Hello, I’m a 18 yr old who recently moved out of my parent’s house 3 months ago . I’m barely able to survive and any tips would help. My income is 2.5k and rent costs around 1.5K and utilities adding an addition 80 dollars onto that. I have a girlfriend that also lives with me that is struggling to find a job, as the area we live in is densely populated and highly competitive. We have around 4K in savings left (No we did not start anywhere near that) and are starting to get worried that we’re going to lose the place we live.

honestly just need to vent because i feel like im losing my mind. im 24 trying to build an independent life and it feels like every time i take a step forward, i get pulled right back.
so first, the job drama. i literally just started at tj maxx on the 3rd. they barely gave me training shifts, and i just looked at my schedule app for november and my calendar is a total ghost town. they gave me 2 shift for the first three weeks of november. when i asked for more hours, the manager literally said "I’ll let you know “ like be serious, i can't pay bills on "we'll let you know." Idk if im going to continue to work there tbh. so tonight i applied to dunkin, locked in an interview for tomorrow at 11:30am, which I can’t wait for that.
but the biggest kicker is i just found out my mom used my social security number when i was growing up to pay for xfinity wifi and never paid the bill. a collection agency has it now for $202 and my credit score literally just dropped from 680 to 657. when i confronted her, she acted like she had it all figured out and said she’d start making "bi-weekly payment plans to xfinity." like no... xfinity sold the debt, they won't even take your money. i ended up disputing the charge on credit karma tonight since i was literally a minor and had no part in it, and tomorrow morning im calling the credit bureaus to freeze my credit so she can never touch my info again.
on top of all this, im dealing with a massive rent debt. when i turned 21, nobody gave me the exact rules or timelines on when you're supposed to report a new job/income to housing. a year later they hit me out of nowhere saying i owed $8,000 back rent. i didn't run away from it though instead ’ve been grinding like crazy and already paid off $5,000 of it by myself, so i have about $3,000 left.
im just so exhausted from cleaning up messes i didn't make and having to be the only mature, responsible person in my family dynamic. it's so draining.
has anyone else survived identity theft from a parent while trying to clear a huge debt? how do you even keep your sanity through this?

Honestly, Social Security won't be a thing when I retire. I know I won't have any savings. The best I can do is shop around for good places to get arrested and convicted. Thankfully, with tough-on-crime laws, I'll only have to steal a few TVs from a trillion-dollar business.

Homelessness seems worse than prisons these days for older people, especially when Social Security will go away to fund more trillionaire yachts to own the libs. The weather will be much more extreme, and anti-homeless architecture will get worse.

Honestly the most overrated thing to do in prison is join a gang. Gang politics get complicated with codes, rules, and drama. Never gamble either if you don't have muscle to back it up when you win.

Attached is a quick breakdown of what’s going on. What you don’t see is I’m late on rent, a personal loan at $400 a month, and I was stuck in the cash advance cycle for most of this year which I just broke free of. Also all credit cards are maxed. I’ve never been in this dire of financial trouble. I’ve spent the past 6 months struggling and stressing 24/7. Obviously things come up like $1k emergencies on the car etc that I wasn’t prepared for and eventually I was spending my whole paycheck, borrowing from my next and left with almost nothing on payday.

For clarification I live around and work in a high cost area (Boston,MA) it’s my fiance and now two kids that are depending on me and I need to be better. I’m the sole provider as my fiancé stays with the kids. I’m in a deep hole (basically a month behind on rent, 2 months behind on the personal loan and almost a month behind on my car) but I also have some extra cash that will be coming in December a $2,400 vacation fund check from my job and also tax season in February I’m expecting around $8k back in a tax return.

For someone who makes $63/hr and works full time constantly feel like I should be able to live on this and I’ve just been irresponsible. So my questions are
1. Is this just a timing problem? A budget problem?
2. Where can I cut costs?
3. What do I prioritize when I receive those chunks of money?
4. Can someone help me with a budget?
Question #3 is very important because I wouldn’t be here right now if I had handled that money right earlier this year as I received pretty much that around feb. And blew thru it on a vacation and just putting the rest to sporadic bills with no strategy.

I Owe CRA 42% of my debt
I owe NSLSC 43%
Credit cards are 13%

around 80k total

Credit cards accepted my proposal
CRA voted against it, my LIT reached out to CRA to counter
NSLSC has not responded yet. The 45 day mark would be November 9th.

Just looking for others who have gone through this and had it eventually accepted 🤞

I've been crying all night, I really don't want to have to do bankruptcy due to the fact that you can only make a certain amount of money per month. I feel like a failure at 29 years old, I had a baby at 18 and went back to school at 21 life just got expensive as a single parent.

I already started working more over time to put extra away to throw at the proposal.

Trying to see if anyone has got some advice I’m missing. I don’t feel like writing a book about why I’m taking care of 15 kids. Just someone has too and thats all there is to it.

By advice- money and clothing angles would be most preferable got most other things covered. Thrift stores suck here so does FB.

Kids eat good, medical is taken care of, I’m already working my ass off but something easy a few teenagers could do to pitch in would be good some with disabilities.

Sorry not trying to be curt, just tired.

There will be no welfare or Social Security, and the minimum wage will be $4 by the year 2045. AI will have all the jobs. The only career options are military, drug dealer, gang Warlord, scammer, religious cult member, or OnlyFans model.

I feel like OnlyFans is the only ethical way for me to make a living without living in the 145-degree wastelands or in prison. It doesn't exploit innocent people by getting them addicted to toxic drugs or a hateful religion that involves violating women's consent.

I'm a biological male, so I really hope being trans or LGBTQ won't be made illegal, as I could easily pass as a woman or a beautiful feminine man when I lose weight because of my smooth skin.

I know it's not in my best interest to recommend that you guys do the same, as it will create competition, but there will be plenty of billionaires to go around, and I know it's the right thing to do compared to the alternatives.

I’m in my 20s and run a small independent business in Asia. Because local wages are considerably lower than abroad, the proportion of earning power relative to this debt is astronomical like 30 to 40 years to pay back. Currently maintains $0 personal debt and hold about $2,000 in liquid working capital strictly to pay suppliers, buy ingredients, and keep the shop running day-to-day and due to various issues within country my daily profit swings. So this saving ensures my survival to absorb that. But in my immediate family is telling me to take that out and pay for their debts.

My parents are facing foreclosure on over $118,000 in debt spread across multiple banks and creditors—and that $118k isn't even the full total, as interest and penalties are ballooning the debt further every single day.

By the end of this month, Bank A is demanding an immediate $2,400 lump sum just to temporarily pause legal action. On top of that, they have another $3,000 balance rolling on an installment plan with Bank B (requiring around $50/month),which they also have zero way to pay because existing monthly obligations already consume 100% of their income.

They don't have stable jobs, consistent earnings, or a realistic debt restructuring strategy. Their approach is simply making promises they can't keep, saying "we'll find a way," and frantically scrambling for cash just to buy 30 days of quiet . In the past, my family already took and sold my personal savings, gold, and cash gifts to throw at this debt. 

It solved nothing and the debt kept rolling.

 Now, my parents and relatives are telling me to give up all my cash, selfish because I refuse to hand over my $2,000 shop capital or take out personal loans further to cover that 400 dollars for my parents because if I do I will be in debt again. 

And I ask them who is going to save me if I drown myself they say idk.

Is it wrong for keeping my business money locked in my shop and staying debt-free?

Every job where I have had a union I paid dues. I was federal employee paid dues the whole time and it didn’t save me from being forced out during RTO. Dues were $125 a month.

I am state now and pay union dues. things are getting very tight and we are trying to buy a house. The town i’m in is trying to build up the town and houses could go higher. there’s a shortage of good affordable rental properties here. i handle our budget I was looking where to cut. Union dues.

Our grocer bill skyrocketed last year and this year due to our 2 year having a wheat allergy and not being able to have gluten.

I have cut everything to the extreme except food since our toddler eats a lot plus due to his allergy we have to buy food for him to eat at daycare.

I cut the dues and one of the representatives calls and says how much the union does for us and why I cut it. I explain m finances are tight at this moment. credit card debt (aggressively paying, will be debt free 2028), groceries, daycare, new baby, house. we are stretched thin until 2028. She was very passive aggressive and snarky about how everyone is struggling but still manage to pay their union dues. My mother is a union rep with the teamsters and I understand the importance. The union dues come up to $80 a month which is 1 week of no frills groceries.

Has anyone else cut union dues or do u still pay during hard times?

Everybody I contact about renting a room , doesn't accept cats and I have one (currently staying in a 1 bedroom apt). I feel sick that I may have to give up my cat just to save money. My lease ends at the end of next month so I have to find something soon or either renew my lease. I honestly was just going to get a second job and consider staying in my apartment , but I don't know that it is a good idea. But on the other hand I'm afraid to stay with strangers but it seems like a lot of people doing it nowadays. However I saw like a whole bunch of YouTube vids that say not to do it because you will be miserable. Someone tell me that renting a room from a stranger isn't that bad or am I delusional? I can't even afford my car payment right now

I’m 38 and live in Chengdu, China. After my business failed, I became unemployed and was left owing money to the bank that I can’t currently repay.

Because of this, my bank cards and my WeChat and Alipay accounts have been frozen or restricted, and my credit has been affected. I want to find work and start earning again, but I’ve discovered that some jobs are harder to get into than I expected.

I looked into driving for DiDi and doing food delivery, but I was turned down because I couldn’t provide a bank card to receive payments. I also considered working as a designated driver, but my credit issues came up in the background check, so that didn’t work out either.

Right now, I’m thinking about looking for temporary work so I can bring in some income. At the same time, I’ve started making videos about my everyday life. I want to keep going and see whether it could become a new direction for me.

But I’m anxious about the future. I need income now, and I don’t know how long it might take for the videos to go anywhere—or whether they ever will. I don’t want to put all my hopes into something uncertain, but I also don’t want to give up before I’ve really tried.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the work itself. It’s wanting to move forward and realizing that the options in front of you are fewer than you thought.

Has anyone been through something similar? How did you keep earning while trying to build something new, especially when you didn’t know whether it would work out?

I am a mom of 2 with a pretty useless associates degree in liberal arts and not a lot of experience in anything but retail and child care. I currently work at the daycare my youngest daughter goes to and I am looking to leave. I am underpaid and overworked living paycheck to paycheck (and even that it generous because we don’t even make it pay check to paycheck) we get our groceries from a church and we are constantly having to borrow money from money borrowing apps. I feel so overwhelmed and stuck. I don’t like working at the daycare I want less overstimulating work first of all so I don’t feel so completely drained and have nothing left to give my own children. I would also love something that pays more so it actually feels like my work is worth something and getting us somewhere. But I am stuck because I have 2 more year before my youngest can start public school for free and I already opted out of signing my oldest up for afterschool care for the year because I wanted to be the one to pick her up every day and do pick up and drop off. Idk. It just feels like I can’t win. It seems like the only place I can afford to work is at a daycare until my youngest is in public school. I want to start a job where I actually have a future and it can be my career for a long time. Childcare is not that so I just feel stuck. Also my husband just got a notice that his job no longer will cover spouses on their health insurance unless they are unemployed and don’t qualify for health insurance at their own job and I am basically right at the BRINK of being part time/ full time because I work between 28-33 hours which can teeter the line. I told my boss this and said I may need to work slightly less hours and she was basically like “uh huh I understand… but we need you” she basically insinuated I work off the clock for free. I just feel so stuck and helpless. Any suggestions for career advice ? Has anyone been in a similar situation where they used to work in childcare and left for something else ? Or you were a stay at home mom who needed to make income but still wanted to be present for you kids (drop off, pick up, half days etc) it feels so hard to be a mother sometimes it feels like we can’t win. If you stay at home you struggle financially, if you work it feels like you have to make a ton of money to make working even worth it to afford the help you need for childcare etc.

My partner & I were living in a 400 sq ft apartment with a baby. We needed more room and desperately wanted to buy a house. We had less than $5k in savings.

My mom offered to help us with a down payment. Thing is, she is retired/disabled and needs her own savings to live on. She only gets a little social security each month. She said she would give us the down payment if she could move in with us.

She didn't pressure us at all. Honestly, we jumped at the opportunity to buy a home. But it's not been an easy adjustment.

Multigenerational living is hard. Having a baby is hard. Living with your aging mother (presumably for the rest of her life as I would never put her in a care home) is hard. Supporting a family of 4 on $50k is hard. Owning a home is hard and I worry every day that an emergency repair is going to tank us.

I am so grateful for our home and my family, but god I am so tired all the time.

Anyone else doing the multigenerational thing right now to make ends meet? How are you doing?

You can become a live in caregiver. It’s a long day because you would be on call. But you would get your days off and $250 a week here, in the suburbs of Chicago. You have to have a high school diploma, a working car with insurance and pass a background check

I've been on one meal a day for quite some time and now I've been trying to skip a day sometimes but my body won't allow it. I feel weak and dizzy.

I've read people here saying they go days without eating, so I'm wondering how they manage it. Please share your tips. Thanks

Every time i see a post on reddit talking about income or jobs i see the comments flooded with people saying they make more than 6 figures and they own a home. For example theyll say something like “i make 187k a year, 500k in a roth ira, 200k in savings.

In real life i know almost know one that makes this much money so how are there so many of these posts? Is reddit full of rich people?

The place I started using was partially shut down and gave out moldy product. I did seperate the moldy and toss it then soak the rest from each package to kill any spores with vinegar. Is this normal? This is my second time ever using a food bank. There were very few volunteers this time too. The one who spoke to me was really mean. Last time I went they were all really sweet and it was like going to a grocery store.

Title is self explanatory, any advice/resources? Im a Male with a drivers license and clean background. Been job searching with no luck lately

Im open to any type of jobs: willing to train, offers housing, seasonal, remote (i have a laptop), etc. Not expecting all these options to come with a job, im just listing different types

Basically anything that can get me some income at the moment so i can get back on track. Im also willing to relocate anywhere in the U.S.

I’m working towards my bachelor’s. I was previously in an abusive relationship and it caused me to do poorly in school because he didn’t see education as valuable so he often didn’t let me go to class and made it really hard to get work done. I’m not trying to shift all the responsibility but all of my energy was going towards trying not to make him angry and it’s not easy to focus on school when you’re focused on not getting beat up all the time.

I finally got out of that about a month and a half ago. I thought I would do way better now that I’m not with him but he left me in a tough financial position and now I’ve gone from working part time to working full time and I just haven’t been studying as much I want to. I did poorly on a few tests and I was hoping to get straight As this semester to pull my GPA back up but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

I have a midterm in an hour. I’m not prepared. I was planning to study a lot more but, well, it’s the end of the month and I’ve been scrambling to get enough for rent and such.

I always thought that doing well in school would be my path to getting a better job and being financially stable but it feels like a cycle I can’t escape.

I was hospitalized for about 2 months last year - tried to pay hospital bills with credit card, then when filing taxes, HR let me know I had been fired hence why I couldnt access my W-2 ,, this lead to my vehicle repo and credit card collection

I already went through court and got unemployment for a while and got a new job where i get paid well enough but havent had the free income to rebuild credit with a secured credit card

A deer hit me and my car got impounded because the light went out and my registration was out of date ,, only have liability

Anyway gotta get my tags and stuff as well as pay impound + tow fees - all together I need like 2k and I dont get paid until the 5th which is a lot of money going into impound fees

I make about 2750 a month net but have had no luck with credit unions or standard loan company applications

Any advice?

Mine is milk. As 1Litre of regular cow's milk is now 1.20, I have reluctantly admitted that I'll have to switch to semi-skimmed UHT milk, as that only costs 0.69 per 1Litre. The UHT milk is fine, I guess, but sweeter than I'm used to. So, what have you guys downgraded to in order to keep having certain things? Let's share some cost-cutting substitutions.

[Location: England]

Twice a month, before payday: list every bill with its nickname, amount and due date; sort by due date; then mark each one paid only when you've actually paid it, not when you plan to. Keep a separate "planned" vs "actual" number per category so a bad week doesn't overwrite your plan. Paper, Notes or a spreadsheet all work. Nothing needs to connect to your bank.

Disclosure: I built this, a $9 one-time phone board that does exactly this: https://thewellhabit.com/bill-budget-board/?src=reddit-povertyfinance. It's manual by design. But the method works fine for free on paper, and that's the main point.

Hey Everyone , I'm in my mid 20s and I rent a room for over a year and 2 months , always paid rent on time but since the start of October i struggled to pay it ( I can't work anymore for couple of months for legal reasons ) , and I didn't find a place to stay yet ( gov can offer me a place in the shelter if i'm lucky ) , I don't have a car , I was being fair and thought I should leave the place if I can't pay it anymore but at the same time I have nowhere to go .

I sincerely need advice from people who went through the same things and struggled also , I'm going through one of the hardest period of my life , and I know it's a phase and it will be done for , it is just hard to go through this and also give up a safe space of mine . re-starting from 0 again can be harsh , everything i worked for 5 years vanished .

I'm in EU not USA.

before I start, a little about myself. I'm almost 20 at the time of writing this. I was born in a low income household. my parent had me when they were in their 40's and my dad had a night security job that payed him little. years later he had to leave because he was getting to old to work, so after that my parents were living of of ssi and things like that. we had to leave our old home because we couldn't afford it anymore. thankfully my gpaw allowed us to stay at his place along with my 2 brothers for about 8-9 years. I regrettably did a dumb decision and dropped out of school (which was somewhere in high school) because they wanted me to redo basically everything I had done that year even though I was passing my grade and turned all my assignments in. I was bitter, lazy and dumb back then. then after that my gpaw wanted to move and found a place, but could not have me or my mom (my dad sadly passed a year prior. love you dad) because of some contract they had to sight that allowed only them, my brother's gf, and 2 pets. so then came my sister who decided to take me in while leaving mom with the new owners of the house to see if they can help. long story short my sister and her husband are hypocrites and only took me in so I can deal with their problems they don't want to fix themselves and kicked me out when I was venting out my frustration's, I found myself to be in the mission for about 2 weeks when I came into contact with my mom and she brought be to this apartment complex wich allows for low to no income people and families to live in. I am verry. VERRY lucky that they have this policy where if you, lets say are making $400 a month they want you to pay 30% of the rent while they pay the rest of it, if you are not making money however they pay for the entire thing. no catch, I even asked on day one. I am verry thankful for that. but I shouldn't be this lucky. I have made very poor decisions in my life and now I am trying to fix it. now here's the problems. I don't have a job and I never worked before, meaning my resume is so bad the managers or whoever hires don't even bother looking at it. I have a friend who owns an amazon warehouse and he hires people. and he told me that when helping me with the resume, spoilers he couldn't really do anything because I have no skills to put on my resume "but if you have a friend who works at a warehouse. why not have him hire you?" the one where he works at is in another state from mine, and we both looked in my area via maps and calls, there is no other amazon warehouse he could call so I may work there in my area. and I basically, have no money, all I make from dshs benefit income is $450 witch goes away in like a week due to rent and food. yes I have EBT SNAP but I only get 250 in food benefits. now I am in the process of getting SSI so I can have 900 a month rather than 450 a month but I want to make more money so I can get a place that is bigger than this tiny apartment. I have no car or even a oven and dishwasher, all I have is a fridge, microwave, toaster, air fryer, sink and a bathroom with tub and shower. since it seems I cant get a job because of my resume problem (and the fact the city I am in, Yakima, may be in a job shortage from what my other friend tells me though I am not sure) I am looking for places that does volunteering just to at least get some experience. but is there anything I can realistically do to make at least some money while I try to find employment?

Hello, I'm currently unemployed 4th year undergraduate.. i cannot continue my degree anymore because I no longer have job to support me.. Does anyone knew how to build yourself again from zero blance?