Title: Activity: (CU1 M3) Family Expenses Exercise
Course: SkillsCom HDFS 201 16.0

Family Expenses Exercise: Part 1 & Part 2

Open the Family Expense Exercise (Google Doc). Save it as lastname Family Expense Exercise. Keep this completed activity. You will need it for the end of module assessment.

Part 1

Estimate the monthly expenses for a single mom with a full-time job and two kids aged 2 (still in diapers) and 4. Do not assume the family is receiving any kind of formal or informal assistance (not even free childcare from a friend or family member) or that the mom’s employer provides health insurance coverage. Think of this family as if it were your own. What would you consider to be a reasonably comfortable standard of living you would be willing to provide for yourself and your children before you would consider your family to be living in poverty?

Think through your choices and costs. For example, if you use an in-home child care provider, you will likely spend less money than if you use a child care center. Using in-home child care may also pose some challenges that using a center would not. If your in-home provider is ill, do you have a back-up plan? A center would be responsible for finding substitutes if someone is ill.

Part 2

You have some basic information on how our poverty line was established, what factors are taken into account in adjusting the specific dollar cut-off over time, and what factors are not taken into account in adjusting the specific dollar cut-off over time. For example, geographical location has never been factored into the equation, yet we know the cost of living varies significantly depending on where you live. If we took geographical location into account, the poverty line might differ depending on where a family lives.  Family life has changed since the mid-1960s.