We're officially poor

[pne]

We're now officially poor :)

At least, we qualify for a "§5-Schein", which lets us get into certain kinds of subsidised or low-cost housing. (We're a bit over the income limit, but apparently you can be above the limit by up to a certain percentage, and we were under that higher limit.)

This means that we might be moving next year, since friends of ours are considering moving out of their place (depends on whether he find a job), and we could save around €175 (US$ 230/UK£ 120/CA$ 260/AU$ 290/MT£ 75) a month by moving there, which is significant. It even convinced me, who had asked Stella not to mention moving house for the next several years after just having done so this past March.

Comments

[arthur-sc-king.livejournal.com]

Being officially poor can, indeed, be A Good Thing.

I was un-/under-employed for much of 2002, all of 2003, and most of 2004. So 2005 was the first year since 2001 that I had a full year's worth of income over the calendar year.

The result? We lived in a co-operative townhouse complex paying maybe $300/mo., instead of the market rent of $1005. We got a "leisure access pass" from the city — giving us free entry to the swimming pools and skating rinks, and a 75% discount on swimming lessons — for the nominal fee of $10/yr. As well, the federal Child Tax Benefit is based on income and number of children, so we were getting about $1200/mo.

In 2005, though, I finally made a decent salary for the calendar year. So our rent went up to market (helping precipitate our buying a house ... the mortgage is $1700/mo., but we're getting about $1300/mo. income from two suites, so it's a good deal), our leisure access passes run out soon and we'll have to pay full price for swimming lessons etc., and our Child Tax Benefit was slashed by over $600/mo. (which I'm making up by getting back into hockey refereeing). Sigh. The governments giveth, and the governments taketh away. Can't really complain, though.

Good luck on your rental savings.

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