It can easily go without saying that single parents are in a particularly difficult form of financial situation. They have to take complete care of the children all by themselves, so they are always limited on budget. The statistics is quite alarming, which have already stated that children of single mothers are 4 times more likely to live in poor condition or poverty when compared to children of married coupled. Well, this is not at all to say that all children of single parents will grow in poverty. If the person taking care of the child holds a good post and earns lucrative money, then the child will grow up in a financially stable condition, no doubt. But, as a group, the challenges are noted to be quite significant.
Some of the unique challenges:
You might be wondering about the challenges that single parents might face while running a family and taking care of a child at the same time. The most obvious form of financial challenge to these singles is to find quite affordable childcare help. Whenever grandparents or other members of the family are not available to take complete care for children while the parents are at work, the costs are subject to skyrocket quite a bit.
Then the parents have to pay babysitters or nanny to take care of the child for long hours, when they are at office for work. That’s not all as mental pressure starts growing at an alarming rate. Staying away from newborn child for long time is enough to cause palpitation. You don’t even know if the nannies are taking proper care of the kid or not. It results in high blood pressure among parents. So, there are so many reasons that single parents have to take loans from multiple sources just to sustain the child’s healthy and safe lifestyle. For that, going through articles and blogs to learn the debt reviews is quite mandatory for those parents before taking a leap forward.
Some proven statistics:
As per the Economic Policy Institution, the current cost of child care is subject to vary from one state to another. It can start to as little as $333 a month to higher count such as $1400 per month as in DC and Massachusetts. However, depending on the percentage of the income, DC with 36%, NYC with 21% and Oregon with 20% will win unwelcomed prize. In around 18 states, the typical cost revolving around childcare for any four year old is more or less equal, if not greater, than the average rent of a household!
Another financial challenge:
Apart from the childcare cost, another financial challenge as faced by the single parents has to be associated with the meals and the time and energy of the single parent. Single parents, in most cases, have less time to prepare proficient and nutritious meals for their children and cannot match their children’s demands that easily. It might easily lead to tendency of eating out or ordering carry out food. Most of the time, the parents have to order for food from nearby restaurants to get delivered to their place at dinnertime. So, these extra payments will definitely hit the budget of the household pretty hard!
Most of the single parents, who are entitled to provide the child support might have already, know that barely half of the entire child support payments are made on a regular basis. This alone task is enough to send some of the die-hard budget lovers to get into conniption fit. Now, there I not valid question that you might have to ask. How can you possibly plan the monthly spending in case the arrival of money associated with child support in unreliable? At the end of it, as single parents are spending less time during day and evening with children, they might have to compensate that by purchasing gifts or toys, or even taking them to expensive vacations. These expenses will hit your budget hard.
Debt reduction service based solutions:
If you are a single parent or know someone who is, then there are some resources and steps which you might want to consider.
- Some of the debt reduction companies will have counselors available throughout day for helping you in putting together budget that will clearly work with your income. In case you are dealing with proficient debt, they might also have fee based programs, which will minimize amount of time designed to pay bills every month.
- Whenever it is associated with childcare, you need to take advantages of multiple resources as possible. The state assistance is subject to vary widely but it is a great help to multiple single parents. During tax time, ensure that you maximize the child tax credit. With the help of the IRS locator tool, you can find some free volunteer income tax assistive programs, located near you. At your working place, you can ask employer about Flex savings plan so ensure if they offer any child care benefit or not. You can further offer child care provider sliding fee scale rates, depending on income. Some of the local nonprofits like YMCA might offer affordable care too.
- You have to plan for your meals every week at one particular time to minimize your likelihood of ordering carry out food at home or just eating outside at restaurants or fast food centers. You can always take help of the menu planner, which is enough to help save you a lot of energy and time as well. You will further save energy in kitchen and some money in your wallet, at the same time.
Some of the online sources have free webinars for you, just to polish or brush up your knowledge and financial skills. Some of the topics included in this list are household budgeting, savings, establishment of the financial vision, spending personalities, spending and shopping strategies and also dealing with money and relationships. You can go through any one of the following or follow all of them for the best response now.
Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.
