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My cost of living expenses monthly is $2200/month

Posted By: 'nother NYer on 2005-12-02
In Reply to: What is the cost of your living expenses? sm - Poll

I'm self employed, so I'm killed in taxes AND I live in NY...but I wouldn't have it any other way

I LOVE NEW YORK!!!!


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What is the cost of your living expenses? sm

I would really like to know this as mine seem high.  My cost for the bare minimum, not including insurance, medical costs or entertainment, is about $1,800.00 per month.


Is that high to most people?  TIA.


$350 a month for my share of expenses.
z
4 cpl goes further when cost of living is less. nm
 
Cost of living
Could someone live comfortably in the Phillipines on $2000 per month net with adult and 1 teenager?
Considering the high cost of living in.....
Florida, you are giving away your services.  Out in California they're getting 12-14 cents a line, and that was 5 yrs ago. 
More on high cost of living...
That is right about California; in fact, over 15 cents is common, particularly for docs and administrators who are interested in keeping the work local.
with cost of living going up and MT wages

How much do you think you would need to make a good living.  Meaning enough to cover all bills, enough to put some away for a rainy day, and enough to play, like dinners, hobbies, maybe a weekend getaway twice a year.  Be realistic.  I'm thinking for me, since i'm single, 50k a year. 


Second question.  If you hadnt gotten trapped in MT, what profession do you see yourself in maybe even earning way more than you can imagine, doing what you love?  For me, it would be psychotherapist. 


anyone???  ANYONE ???


you have a bargin cost of living!
Wow!!!! What I wouldn't give to have that as an expense!Here's mine - I live in Ventura County, California, and in one of the most expensive towns of Ventura.
House payment - $2,200.00,
insurances, all - $400.00 a month, utilities - $700.00 a month - electricity, cable is out of sight here and gas is almost double now, let's see, food, gas and personals - about $1,000.00 a month - wow!! It hurts to see it let alone pay it! (of course my home is now worth almost a million with the artifical inflate prices of real estate here).
no brainer, take it unless your cost of living....
in New York prohibits you from being able to live in a reasonable fashion on that. did you say UNION!!! Your pay will increase way more than the rest of us will ever see!
I get $23.50/hr. in N. Calif, which is still low for cost of living. nm
/
Almost 3 for me - no cost of living raises. - NM

Because the cost of living is higher here. Still, that
Which is exactly what it is - DISCRIMINATION based on where an applicant lives.
Not to mention that cost of living has gone up
I'm bringing home $2000/month and it's sending me right into foreclosure. My mortgage payment is a 'mere' $750/month, but add to that a car payment ($360), insurance ($200), electric ($150), water ($50), internet ($80), satellite TV ($50), for a total of about $1630, leaving me $370. After I pay that, I am supposed to give my daughter $300/month toward college expenses- room, food, books, etc. That means I get $70/month to feed and clothe myself. Five years ago, I was able to provide my son $1300/month for school and I paid $1500/month rent then...W2s from then show I was making $60,000 year. But in this brave new multinational world with the 'be glad you've got a job' mentality, we're tearing out each others' throats for the privilege of earning peanuts (which at least provide me protein).

So be glad I've got a job? Yeah, chicken ramen noodles are better than just plain noodles. That doesn't make them good.
Cost of living inquiry $1800/mo. (sm)

That's only electric, heat, cable, and mortgage.


Add in insurances, life, health, car etc. and you're talking  another $1200 more. Hubby drives a 12 year old PU truck and I drive a 13 year old car. BUT, 4 more years for our mortage...yippee....but it should have been paid off in 1991. Remortgaged so we could build a larger place. Still not finished with the house and it's been 11 years. No time, no money left over to finish. That's okay. I can deal with that.


If you live somewhere with a high cost of living, like
MTSOs are too cheap to give us a wage we can live on. CA also has more laws protecting the worker.
I go do Curves, cost $29/month sm
I also agree with Sherry.  You definitely need to walk along with going to Curves.  I think walking helps sheds the pounds and Curves helps tone.  Have lost 15 pounds since May.  Good luck!  Oh and the BUDDY system works very well too. 
They'll figure it out as the cost of living in India rises
and their pay-per-line doesn't.
Mydocsonline is much cheaper, about $8 a month vs. the $28 USAtasp would cost me - nm
x
This has not always been the case, hence it hurts more. Merit raise/cost of living raise
dd
cost of living raises? any raises?

2200 lines in 3-4 hours?
IMPOSSIBLE! NO WAY! unless you are counting lines with 5 characters as a line?
Yes, every other week, 78 dollars, 2200 sq ft. SM
To me it's worth every penny!
2200 lines x 0.12cpl
Yep, normal Tuesday morning.
Average 1950-2200 a day, one hospital account, 90% op reports. nm
nm
I pay $35/month through Vonage for unlimited LD. Local phone co. charges $50/month. NM
x
Monthly fee
Is there a monthly fee when you use it through your phone?  I can use my phone but I have to set up internet service and its $60 a month.  I work at the inlaws cottage but they have high speed internet.
monthly earnings
I'm new to this board, just found it today, and have been *so* depressed with what I've been reading in regards to line counts and rates you all are being paid. I've been an IC for 15 plus years, transcribing for about 23 years now. I charge by gross lines, 12 cents a line, max 70 characters possible on a line. I make okay money, averaging between $3000 and $4000 a month, with three good dictators, and I live on the West Coast. I could easily make more if I turned off the TV when transcribing and didn't take time off to be at the kids' sporting events. Before I got married, I easily made $55-60K a year, before expenses, but taxes killed me  so I backed off a bit. (This was before the elaborate Expander programs.) Ladies, the money is out there. You just have to find the right accounts!!
Monthly fees
May I ask which carrier this is through?  I have ATT and to use my laptop I can hook it up through my phone with a USB cable but in order to get on the internet I would have to buy the data package for $59.99 a month. Thanks, we do a lot of traveling in the summer.
I make 7.5 CPL and earn over $4K monthly
Maybe to you that's not a decent wage, or maybe you're not as fast. I don't know. But this IS production-based work. So type more and earn more. I think I clear about 14,000 lines in a 40-hour work week and I bring TAKE HOME about $4K a month. To ME that's good money. Maybe I'm stupid. I know people that earn much more (are much faster than I) at 7.5 CPL. Call me dumb, but I think that's good take home.
Jennifer, recognized your name from MT Monthly
I enjoyed the publication and have referred several MTs your way for ROS through the years. Hope all is well with you.
Try the FDA website. Updated monthly.
FDA.gov
submit invoice monthly, get ck
x
I used to call it Monthly Martha or
Nasty Nancy. Anyway, I can't help you on that. I had a hysterectomy and plenty of those awful hot flashes. I would just be sitting there and whoosh, I felt like I was in a sauna and had to go outside no matter where I was. I would just seem to get severely claustrophobic and have to leave for 10 minutes, then I was fine. It does get better.
Monthly Prescribing Reference SM
http://www.prescribingreference.com/
Monthly audits = QA score. sm
Usually companies audit your work monthly. They will pull 5 or 10 reports you have transcribed and do a random QA check on them. If you have critical errors, they will deduct whole points, noncritical errors usually a half point.

If you total QA score is below 98% three or more times in a row, some companies will do what they can to help you, put you back on QA review for a while so every report will go to QA. Other companies may just fire you or let you go.

Is this the answer your were looking for?

I have no expenses except to buy my
computer, desk and chair, which after time becomes a wash and are nominal expenses. All my references are online paid for by the company (all Stedman electronic word books, my free personal subscription to Monthly Prescribing Reference, etc.)
Maybe you can cut your expenses? sm
If you are using telephones for dictation, maybe switch to handheld units? Or use a TASP to save money on calls? Use the Internet more to cut down on expenses. Hope this helps. If you can, keep your clients. They are hard to come by nowadays.
Does anyone have the website for Monthly Prescribing Reference? Thanks. nm
xx
This is cool...ShortHand offers monthly SM

subscriptions.  I have a free trial right now and was worried I wouldn't have the whole $99 after my trial, but I can buy a subscription and save for another month!  That's so cool!  I didn't know they did that.  Didn't know if others knew, so thought I'd share. :)


Chickadee


Were you thinking of MT Monthly.....see link inside
xx
The Monthly Emesis is clever! :) no message
:0
I do all my standard maintenance religiously at least monthly. sm
Thinks like Diskclean and Defrag.  Keeping all those temporary Intervet files off your computer makes a huge difference in performance.  I have McAfee because it comes with my Comcast service.  Used to have Norton -- hated it because it made my computer do all sorts of weird things, and then had a he!! of a time trying to uninstall it.  I have an MQ computer that I have had for over 3 years and a couple of months ago it started running really slow, no matter what I did to it.  So I called tech,support thinking maybe I needed a new one, and they suggested a free antispyware called Superantispyware, so I downloaded it and run it regularly and it has made a marked improvement.
Okay - to make it simple, what's your monthly takehome pay?
Mine is $1600/month. Assuming I worked 5 days a week (which I dont... I work 6 to 6-1/2), and 8 hours a day (I dont - I work 10-12), it would be $10 an hour. Where in this country is that a good wage? Working my average week, and my average hours per day, this further drops to about $6/hour. (Again, we're talking take-home, not gross.) I don't base anything on gross pay because I never see a large chunk of it. Part goes for Social Security which I'm sure I'll never receive. Part goes for healthcare, which is often denied and I end up paying out of pocket anyway. Part goes for state & federal taxes. My state is already issuing IOUs, not refunds, and last year they gypped me out of what should've been a $300 refund. The feds? Forget it. Let's not even go there.

So unless you live in some wonderful Utopian town where gas is 20 cents/gal., Cheerios are 85 cents/box, and rent is about $150/month, then spare me the lecture about how far a crappy 8 cpl will go, or even a crappy 9 or 10 cpl.

Oh, and by the way? I aint no 'newbie'. Try 34 years.
Just making sure--$60/mo + monthly phone bill? sm

Talk about perfect timing!  I told my bro last night about connecting via his cell phone.  (Found that info here by searching the archives.)  Anyway, he also uses AT&T.  So that is $60 plus his regular phone bill, correct?  TIA!


Remember that's $40 before all expenses. nm
x
Medical expenses

January, 2000 - DH tore rotator cuff, needed MRI/arthrogram, followed by rotator cuff repair.


January, 2001 - I had foot surgery in podiatrist's office. 


January, 2002 - DH had cervical MRI/myelogram, followed by anterior cervical diskectomy with fusion, two levels.


January,  2003 - DH had knee MRI, followed by arthroscopy.


January, 2004 - I had LASIK surgery. 


OMYGOSH, it's almost January again! 


Why not just add it to your business expenses? nm
x
You can still deduct your MT expenses if your and IC - sm
regardless of taking the standard deduction. Your write offs for MT are on the Schedule C (not B). My husband and I take the standard deduction as we don't have enough on our Sch. B; then I write off all my IC deductions and report my income on the Sch. C.; putting the bottom line (income minus IC write-offs) on the 1040 line 12. So I am not quite clear on what you are talking about but I know how I do it is how most of us (if not all) do our deductions. You may want to do an amended return.
Tax Deductible Expenses
We ran a business for years from our home.  As far as I know, you can take the base rate of your telephone bill as an expense (which includes FCC taxes) and any long distance calls related directly to the business.  As for Home Owners Insurance, you can take 7% of the insurance because you use 7% of your home for your business.  Also, anything related to the business such as equipment, paper, tapes or special software programs can be taken as well.  If you have to travel to deliver the finished reports, I believe the rate is 28 cents a mile.  If you travel, you can also deduct any maintenance on your vehicle.   Hope this helps. 
Taxes, Expenses
I would have internet anyway; now I get to write it off. I would have long distance anyway; now I get to write it off. Everyone pays taxes and insurance, it is just a matter of who is doing the bookkeeping. Walmart STARTS at $8/hour and then when they pay all that same stuff they are really making $5- $6. You can write off ALL your health insurance, a portion of your utilities and the area you work in, computer, software, and other supplies.....save on gas (this is HUGE right now), work clothes, make up, day care, and and and. There's always more than one way to view something.
Also, are these figures before tax/expenses or after? sm
Some ICs might be quoting their pay before taxes and expense deductions, which isn't their ACTUAL pay for the year. If someone has their own accounts and says they bring in $50K per year, that's possible, but probably not the amount they receive free and clear.

I find it hard to believe anyone makes that much free and clear unless they are working 12 hours a day, every day, and pulling in a significantly high per-line rate. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I base this opinion on the fact that I make a very good line rate, type over 100 wpm for easy accounts I've had for years, and still don't bring in that kind of money free and clear. I come close with my gross income, but after taxes and expenses, it's only about 65% of that! And I work 9-10 hours a day with only one week of vacation per year.

Come to think of it, that's pretty sad when I see it on paper. LOL I'm going to go look for a new line of work now.