"...It probably is that, sometimes, but I really don't think it was with kids who lived with me. I think it's usually that they weren't really thinking about the danger, or that they wanted other things more than they want to be safe? A lot of the time it was - things that I don't personally approve of or think are smart priorities or a good idea in the long run. I've definitely had previous foster children point out that we don't stop adults from doing things that aren't a good idea in the long run, if they're not actually illegal. My former foster child Teagan used to run away to sleep over with her boyfriend, which I don't approve of and don't think was a good idea, but if she were an adult it would be none of my business. So, yeah, in that sense kids aren't free the way adults are." 

" - stop a fifteen year old girl run off and lie with a man make sense to me because there is a baby who is hurt by this also, but Emily sayed that educated Americans do not think people have souls so they think it is fine to kill babies."

....Evelyn makes a face. 

"I think a lot of people think that having an abortion is - sometimes the best of a lot of bad options, but not that that makes it fine? I definitely don't think it's something to - treat casually. And even if we claim that a pregnancy at ten weeks or whatever isn't a baby yet, there are still other people in the situation who can be hurt. Teenagers are more vulnerable than adults. ...I guess that's partly because of the decisions we make as a society to try to protect kids rather than teaching them to protect themselves as early as possible and letting them loose, but I do think that a lot of it is just - maturity, and a lot of fifteen-year-old girls would make decisions that would hurt themselves a lot, if nobody intervened." 

"So...The police arrest us back here if we run away, is like parents hit kids who try to go to trees, fight bears, because kids who fight bears die and kids is better if parents hit, kids learn not fight bears." She is not sure how she feels about this line of reasoning.

"It is good to arrest kids back if they are going to trees fight bears," Iomedae agrees, "otherwise giving - I don't know the English word - the Heaven bird people - a lot of work taking care of kids who parents should have taked care of."

"...I think childs go to trees, fight bears, not always go to Heaven."

"Childs too small for judging go to Limbo. Parents say please Heaven bird people look after my child in Limbo." - they should probably not be having this conversation in front of Evelyn.

She doesn't know at what age a child stops being too small for Judgement but that's not what she meant.

This conversation has yet again gone down a bizarre and baffling Alfirin-and-Iomedae tangent. The Heaven bird people????? It's probably not important - actually Evelyn isn't sure of that, it might be a very important confusion to eventually unravel, but it's off topic for this specific conversation, which is about how to do as right by Iomedae as she can given that she cannot in fact get her officially made a legal adult at fifteen. 

"....I guess that's kind of right. I think the things that are dangerous in America are...more complicatedly dangerous than bears...though cars are actually pretty analogous, kids do die of being hit by cars. But there are also a lot of ways to - end up having a pretty bad life, to end up having fewer options and less freedom as an adult because of a couple of bad decisions. - uh, going to prison being the obvious one. If I have a kid living with me and they've - met some friends who are a bad influence and try to convince them to do illegal things, then I don't feel like it's wrong of me to tell them they're not allowed to leave the house and go do crimes with their friends, even though if they were an adult it would be none of my business who their friends are. ...And teenagers often aren't good with money yet, and it's important for them to learn to be - which is why I give kids an allowance, so they can get some practice making financial decisions with small amounts of their own money, and I'm actually very in favor of summer jobs for teenagers and really wish you didn't have the papers issue - but I also think it's good if an adult is looking out for them and not letting them make the kind of bad financial decision that would end up with them being homeless." 

"The 'allowance' is meant to be pretending we earn money so we can practice being adult?" She had been very confused about the 'allowance'.

"...If it is for practicing being adult, we should be spending it on food?"

"Yes, the hard part of - good financial decisions - is whether have meat more and be stronger or save more for winter, or whether spend more on gas to go far where the pay for work is better. The allowance does not seem like practice."

"Yeah. I don't think you - either of you - need to practice money-related skills at this level, to be clear, but it's pretty important for kids like Lily? She likes to spend hers on kinds of food that I don't usually buy, but if she wants to buy something more expensive then she has to save it. Right now she's been putting all of it in her savings jar because she decided she wanted to save up for a Barbie horse. Which - I mean, when she's an adult, she'll have to save up for different kinds of things, but right now she cares about Barbies and doesn't care about saving to go to college, and she's more motivated to be responsible even when it's hard and means not having candy now, if it's for something she actually really cares about. ...And I think she won't have to make decisions about whether she can afford to eat meat, probably, because America is richer than where you grew up and meat isn't actually too expensive for most people, even poor people." 

Shrug. "- Also, honestly, a lot of why I like giving an allowance is that I can motivate a lot of teenagers to follow the rules and behave better by withholding their allowance if they break rules. Which is also a bit silly for both of you, but it worked with Teagan." 

"...If America make it illegal to hit childs or not give them food or make them do hard work maybe you have to pay childs to listen to their parents and follow rules?"

"When I came to America the first things to know are, how much do I make in a week, how many weeks is there work at that money, how many the people I see are too sick or hurt to work some week, how much costs food, how much costs healing, how much costs go to places that have work.

And when I knowed those things then I could think about harder things like - should I give to church. I did give to church, one dollar in ten, when I haved four hundred dollars saved, so they could use it to help the poor, because when I haved four hundred dollars saved I was not the poor.

And how much to buy a car house. I learned that you can buy a very old holes in it car house for fifteen hundred, twenty hundred, dollars, but only if you know taking care of car houses, so I did not think to buy a car house very soon.

And if I had knowed of krav maga when I was free and working, I have payed to do it, fifty dollars a month, which would mean I save money lots slower, but I am a holy warrior and should know how to fight, so it is good trade saving money lots slower. 

But now - I do not pay for food. I no allowed spend less on food to have more money. I do not pay for clothes but I am ordered have lots of clothes. I do not pay for krav maga, maybe? So allowance is - it is money that just happen and that does not have anything to do with having money as a free person. I can think of it as pay for obeying Evelyn but - it still feel like practicing habit of money having no meaning."

"...Huh. I'm not at all worried that you'll forget how to have good habits around saving money? I do think you have habits for money that are - built around being very poor - and I think most kids Jeremy's age wouldn't be as good with money as you were, if they were that poor, because in their actual lives they don't need to be. Lots of young adults get financial help from their parents, because their parents can afford it, and often they can get a much better job five years down the line if they spend longer in school rather than immediately getting a job. I'm helping Jeremy pay for some of his college tuition because college will give him more options."

Shrug. "The thing I want here is to help you as much as I can with the things that matter to you, until you're eighteen and the government will stop considering it its business where you live and what you do with your time. I think that means doing different things than I would with most teenagers, and it mostly means helping you understand America in all our rich crazy people-ness." 

"- okay. How sure you think it is that Lily money will be pay every day for next year? Next three year? Are there things not watch Lily Alfirin can be paid for, or I can be paid for if Lily money stop? I lose Lily money if I disobey, or only allowance money? The bike or the krav maga, these things I owe you?"

"I think it's - very likely Lily will be here for at least six months, quite likely - I don't know, eight in ten? - that she'll be here for a year. Probably not three years, Social Services will be trying to find relatives who can take care of her, and I don't normally take permanent placements for kids that young."

Shrug. "There are lots of things I could pay you for doing at home, thankfully the part of the government that checks whether people have papers to work doesn't care about that. But - you're right that it's sort of fake, because I'm getting the same amount of money either way, and at a certain point I'm not sure how much of a practical difference there is between paying you for chores so you can pay for krav maga, or just paying for krav maga. Aside from, like, practicing having a good work ethic, but like I said, I'm genuinely not worried you're going to forget how to work hard and be responsible with money. ...I do think it would be good if you do the work at the bike shop to cover the bike discount Juan offered us, as long as it's not horrible or something, it's - you aren't allowed to work for money either way, but Juan is allowed to pay you in free bike, and you'll learn some useful stuff about bike care." Crooked smile. "I think that's probably why he offered, I bet he knows people who can't work legally because they don't have papers and is mad at the government about it. ...Obviously you don't have to, if you think it's a stupid way to prioritize your time, but there isn't an option here that involves getting an extra $200 in cash that you can spend on other things." 

"I mean to do the bike work if he does not try to rape me but I thinked that I had done a bad job of knowing what I was agreeing to, in the bike shop, so I made a rule that I would not do things like that any more until I am not confused."

Nod. "I'm sorry. It was surprisingly hard for me to figure out what you were confused about." Sigh. "I think we should maybe just look at my finances? And - okay, wow, I'm noticing that I feel pretty ick about this and I think it's because it would be an awful thing to do to most kids, but we already established you aren't a kid, so - I'm trying to think if there are chores you can do that would actually save me money on expenses for the household, and then it would be pretty reasonable for me to say you can have that money as allowance. Because - uh, it's not really fair to Lily I'm giving you tons of allowance for chores that I could do myself, when that doesn't actually mean I can earn more money for the house, and so at some point it means I have to spend less money on nice things for Lily. ...I guess Lily might say she's happy to get fewer new clothes and toys if it means more time playing with you, she really likes you. And I probably do spend more on toys for her than I strictly need to, I give into temptation sometimes." 

"I think understand how this household money works would be good because I do not think I could spend three sevens hundred dollar a month even if I wanted to live like a president."

Then they can go to the computer! Evelyn keeps track of her finances using a computer program, it's better than doing it on paper. She breaks it up into categories: housing, food and household, transport, healthcare, activities and leisure, gifts, and Surprise Large Expenses. 

Housing is a much lower chunk than it used to be when she was paying the bank back for the house loan, which is nice! Her property taxes come to about $1200 a year; she gets a bill four times a year, but sets aside $100 per month so she'll always have enough to pay the bill without dipping into savings. She also gets bills for electricity, gas for heating, water use, the television, and the internet, and the truck that comes to pick up her trash and recycling; she's not unnecessarily wasteful, but she does inevitably use a lot of hot water and the dishwasher and laundry machines both see heavy usage. She budgets $300 a month for it, though it's usually a bit less. The house also needs repairs – not in any given month, necessarily, but it's an older house and she wants to have money set aside if the hot water tank or the furnace or the oven or the fridge or the sump pump that keeps water out of the basement break and need to be repaired or replaced. She puts down $50/month for house maintenance, which comes to $600 a year; sometimes she has a lucky year and only needs a handful of inexpensive repairs, but a new furnace costs thousands. So that's $450 a month on having a place to live - which is actually pretty cheap! You would have a hard time renting a one-bedroom apartment for that little if you wanted to live downtown. Owning a house is a good deal once you've paid off the mortgage. 

Food! Evelyn does put some effort into minimizing grocery expenses – not to the extent of not buying meat or produce, she can afford it and a varied diet with lots of protein is important for growing kids, but she shops in bulk which is cheaper per-meal when she can, and does a lot of home cooking, and buys vegetables in-season when they're cheaper, and only buys frozen prepared meals when they're on sale. Her grocery bill also varies a lot by who's living with her, obviously, when it's just her and one kid they spend less. She budgets $100 baseline per person per month, so $400 for this month; smaller kids do eat less than an adult in total, but they also tend to be pickier. Non-food household expenses are things like hand soap and shampoo and cleaning supplies and toilet paper and kleenex. That varies less based on how many kids are around, though the reason she decants toiletries into little containers is because otherwise a lot of kids will waste them. She budgets $100 a month, though also she buys products in large quantities when they're on sale, so it's variable month to month and she averages it. $500 a month on food and household supplies, then. 

Transport means gas and car insurance and repairs. She spends around $125 a month on gas. She has to have her car insured - that means that if it gets damaged in a crash, the insurance will pay for it, and it's also legally required to be insured in order to drive - and that's once a year but costs $900, so she sets aside $75 a month for it. She sets aside $50 a month for car repairs and cleaning. (It's mostly cleaning; she has kids in her car and often they make messes.) $250 on transport. 

Healthcare in the form of doctor's appointments is mostly covered by insurance - which she doesn't even have to pay for, for her foster kids, and Social Services reimburses her for doctor's office copays – but insurance doesn't cover over-the-counter drugs or, like, bandaids. She sets aside $25 per child per month. (Sometimes non-insured health care costs a lot more than that, but foster carers are paid more to look after 'medically fragile' children). She also has to pay $400 a year for her own health insurance; it's technically through her employer, which is the fostering agency, but they don't actually pay for the premiums. She allocates $50 a month for Evelyn Doesn't Get Sick. (If she has large healthcare expenses, which she might well at some point, that has to come out of savings.) $125 this month on healthcare.

(Clothing is another essential but the government provides money for that specifically for her foster kids, and Evelyn herself kind of just...doesn't buy new clothes very often, right now, and it's not part of her core budget. Children need clothes a lot more often because they're growing and more active.)

So, yeah, those are more or less the essential expenses for maintaining their household. A little over $1300 a month. If Evelyn only had Iomedae and Alfirin at the standard emergency foster care rate, she would be getting about $1400 a month and her expenses would only be a tiny bit lower on groceries etc. In practice, of course, sometimes she has one kid in a given month, and sometimes she has three kids who are all high-needs. She also gets paid to run trainings for other foster parents, but that's less favorable for tax purposes. (Foster care payments aren't taxable, thankfully, and Evelyn qualifies for several tax breaks.) 

Anyway, with three kids and Lily getting the foster care payment rate for a specialized placement, she's earning $2600 for this month. Her best guess is that next month, once Iomedae and Alfirin are more formally assessed, they'll both qualify for an additional $150 a month special rate and she'll be earning $2900. On average over the whole year, she probably makes about $2500/month in foster care support payments, and most years she'll make another $5000 - in good years, another $10,000 post-tax - on teaching other foster parents, which she puts directly into her personal retirement savings. 

She has a rule that she tries not to spend more than $2000 a month routinely; if she earns more in a given month, it goes into her easily-accessible savings to cover periods later when she's earning less, and so that she'll have a cushion for large occasional expenses like a new car. (Going into debt to buy a new car, unlike going into debt to buy a house, is something Evelyn's mother taught her was a bad financial decision, but also you absolutely cannot live car-less in a suburb in Reno). As a very approximate rule of thumb for when it's the middle of the month and she hasn't added up expenses yet, she's happily willing to spend up to $50 per kid per month on Nice Things (material possessions) and $50 per kid per month on Nice Things (activities and leisure), plus their routine allowance which comes to $40 a month. The start of a new placement also isn't 'routinely' and she's willing to spend a bit more when a kid just arrived with none of their own possessions; she would have bought Iomedae a $250 bike without a second thought, and it's more or less sustainable for her to do that with all her foster kids. A $450 bike is...well, it's not actually a problem, she's probably still earning more this month than she's spending, but it's not something she could casually do for every kid. 

"You do not give any money to the poor?"

It's genuinely just a clarification, because it's the obvious missing thing from what would otherwise look like a reasonable household balance sheet, and it is only after she says it that she realizes it probably comes across as...judgmental.

It definitely does, but in a way that's endearing more than upsetting. It's a very Iomedae thing to say. 

"I donate a bit at the end of the year to charity. But - I think it mostly feels like the money I get to take care of foster children isn't really mine to spend on whatever I feel like? It feels a bit...something...like I'm basically saying to Lily that I'm not getting her as many Christmas presents because I think the poor children should have her money. She might even be okay with it! But it's - I know your life experience has been very different, but in general, the kids I take care of are the poor? The American poor, at least, and it's - they may never have been starving, but they still saw else having more than they do, and that - affects people. I don't ever want Lily to feel like she doesn't deserve presents like the other children in her class." 

"For each foster childs, you get seven hundred dollars, but most of your costs, they are the same if you have foster childs or if you do not, except a hundred dollars for food and twenty five dollars for sick childs and fifty dollars for gifts for your childs. So if you had five childs, six childs, you would have lots of money, and could give a hundred dollars for gifts for childs, and give to the poor, and have more than now?"