Monday, March 10, 2008

It's So Hard to Make it on Half a Mill

Poor Michelle Obama. She works so hard. She has that terrific husband, the senator, the one who wants to be president. She has two kids, and those kids are what we used to call "high maintenance." What else would you call it when Mrs. Obama says things like this:

"We spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we're spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements. And summer programs...Do you know what summer camp costs?"

As Don Surber points out, no, I don't. But I did send my oldest daughter to Girl Scout camp a couple of times and we had to sell 350 boxes of cookies to do it. I guess that doesn't hold a candle to the Obamas problems.

Like John Edwards used to say, there are two Americas: the one inhabited by the Edwardses and the Obamas and the one inhabited by the rest of us. I'm not poor by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pretty sure we don't spend $10,000 on piano and dance lessons and sports stuff.
Dance lessons: N/A (we haven't done them yet).

Piano lessons: N/A (we don't own a piano)

Sports: $300 per year, if both kids play fall and spring

That comes to $300 per year for those supplementals. And even if we sent the kids to church camp (which we plan to this year), the total spent on "enrichment" would be less than $2,000 for two kids. Maybe we just don't have the right supplementals.