the way. His mom is an E.M.T. and works late nights. She pays Taryn to help with math homework and play ball with him on Sundays and Tuesdays.
I have a fatherless child. My girlfriends go out every other weekend. But parenting Taryn is only on me, and it’s always been only on me. Taryn is behind on his orthodontics because I forgot about an appointment. I forgot. It’s embarrassing. They’re super kind, but I friggin’ forget. It’s hard to keep track. I have so many calendars, and I try to keep track of everything. I just don’t know when to fit things in. I work during the week and weekends and at night. I seem to make things work; we seem to make things work. Taryn reminds me sometimes of bills I have to pay. But I’ll take all the anxiety and hurt and emotions and make it work.
The details:
Tarah: Retinol cream makes my skin feel soft, serum holds in moisture for the evening. They make me feel better about myself. It’s comforting and soothing to have a ritual.
Tarah: In October 2019, I bundled debt from nine creditors — it was about $27,000 — through a private company, National Debt Relief. When creditors got pushy — one credit union started Facebook messaging me, and then they decided to take it to court — I told them to call the lawyers from National Debt Relief, and they handle it. I just got handed papers from another creditor the other day. I started crying.
Tarah: I invested in a cryptocurrency, I just decided to do it one time only. My friend told me to do it and to just put that money in and don’t even look at it again.
Tarah: I was insecure about my teeth for so long, until I got adult braces. Your face is what people see, first thing. I don’t want him to have to deal with that. So, I borrowed from my retirement and put $500 down. Every five weeks, they have to be tightened or adjusted. Then other things pop up. He’s got dermatology needs now that are pretty intense.
Tarah: Taryn needs a helmet for baseball, which all starts next week, and I’m freaking out. It’s $119 for a new mitt. He’s not getting a new mitt. I have to reach out to people and ask, “Do you have an older mitt?” I’ll buy it, and I’m trying to sell his old bat right now. Wherever we can save, I try, but sometimes it’s embarrassing. It might be to him.
Tarah: I never know how much my heating bill is — I’m always behind. I try to dry my stuff at night, to keep the bill cheaper, and I hang up clothes.
The Coleman & Stewart-Isaacs Family spent $9,765
Rent
$1,240
Utilities
$227
Investments/Savings
$3067
Cellphone
$233
Amazon Kids
$5
Life Insurance
$37
Car Insurance
$88
Car Repairs/Gas
$214
Groceries
$1,124
Restaurants
$425
Clothing
$220
Gifts
$539
Church Offering
$300
Vacation
$810
Home-Appraisal Fee
$450
Tax Prep
$380
Allowance/Babysitting
$296
Tips
$110
Shemekka and Michael own a consulting firm in Raleigh, N.C., where they live with their six children. Following a layoff and a difficult childbirth last year, they just bought a house and took their first real vacation since the pandemic began.
Michael: We met in our neighborhood six years ago. We found shared passions in the work we were doing in the community. Our kids ended up going to the same summer camp. Read More
I was furloughed in February of last year from working as a contractor for I.B.M. I was there for a temporary job for three months and ended up working for a little over three years. They ended up closing out the department and outsourcing it. I filed for unemployment, and I got denied, so I had to appeal it. I was able to articulate the need. To be vindicated and get the payout — I felt it was very fair. With our consulting firm, I was supporting Shemekka leading us, and after my furlough, I felt the need to come on full time.
We don’t fight. We were both divorcees coming together. Fighting and leaving is not an option. We’re friends. We truly like each other. And so that makes the love part easier. We both know we do the best for our children and our family.
Shemekka: Our 3-year-old, Chi, has seasonal allergies that lead to asthma attacks. He was too young when it first flared up to be diagnosed as asthma. We have to use care and use breathing machines in transition of seasons, because he’s triggered by pollen, dust and season changes. Last year, I gave birth at the age of 40. We had to get my mom to come from out of town and stay with the other kids, because we really got locked down in the hospital to get through pregnancy and recovery, and we had to stay some extra days because our son was born jaundiced.
We were trying to buy a house in the pandemic. We were competing and putting in bids that would get shot down. But the process went just like that as soon as we got out of the city. We bought a house in a nearby county outside of Raleigh. It had a lot to do with the housing market and our ability to get the space we need and the amount of house we could afford. We are not making any big-ticket purchases until after the close. There were some outlier expenses that we wouldn’t do monthly, as far as paying for the appraiser and vehicle repair. Things like that aren’t regular.
We are monitoring the grades of four kids and four different schools — four different school styles, and all in the same county but different calendars. That’s enough, I think, to pull your hair out. We try to get up five days a week to meditate and ground ourselves.
I was furloughed in February of last year from working as a contractor for I.B.M. I was there for a temporary job for three months and ended up working for a little over three years. They ended up closing out the department and outsourcing it. I filed for unemployment, and I got denied, so I had to appeal it. I was able to articulate the need. To be vindicated and get the payout — I felt it was very fair. With our consulting firm, I was supporting Shemekka leading us, and after my furlough, I felt the need to come on full time.
We don’t fight. We were both divorcees coming together. Fighting and leaving is not an option. We’re friends. We truly like each other. And so that makes the love part easier. We both know we do the best for our children and our family.
Shemekka: Our 3-year-old, Chi, has seasonal allergies that lead to asthma attacks. He was too young when it first flared up to be diagnosed as asthma. We have to use care and use breathing machines in transition of seasons, because he’s triggered by pollen, dust and season changes. Last year, I gave birth at the age of 40. We had to get my mom to come from out of town and stay with the other kids, because we really got locked down in the hospital to get through pregnancy and recovery, and we had to stay some extra days because our son was born jaundiced.
We were trying to buy a house in the pandemic. We were competing and putting in bids that would get shot down. But the process went just like that as soon as we got out of the city. We bought a house in a nearby county outside of Raleigh. It had a lot to do with the housing market and our ability to get the space we need and the amount of house we could afford. We are not making any big-ticket purchases until after the close. There were some outlier expenses that we wouldn’t do monthly, as far as paying for the appraiser and vehicle repair. Things like that aren’t regular.
We are monitoring the grades of four kids and four different schools — four different school styles, and all in the same county but different calendars. That’s enough, I think, to pull your hair out. We try to get up five days a week to meditate and ground ourselves.
The details:
Shemekka: We have an Amazon Kids subscription for Chi. He’s been doing word searches. He only gets stuck on the diagonal words.
Michael: I’ll take leftovers and spruce them up. If I have spinach, onions and chicken sausage, I’ll make that with a bed of rice. I will take the balance of that the next day and make a different pot of rice — stir it up together and make a thing I call pot rice, a spin on something you might have heard Africans call jollof rice. I’ll throw on a little Sinatra, and you’ll see me cook a feast effortlessly.
Michael: I had the car serviced ($125). They touched up my A.C. Automax is a Black-owned business. I always try to support them as much as I can.
Michael: Our Myrtle Beach trip was a nice time to recharge and enjoy the family. The weather was cold in the first few days, but we were then able to enjoy some nice sunshine and great beach views. My stepson was practicing football techniques on the beach. My daughter, who won a pageant, was taking some photos, just celebrating it and getting the view of the scenery. (Note: $810 covered a suite and a museum visit.)
Shemekka: Friday night we did pizza and doughnuts ($108). It becomes breakfast or lunch and dinner the next day.
Michael: My mom needed a computer ($500). Her laptop is old — probably over 10 years old — and giving her a lot of problems, so she just needed something. She’s saying she’s going to put all her memoirs on it. It’s just encouraging her to write and type and share her stories. My family are immigrants, from Sierra Leone. She came to America at the age of 17.
The Chavez & Padilla Family spent $4,815
Mortgage
$1,139
Utilities
$585
Car/Insurance
$1,163
Internet
$45
Cellphone/Tablet
$435
Netflix
$19
Health Insurance
$298
Car Maintenance/Gas
$134
Groceries
$679
Restaurants
$102
Therapeutic Massage
$60
Clothing
$50
Dog Food
$45
Chicken Feed
$61
Claudia, a jewelry artisan, lives with her son Gary (and his children, two weeks of every month) in Santa Fe, N.M. When the pandemic kept Claudia from selling her jewelry in the city’s main plaza, she had to rely on a government loan and a credit card to get by.
Claudia: It’s hard to make a living doing bead art, but I’m just very grateful and fortunate that I can do this. I’ve not received a steady paycheck in over 10 years, and I raised my two boys on my own, so I know how to budget. Since Covid, this is an average month for us. And I’m wondering how we’ve managed to get by. I use my credit card a lot. I put the propane on there and the gas for the car. I will have to pay it down — hopefully. Read More
My business runs during tourist season at the plaza. Getting ready for 2020, I thought, Wow, this is really going to be a great year. I was featured in The Albuquerque Journal for an art show coming up in March. Then, two days before the art show, it gets canceled. So I go to the plaza as many days as I possibly can in early March. I think I worked eight days. And then that was it. Everything came to a standstill.
I’d be very stressed out if I hadn’t received a small-business loan. I was able to pay off some of the bills for the supplies, and I’m just holding on tight to the rest of it, because I don’t know what the future entails. I don’t know what tourism or other people’s spending will look like. Our program on the plaza is run by the City of Santa Fe. The world walks through Santa Fe Plaza, and for me, it’s a great feeling, knowing that my jewelry is all over the planet. I’m vaccinated and eager to get back to work.
Gary: My main reason for moving in was the financial aspect. She needed the help. And I work all the time, so I’m never really home anyway, especially when I don’t have my kids. I stay at the farm. When the kids had to come home and do satellite learning, I was really too busy with my job to watch over them. I tried, and it just wasn’t possible. My mother and I have been able to help one another. It was shocking to see her taking her business to a stable, sustainable point and then with Covid and a lack of understanding of online sales, see her completely overwhelmed.
My business runs during tourist season at the plaza. Getting ready for 2020, I thought, Wow, this is really going to be a great year. I was featured in The Albuquerque Journal for an art show coming up in March. Then, two days before the art show, it gets canceled. So I go to the plaza as many days as I possibly can in early March. I think I worked eight days. And then that was it. Everything came to a standstill.
I’d be very stressed out if I hadn’t received a small-business loan. I was able to pay off some of the bills for the supplies, and I’m just holding on tight to the rest of it, because I don’t know what the future entails. I don’t know what tourism or other people’s spending will look like. Our program on the plaza is run by the City of Santa Fe. The world walks through Santa Fe Plaza, and for me, it’s a great feeling, knowing that my jewelry is all over the planet. I’m vaccinated and eager to get back to work.
Gary: My main reason for moving in was the financial aspect. She needed the help. And I work all the time, so I’m never really home anyway, especially when I don’t have my kids. I stay at the farm. When the kids had to come home and do satellite learning, I was really too busy with my job to watch over them. I tried, and it just wasn’t possible. My mother and I have been able to help one another. It was shocking to see her taking her business to a stable, sustainable point and then with Covid and a lack of understanding of online sales, see her completely overwhelmed.
The details:
Claudia: I’ve been in eight car accidents, and I have chronic pain. I really didn’t go during Covid. I’ve gone probably twice this year.
Claudia: I do meal planning for the week. I’ll make a run to Costco and buy bulk chicken breasts and hamburger meat. I’ll make a batch of green-chile stew or we’ll have beans and chile. The kids don’t like leftovers much but one night of the week is leftover night and we just have kind of a smorgasbord. We also have chickens now, so we don’t need to buy eggs.
Claudia: We use propane in winter ($329). It gets cold out here, and you have to constantly fill it. That’s painful.
Claudia: I’ve only gone out to a restaurant twice in the last year. A lot of times the kids are like, “Nani, we want to eat at home tonight.” It’s nice. I think it’s healthier. But we have a pizza place, the Beer Creek Brewing Company, that we like to support, because they’re local. We get pizza from there at least once or twice a month.
Claudia: We started off with six chickens but only have four now. We don’t know how the last one died. Her name was Blanca. She was my favorite. I really spoil my babies. I make them a salad every morning. Gary gets mad. I know iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value, but I’ll buy it for them and throw in the shavings from the carrots and some spinach, too.
Claudia: We’re lucky because next door is federal land. I can see the cows and antelopes. No one’s ever going to build there.
The Diegel and McKiernan Family spent $5,078
Student Loan
$136
Subscriptions
$58
Health Insurance
$1,551
Home Insurance
$88
Car Insurance
$111
Car Maintenance/Gas
$317
Groceries
$973
Restaurants
$62
Clothing
$214
Gifts
$468
Pet Care
$83
Horse-Boarding Fees
$450
Riding Lessons
$360
Guitar Lessons
$107
Chloe and Alex live in a ranch house on their farm outside Martell, Neb., with three daughters: Nina, 11, and Roisin and Fiona, 8. While waiting for business to return to normal, they’ve barely had in-person contact with anyone. As a consolation, the girls get to take riding lessons.
Chloe: Our family owns and runs Robinette Farms, a small produce operation. We started the farm by growing vegetables and seasonal fruits organically, then added grass- and pasture-based livestock, as well as a team of Belgian draft horses to help us minimize our use of fossil fuels. One morning in 2014, Alex was making a delivery to a local co-op, and his vehicle was hit by a distracted driver. Alex is also a volunteer E.M.T., so it was his friends who lifted him from the wreckage. He had a spinal-cord injury, and the doctors didn’t know if he’d ever regain use of his legs. Read More
We sold the horses and all the livestock and refocused the farm on produce, education and community-building. In 2019, we started to host farm dinners to bring our community together around local food and music. Alex had recovered enough that we decided to bring cattle back into our operation. Then Covid hit. Our restaurant sales went up in smoke, and we had to halt the dinners. But we had more calls and emails from people who didn’t want to go grocery shopping or were worried about local stores running out. So we told everybody: If you want home delivery, we’ll pop it over to you. But for almost a year, our only social contact was those weekly drop-offs and with farm staff. And we home-schooled our three daughters, so they could continue to see my parents who live on the farm.
We don’t shop much or spend a lot of money. Our home is also our workplace and owned by the farm business. As everything starts to reopen and return to something close to normal — kids back to school, adults vaccinated — I hope our new customers will stick with us and that we can all gather soon at the farm. Eating is such an intimate thing, sitting down with someone, right next to them, sharing the same food, grown in the same ground. That’s what I look forward to. We have customers who believe different things and voted for different candidates, but they all support local farmers and the local economy. They find value in that and want to see it succeed. I hope we can get back to that.
We sold the horses and all the livestock and refocused the farm on produce, education and community-building. In 2019, we started to host farm dinners to bring our community together around local food and music. Alex had recovered enough that we decided to bring cattle back into our operation. Then Covid hit. Our restaurant sales went up in smoke, and we had to halt the dinners. But we had more calls and emails from people who didn’t want to go grocery shopping or were worried about local stores running out. So we told everybody: If you want home delivery, we’ll pop it over to you. But for almost a year, our only social contact was those weekly drop-offs and with farm staff. And we home-schooled our three daughters, so they could continue to see my parents who live on the farm.
We don’t shop much or spend a lot of money. Our home is also our workplace and owned by the farm business. As everything starts to reopen and return to something close to normal — kids back to school, adults vaccinated — I hope our new customers will stick with us and that we can all gather soon at the farm. Eating is such an intimate thing, sitting down with someone, right next to them, sharing the same food, grown in the same ground. That’s what I look forward to. We have customers who believe different things and voted for different candidates, but they all support local farmers and the local economy. They find value in that and want to see it succeed. I hope we can get back to that.
The details:
Chloe: When the girls went back to school, we had to find masks they could wear all day ($20). We bought different kinds to find ones that didn’t pinch their ears.
Alex: My brother-in-law turned 50, so we bought him a surprise gift, and I took a 900-mile drive to Minnesota for his party. Because I’m an E.M.T., I was already fully vaccinated, so we decided it would be OK. Chloe got an oil change and some other fluids, so the car cost was far more than what we usually spend on gas. Typically, it’s more like $100 per month.
Chloe: Health insurance is our biggest bill of the month. This plan has a high deductible. But without that insurance, we’d be in trouble.
Chloe: Isolation has been hard, so we signed our girls up for a pony club at a barn nearby. They get a little social interaction and a chance to ride. They’re even happy to clean stalls. In January, we bought them a horse, named Desperado. That was definitely an unexpected expense, but working with horses has been a release for them, to just jump on, bareback, and ride.
Alex: Our spending on food mostly includes groceries and a monthly subscription to HelloFresh ($61), as market research on our national competition for boxed-food sales. Because our farm business is now selling lots of products from other farms — cheese, bread, pickled vegetables, local chocolate — we are spending less on groceries, because there are always extras.
Chloe: The girls spent some money on birthday presents for each other. Nina bought Roisin a little stuffed giraffe and Fiona a peacock ($18). Nina is changing classes at school, so the twins bought her a watch ($12).
Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity, with material added from follow-up interviews. Additional design and development by Jacky Myint.