Keeping your head above water in SF.

As you’ve probably figured out, I love San Francisco a lot. Even though this is one of the top 5 most expensive cities to live in in the world. Becoming a parent wasn’t something I had planned on, but I’m glad I did it. I would assume most people don’t plan on becoming parents especially in this economy, but they do.

There are a lot of things they tell you about when you’re going to become a parent, but unfortunately, there’s a lot more that they don’t. For instance. Wife has the baby takes care of baby until maternity leave is up then goes back to work right? Not exactly. When your wife goes back to work that means that you have to pay someone to take care of the baby unless you have family members to do it for you [we don’t]. So now unless your wife is making more than $20/hour her after taxes paycheck is just handed over to the day care group. Does this sound right?

You can also add to the fact that San Francisco which I’m sure other cities share this has a large number of employers who don’t offer health insurance. I’m lucky in that my employer does offer it, but won’t pay anything into it. I don’t think this is legal, but hell, I’m getting health insurance for us at a less than what it would cost us on our own to get. Unfortunately, at the end of the month my take home pay to keep the three of us fed and healthy is equal to less than my mother’s monthly social security check. Something is not right here. In a city as great as San Francisco the middle class shouldn’t be forced into poverty just because they had a child. The only thing going for us is that we own our house. If we didn’t we’d be on the streets. 

Mayor Newsom is helping out by providing health care services which we would qualify for, but the services offered are a bit questionable as they’re clinics not true health care facilities. Something needs to be done, but at this point I’m not sure what. Richard Branson just started following me on Twitter so maybe he’ll make me his new charity. 🙂