But it might be (don't ask me about Victorian British costs!) that it was truly impossible to live on that amount. I am probably the thriftiest person you will ever talk to, but shit does happen. Like I said, I've never gone into debt for a luxury, only for necessities. When the car breaks down/the furnace stops working/the car won't get you to work/the baby gets sick, you have to spend the money whether you have it or not. For now, we have an emergency fund to smooth these things out, but it took a lot of hard years to get that in place ... and it wouldn't take all that much bad luck to wipe it out.