I woke up this morning with a little different topic in mind. A post on the socials got me to thinking just how unbearable our economy has become just to survive with basic things. On the flip side of that, cruising social media you would think for the most part that everyone is doing fine.

One thing I learned running businesses though: if one person is thinking it then there are many more that are thinking the same thing but are just unwilling to say anything. Which, circles me back to social media and the truth of it – we really only get to see the good parts of peoples lives therefore we automatically assume that everyone is out there crushing it.

For good reason too. This is a place to show the fun stuff, the highlight reels and so on, but it’s easy to get caught up it and forget that behind that post or reel there’s a real human struggling with something or everything that we don’t realize. I will use myself as an example moving forward, but that rule above applies. If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to someone else for sure. We ware not unique in that sense!

Part of our move to Colorado was with the understanding that we were going to homeschool. We are super protective of our kids and homeschool was style better option that a subsidized public education. I grew up in public schools, Dallas ISD to be exact, and it has definitely changed, hence not wanting to expose our kids to it in regards to the locations we’ve been living. It’s tough out there for kids today. They are growing up much quicker, exposed to stuff sooner than they should be, and it’s hard to separate that with your own. You effectively don’t get to choose what they are exposed to anymore when they go to school.

We spent a couple years in Weatherford, TX where our boys got their first true experience in schooling at a little local private school. I have to say this too; private school has some of the same challenges to be expected at public so I’m not just knocking the public school piece here. Your kids still get exposed to things you may not want them to, but it’s just in a little different vanity.

Truthfully, it was my oldest who was exposed to these things more. If you have a child in school, whether private or public I am 100% confident you know what I’m talking about, so I will just leave it at that for the sake of moving on. So we really had 2 options: the lesser of two evils (in my eyes) of private school over public, or homeschool.

Now comes the bigger issue with a good private school, which is the cost. This was honestly a big driver in our homeschooling decision, the second being that we really didn’t know where we would end up once leaving TX. Had we stayed in Texas, it’s a pretty good chance they would’ve stayed in the school but we were tossing it around anyhow, so who knows.

But, the cost of this school for our 2 boys was rolling into around $28k for the year on top of all the other money you’d have to dump into it for extra curricular activities, supplies, etc. It took me a minute to get to the point, but that is high cost number one. While I do think it’s true that you “can’t put a price on a good education” there’s a breaking point for sure.

High cost number two (really it’s number one, but it’s being mentioned 2nd, so it’s effectively number 2) is housing. I’m sure I don’t even have to get you started on this expense. In 2023 we decided to expand our living situation and bought a new house out in Weatherford, TX. It was 2800 sq ft on 2 acres. It was a lot more than we could get if we stayed in Grapevine and tried to size up, so we made the choice like many do to head to the outskirts.

At that time it was between Colorado or the quiet countryside, but I don’t think we could’ve pulled off the Colorado move at that time. Timing is real, even if it isn’t perfect, but the slight move west was a good stepping stone to make the big leap we did 2 years later.

Well, at the time we bought it seemed to make sense. We also didn’t have the looming expense of private school on our plate, so I guess the overall cost seemed more palatable. Business was good as well. We were both making decent money in real estate even with the issues that have been around since 2022. The main issue that began to show itself were increasing housing costs like taxes and insurance. When we left, our monthly expense was around $4.300, not including utilities. That’s a hefty monthly burden.

To cap it all off, the last looming expense is healthcare. This is a whole other topic on its own, but the cost for a family is outrageous. I’m a commissioned employee so I have to pay full freight. For those that get an employer match, consider yourself lucky. Companies don’t have to do that and having been on the owner side and seen the cost it takes to operate, it is definitely a nice “perk” to have. Our family monthly cost for health insurance is around $2,000. That doesn’t take into account co-pays and deductibles either.

With all that, let’s do some quick math.

$28,000/yr for private school, $51,000/yr for housing, and $24,000/yr for health. At a bare minimum we need to pull in $103k just to cover those expenses. That is absolutely wild to type out, but it puts into perspective what we are dealing with society wise. Now tack on phones, utilities, groceries, gas, etc. it gets to be almost unbearable.

Today, we have a place we rent for $2,750/mo, we homeschool so there’s a personal cost there that you can’t really put a value to because it’s pretty awesome, and health is still around $2,000 per month. So we still need $57k per year just to satisfy that. Remember when a good paying job was like $75-$90k per year??? Once you take out taxes (worthless) now that barely covers basic costs.

So where does that put the cumulative “us”? By my math it puts us right in the column of fucked. I tell my wife that the only real solution is to make more money. Easier said than done I know, but this is also why you so many people with 2 jobs or a struggling side hustle. We are running ourselves into the ground just to stay afloat, and there’s no real relief in sight.

Meanwhile, homelessness is at an all time high, consumer debt is at an all time high, and default payments are as well. It’s one big house of cards ready to collapse at any moment.

I say all this to try and not point out the obvious, but to bring to light that the reality is most people are struggling regardless of what you may see or think. This isn’t a post to vote for your favorite shitty politician or to get into politics for that matter. It’s to bring awareness to an otherwise thoughtless thing.

What you see on the socials is definitely real life, but it’s the one that people want you to see. Whether that’s to make oneself feel better about their current state of affairs, show off, or just show the good stuff, the reality remains that there’s more hidden behind the camera that you won’t ever be privy to because we have all become so numb to it.

There’s no direction here other than I feel that pain with you. It’s tough out there and some days feels like there’s no relief in sight. You question “what are we gonna do?” And if I have any unsolicited advice, it’s to really look at the situation and see where you can adjust, job wise, cost wise, etc.

As stated above, the only real solution is to make more money. You can’t Dave Ramsey yourself out of every situation until you die. It’s not realistic and it’s all made up. I know the question now is “Ok, so how do we make more money?”, well I’m not quite there yet either and I’m figuring it out just like everyone else.

I do know this though, you have to fail forward in pursuit of whatever that is. If it’s a higher paying job, chase the skills and positions that allow for that. If it’s something you’re passionate about, see where it can take you. You’re not going to excel by sitting around wondering how it’s all going to be solved.

One thing that ultra running has taught me is to be resilient, endure some pain, but also problem solve solutions to get out of situations that may arise. My awareness currently tells me that you simply can’t just wait around for things to get better. You will have to find other avenues to be successful, even if it’s outside the realm of what you’re doing now. I think that’s the scary part because we all like familiarity. When we realize we have to potentially branch out we get paralyzed.

So, to me the only real solution is that you have to save yourself. That is the only option.

-Brandon