You are a single-parent living in Storrs, CT, with two children, ages 2 and 4 (so both children need child care while you are working). The minimum wage in CT currently is $14/hour, and you are working a minimum-wage job with hours from 8-5, M-F (you don't get a paid lunch hour, so you must work 9 hours to get paid for 8, which is not uncommon). Therefore your annual income is $29,232, and your take home pay each month after taxes would be approximately $1,938. Your tasks are as follows:

• Provide out a monthly budget for the following things based on ACTUAL DATA from Storrs, CT or the surrounding areas (i.e., look up averge child care rates in CT, find and describe an actual place to live and list its rent, look up actual general prices of food, to justify your answers):
  • Housing for you and your two children
  • Utilities (electricity, heat/ac, phone, tv)
  • Child care
  • Food
  • Transportation (either bus fare or a car, which would include insurance)
• You would qualify for Medicaid, so you do not need to find and pay for insurance
• Describe what you would do with any leftover income (Go out to eat? Savings for emergency fund or retirement? College savings account? Invest?)
• THEN - reflect on the experience of creating this budget. Was it easy? Difficult? What kinds of decisions did you have to make? How financially stable would you feel with this budget, and what are your prospects for your future (e.g., having a down payment for a house, retirement, savings, a safety net if you lost your job) and your children's futures (activities as they get older, paying for college)?