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Minimum amount of $$ needed to run the Maxwell household.


albanuadh_1

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There was an article on Scamaritan in the Topeka paper yesterday.

cjonline.com/news/2014-08-29/christian-health-care-sharing-group-offers-alternative-aca

I found it interesting only because of the Maxwells and their use of it. Even then, the interest was limited. I was checking the eye-rolling pretty hard after reading the comments about why people use the program. Such a judgmental lot, these so-called Christians. Don't sin and you'll be just fine. :roll:

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Their products sell like mad at their conferences, well at least at the one I attended. I'm talking lineups of women with arms so full that books are falling to the ground.

That was my experience too.

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I guess that's what happens when you have uneducated people shilling stuff to even more uneducated people.

Maybe if their internet wasn't so self-regulated, a few sites about household management would trickle through the censor - though I guess if every other paragraph doesn't include a bible verse, it's not good and Godly enough for them.

The thing is, I am not sure that the conference I attended had a bunch of non educated people in it. They sell this weird idea of perfection and protection. And for those who don't know them as well as we do it seems good.

They sell to religious, some just moderately religious who feel overwhelmed and like they might be failing.

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Ay yi yi - $7,000 taxes on the Maxwell Motherhouse? That seems very high for NE Kansas. Does the information give a square footage on the dwelling? Or on the lot(s) it occupies?

TIA. And remember, they don't just have no cable, but NO TV. Save on flat screens & cable accoutrements -- and spend on cameras!!!

4,505 sqft house 1 acre lot according to Zillow. Leavenworth county parcel search confirms 1 acre lot but doesn't have the square footage of the house.

Yeah 7k a year?? That's almost 600/month. That cant be right?

It's correct. It comes from the county website.

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Thanks, Dru! I looked at a house in a storybook small town near St. Louis (Webster Groves, Mo) a few years ago and was knocked on my keeps yet by the tax tag of $6,250 for a 2k-sf dwelling on a 3/4-acre lot.

I figured it to merit a text price like $7000, the Maxwell house had to be pretty big – edit acre is significant in any Incorporated city.

Which prompts me to wonder what the Maxwell house actually looks like. From the bits we have been shown – the living room with the letters on the wall and the dining room & kitchen - it doesn't seem all that grand. However, there was a photo of GG walking into the entrance one time, and the foyer appeared to be one of those two-story tall dealio's, and fairly big. Now I'm really curious!

ETA: okay, thinking about it – the living room is probably 20 x 20 as seems to be the kitchen breakfast room. Those two rooms total then about 800 ft.². That leaves roughly 3200 ft.² for three bedrooms. Now, it all becomes clear! Terrified and Steveus, The three boys, and the three girls each have thousand square-foot bedrooms! Why would anybody want to leave that? (yes, I'm trying to be funny.)

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It's actually 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, so I guess they have a guest suite? I can't imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to spend the night over there though. Maybe it's in anticipation of Gigi having to move in at some point. My guess is that the bedrooms are fairly big as they each have several beds. I imagine the main living areas are pretty big a well. So yeah, 4,505 sqft seems about right.

A couple of other interesting tidbits I ran across on the county parcel search website.:

- Gigi's house is held in a trust rather than in her name.

- Nathan added Melanie as an owner of their house but Chris hasn't added Anna.

- Nathan and Melanie added a room onto their house in 2012. Do they perhaps not plan to shove all of their kids into two bedrooms?

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Wasn't the extra bedroom at Nathan and Melanie's house the room they built to be 1 tonne Ramp HQ or was it something else?

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I have these kinds of talks with my accountant every year. He always tells me that everything I buy for work, even pairs of jeans, can get me a tax break. Even textbooks for school. So you can write off a lot of business expenses if you say it is for work.

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Help me remember- is the chore pack processing plant in a separate outbuilding or is it in a finished basement? I know it was discussed in a blog post years ago while they were building current house, after Nathan bought the old one. If it is in the house (which I suspect) that probably takes about 1500 give or take sqft of the house. That was one reason they built a new house.

You know, I hate to say it, but in some superficial ways Steve and Teri are much better parents than a lot of these fundies. They could afford the children they have (see ourlittlehaven.blogspot.com). They materially equipped them quite well for whatever "careers" they have - Nathan, Jesse & Joseph with IT, paying for publishing Sarah's writing with relatively professional printing, Mary's nice art supplies, marketing and research for John's new venture, etc. - provided them with nice, clean homes, high quality material possessions, cameras, good, not used shoes & clothes (even their frumper period was lived in bright, new fabrics, not second hand thrifting), quality kitchen equipment, and at least something resembling a vacation at least once a year in a good rental house with plenty of extras. Teri and Steve are both very well-educated, with Steve possessing post-grad education in sciences with a strong math background, so at least the fundamentals of SOTDRT are solid - the lack of normal human interaction and higher education breeds the stilted language and awkwardness, not necessarily Teri's teaching skills. You know Steve and Teri purchased new, high-quality for fundies homeschool supplies. The Maxwell children did not grow up burdened with both soul-crushing fundamentalism and dire poverty (again, see ourlittlehaven.blogspot.com). There is something to be said for that, especially since the rest is so dire.

Could you imagine being a POOR Maxwell? That life without the typical trappings of the middle class they do enjoy? If anything, the inability for proper fundie suitors to provide the girls with the middle class existence to which they are accustomed could easily be a reason for the lack of courtship.

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I'm not an attorney but I know couples who had everything they owned put into a "living trust" so that upon the death of one or both, there would be no need for probate, and the property would pass along to the beneficiaries. Possibly Grandpa (RiP) and Gigi did that. It made a lot of sense.

Let's see... the L-rd called Stevovah home to work in 1997, was it? So he was probably pulling down at least $100,000 as a degreed, experienced engineer at that time. Over and above any lump-sum settlement he got from the employer he held hostage for a year to his petulance about going to lunch with a woman who was his business associate, and figuring that he worked since exiting the military, he's probably bringing in a good $4,000/month in Social Security retirement benefits alone. Srsly.

Then you have any military pensions, which he may or may not have. I notice they've never written about shopping in the PX (post exchange) at Fort Leavenworth, which can save a LOT of money on grocery bills, especially for a family of 8 adults. This tells me he may not have many military bennies.

Again, srsly, the prices at the exchange groceries are SO much lower than Sam's Club. It makes me wonder. Wasn't he an officer? Wasn't he degreed at the time? Hm.

4,500 sq.ft. I've been in a 2,000-sf house before and it was amazing to just walk from room to room and consider all the S-P-A-C-E therein! Even with 8 tallish adults, that's a lot of house.

I do believe we've found one of the ways the inscrutable two are able to keep 6 adult children at home - it's got to be majorly comfortable and spacious (when they're not polishing kitchen cabinets nor attending twice-daily Bible study).

IOW, pretty much what nellibelle said, above!

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It doesn't seem Steve was in the military for 20 years or had a service connected disability so he wouldn't be getting any military benefits.

Social Security says in 2014 the current maximum is $2642 retiring at full retirement age. If Steve reports any self-employment income it could reduce any social security he'd be getting. Of course Terrified could get a check based on Steve's social security also.

He may not have decided to begin receiving benefits yet to avoid any reduction but if their business doesn't pick up he may need to do that. I'm wondering where they're hiding all that square footage in the house. They must have some large areas that are never shown in photos.

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And yet with all that space in their home, Sarah is Not Allowed to have her own room and personal writing area. She has to go out to the bus. It's bs.

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That is the lamest irrigation site I've ever seen.. Seriously. And their explanation of what they do and why sounds like they are just telling you info they just learned and since it is new to them, it must be new to you as well.

I see nothing that tells me they have any idea what they are doing. Unless they are selling equipment, I'm not sure who would hire them, since 1) most farmers who irrigate can do much if not all of this themselves and 2) most irrigation equipment companies who sell this would have someone in house to do this. A quick google of irrigation software brings up dozens of hits.

In olden days (the 70s) I helped my dad manually survey fields for using gated pipe to flood furrows for irrigation. I also helped lay movable irrigation pipe and helped set up a traveling spray gun system for our corn fields. This was big deal in 72, but already the farmers themselves were figuring out the grade, psi, gallons used, etc. Now that more are using more efficient methods and more permanent systems, I' not sure why they would need the Maxwells for this, again, unless he's working for one or another irrigation company, or unless they are doing yards and gardens.

They may surprise me, but they will have to get past the one page of text with clearly no real world experience and no pictures for their web site. I thought they were web master types? And photographers. Show us some of your work!

www. maxwellirrigation.com/ is really

www. maxwellirrITation.com/

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I'm curious too about the finances of the Maxwell family (and other fundies). I guess since they live a very dull life without any fun and "distractions", they won't need much.

And some fundies seem actually quite money savvy, they know how to get those "donations" and "love offerings" from others. I bet Steve will make sure that they get enough money on their trips, and it's not like his wife and daughters get a salary for the work they do, so all the money goes to the Maxwell household run by Stevehova.

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Wasn't the extra bedroom at Nathan and Melanie's house the room they built to be 1 tonne Ramp HQ or was it something else?

Yeah, I think that's the 1ton ramp room. They built it about 2012.

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I am shocked at the property taxes. We have a 3300 sq ft house on 1/3 an acre and pay $1100 a year (in Utah). I always knew the east coast/new England/ny had high taxes but I never knew KS did. Is the basement included in the sq ft in Kansas (isn't that where they show the family packing up the chore packets and books?). I just check DD's friend house 4650 sq ft on .55 acre & taxes were $1400. I guess that is why the schools are so low funded here.

I actually think their food costs are high. they shop at Costco and that produce isn't cheap for 10. While you could certainly feed 10 people for less, I bet they spend $1500-2k a month on food. I have seen them have pictures of $400-500 Costco trips.

Samaritan Ministries is $405 a month for a family. Not sure if they have age restrictions on adult children living at home? A Duggar fan was saying was fighting me the other day saying Ben and Jessa would be fine using Samairan Ministries so I check the current rates. In AR Ben & jessa could get a blue cross type policy for about $20 more a month the Samaritan, I don't see the benefits of Samaritan.

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Yeah, I think that's the 1ton ramp room. They built it about 2012.

Possibly but I'm not sure. They have a permit for an office renovation a few months before the addition that I assumed was the 1tonramp hq.

Silverspoons- Mind blown. My house is just shy of 3,000sqft on a quarter acre and we paid about $9k in property taxes last year. I guess that's the difference between Utah and the Chicago 'burbs.

Generally basements aren't counted in square footage unless completely finished, which I don't think Steve and Teri's is. I'd have to go back and check photos.

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There's been speculation about the Maxwells' finances in the past. People are often astonished at the nice "stuff" that the Maxwells have. However, I am not terribly surprised.

First off they live in in a low-cost area of the country. They also have six adult children and their parents living under one roof. It's pretty amazing how much money one saves if they lived with their parents/families under one roof.

We've got John, Jesse, Joseph and Steve all generating income, and supporting Sarah, Anna, Mary and Teri. That's four men supporting four women. They all live in a house that's paid for. I figure in order to live as comfortably as they do, the family will need at least $90k (since there's no mortgage). Steve receives some social security/pension and/or generate income from his "ministry". Let's assume he's bringing in the biggest chunk, say, $50k. He's paying himself the biggest salary from the family business plus he receives money from his years working in corporate. That means Jesse, Joseph and John need to make about $40k between the three of them to make up the difference. Three guys working fulltime can easily make that, even if it's at crappy ITonRamp jobs. I'm also assuming the family doesn't buy real health insurance, instead getting the Samaritan insurance that's not really insurance. That saves some money too.

The biggest expenses most American families have are childcare, mortgage and, with older children, perhaps education. The family has none of these costs. Some of their goes to utilities, insurances and property taxes, some goes to groceries, the rest is disposable income that they can buy their high-end appliances and gadgets.

I also think that it's no coincidence we see the Maxwells with expensive cameras and electronics. Christopher is a professional photographer. He probably has some nice cameras that he discards on a regular basis which can be given to the other children. The family runs an IT business. It's actually not a bad idea to buy high quality electronics. And being in the IT business, presumably, they experience a high turnover of equipment, which means the girls can get the nice electronics when the guys need to upgrade.

The Maxwells built their current house (which is pretty impressive actually). This means they can afford a "nicer" house than what they can actually afford. They only pay for the material used, not for labor (since they did most of the work). When FJites see the Maxwells sitting comfortably in their large-ish house, just remember that the family got that house for a fraction of what it costs to hire contractors to build.

As others noted, the family has few, if any, entertainment costs. They avoid movies, TVs, news media. They don't go on any vacations save to hike in Colorado once a year. They don't go out to eat as an entire family, but will sometimes go out in pairs to have lunch. That's money saved as well.

Now, the issues is, if their family ministry doesn't do too well in some years, how much of a hit does the family take financially? I'm not sure since we have no hard numbers, but I wager, based on the fact Steve took over the titus2 ministry and the family bought a bus and renovated it so they can hawk their wares on the road, it must have been making them quite a bit. Presumably, Steve knew to sock much of that money away to cushion the blow on off years.

In general, the Maxwells live pretty frugally, if comfortably. They have a nice house and nice electronics, but they also rarely eat out, unless it's paid for. They don't participate in any group events and rarely venture out except to sell their stuff. Most of their activities centers around each other and work. I can see that they can all live the way they do, even if individually, the men do not make that much money.

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The only thing I would disagree with YPestis is that only the Maxwell men earn money.

Sarah with her Moody books does bring in income, and those books seem very popular among their blog readers and conference attendees.

Otherwise, yes, they don't have many of the expenses non-fundies have.

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I've actually always thought the Maxwells were ideal consumers in a way. They buy quality products, but it's never an impulse purchase (do the Maxwells even have impluses anymore?) and they aren't swayed by trends or advertising. Like the girls buy somewhat expensive shoes, but they buy quality, all purpose ones, and will wear those shoes until they wear out. They aren't going to feel that the shoes are out of style a year from now and chuck them, or buy more pairs than they need because they want to match a ton of different outfits for different occasions.

I also wonder how much less they spend just because they are exposed to so much less advertising. They'd be a great sample family to use in a consumer economics study.

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The only thing I would disagree with YPestis is that only the Maxwell men earn money.

Sarah with her Moody books does bring in income, and those books seem very popular among their blog readers and conference attendees.

Otherwise, yes, they don't have many of the expenses non-fundies have.

Yeah, forgot about the Moody books! The books must be doing well if Sarah is still writing them. This just means we have five working adults in an eight person household. You can poverty level money and still come out ok.

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