Bringing home barely over $2,000 a month. I live in a rural area and even here the cheapest one bedroom I can find online is $1250/mo. Even with a roommate the cheapest 2 bedroom I can find is $700 each and after all my bills and stuff I’d have like $350 left for groceries, gas, and anything else. I have a car payment and car insurance and college loans (dropped out due to a cancer diagnosis), medications, internet and my phone bill
How are you guys doing this? I don’t want to live with and mooch off my grandparents forever.
Car payment+insurance ($440)
College Loans ($350)
Phone and Internet ($95)
Medications ($50)
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There is no way you can make this work. You need to increase income or decrease expenses. Can you rent a cheaper place with a roommate? Or roommates?
Live with roomies is the only way these days, and all the fun and issues that come with it. It can be really nice with the right people.
I hate to say this too but imo every successful poor person I know has some sort of racket going, some way they skirt the system. I won’t tell you mine but without it I’d be homeless
Eat beans and rice and live with 4-6 other people. Roommates your whole life don’t go on vacation or buy frivolous stuff
It is very tough for nearly everyone right now. If it good to stay with your grandparents do so and save your money. Help them out as well if you can . Eventually you will find better work and be able to move out. Focus on what you can do and what is good in your life – stressing out about finance only builds anxiety. Be smart with your money budget and work on becoming financially sound and debt free.
I would use community college to get certified in something that will get you started at a much higher wage. Talk to the admissions counselor. Learn about the FAFSA application; apply for grants, not loans or work study.
Alternatively, look for employment with a company that will pay for school tuition. Read every word of the tuition policy thoroughly. Meet every HR deadline long before it’s due. Understand that HR usually doesn’t pay the school for the tuition, they pay you after you have passed the class and you sent your grades to HR. It means the first two semesters will probably be financed up front by you, and HR pays you back a couple of weeks after the semester has ended and next semester has started. SAVE 100% of the money they pay you back so you will have it to finance the next semester when it’s time to pay the school.
Are you already on an income contingent repayment plan for your student loans? Of course there has been so much uncertainty with student loan repayment plans but I would definitely try to pursue it. I believe enrollment is open again.
If your phone and internet service aren’t bundled maybe try Mint Mobile. If you do get a roommate you can split internet.
Try getting a couple quotes for car insurance — pretty easy to do online these days and might as well try.
Not sure what the car is and if you could possibly trade down for a cheaper car, but that sounds like a pretty affordable car payment these days and interest rates are high right now too, so that’s probably your least tenable option.
Where I live I’ve noticed affordable rentals are often not advertised online but just posted on a sign in the front yard of the house. It might be worth driving around in a few old neighborhoods a couple free afternoons and see if you see any of those red and white “FOR RENT” signs with all the details handwritten. Room for rent situations are posted on Facebook a lot.
Finally, renting a bigger place with multiple roommates might be cheaper. Of course you could be multiplying your headaches too.
A good friend and I once shared a one bedroom rental. Obviously not ideal but it was very cheap.
I’m really sorry, it just should not cost $1250 to rent in a rural area.
I will say if you can live with your grandparents and you get along, it’s probably good for them too as they age to have someone looking out for them. Pitch in with some housing to-dos and groceries and build some savings with the money you would spend on rent. Our grandparents aren’t with us forever.
Do you get along with your grandparents? I don’t see why you would need to move out if you’re living with them right now. You can save on rent. I’m living by myself, but honestly if I have parents or grandparents nearby that I can live with, I’ll move there in a heartbeat.
Seconding not looking online. Best places are going to be driving around, asking, and finding facebook communities. Someone knows someone who’s renting a room or a small apartment.
You go to work and school for a trade. Electrician, plumber etc. college isn’t the only education
Unfortunately someone should have advised you that $5300 a year for car payments is too high for someone making 30K per year. You’ll need two roommates for awhile, not just one. Many of us have been there done that for a couple of years.
There is no possible way for anyone earning $15/hr working 40 hours a week to have their own place in nearly all parts of the United States. Look for roommates to split the unaffordable rent that is currently being asked. 1-bedrooms are often extremely expensive compared to 2- or 3-bedrooms and having roommates to help make up the difference is what works.
Keep applying for more lucrative work. It’s out there.
In the meantime if you can sell the car for something cheaper, do it. Sometimes a worse loan with a lower payment is a better choice.
Can you sell your car, pay off the loan, and buy a beater for the time being? And, have you looked into income-driven repayment for your school loans?
Can you sell the car and buy a cash car ( I always buy used cars from mechanics)? That full coverage and insurance payment has got to be killing your paycheck. That would also bring down your insurance a LOT, on top of having no car payment.
I would also switch your phone service to mint or a company like that. I just paid less than $300 for a full year of service, unlimited data. Something low cost and flexible, and if you can pay in advance, that’s going to take a lot of stress off of you.
Keep looking for other apartments. When I moved to a different state, it was nuts trying to find the right keywords to find something affordable.
Try “1 bedroom apartments ( zip code) ( $100 more than you want to pay)” you may find more options. And then contact the apartment complex directly instead of using a service.
See what you can find that you can afford, and try a couple different zip codes.
I’m not going to lie, you can make it work, but it’s not fun.
Get a room for $600-800 not a studio or 1 bed.
The problem isn’t you or your budgeting; it’s wage stagnation and high inflation. That’s a long-winded way of saying: it may not be possible.
I lived on about half what you’re making, now, in 2010 and thereabouts. But rent was radically lower, including in comparison to income. My apartment—also in a relatively low-cost area—ran $475 a month. That was a one-bedroom, not a studio; and it wasn’t a fancy apartment complex, but nobody’s cars got burglarized, and maintenance actually did routine pest control and necessary repairs. And over the course of six years in that apartment? They only raised my rent twice—once, from $425 to $450; and a few years later, from $450 to the $475 it was at when I left. $1250, on $2000 a month would have been equivalent to $625 a month on rent—only a $150 difference, but at around $1k a month? No way I’d have been able to swing that.
I only paid half an Internet bill—I put my router close to the apartment next door, and my neighbor and I split the cost of wifi (until he moved out; then I just cancelled it, and parked outside Starbucks or the library, if I had to check my email). My ex and I shared a cell phone plan with the least data and fewest texts possible, which worked out cheaper than if we’d bought totally separate plans. My car was very cheap, very old, and already paid-off; and I paid the car insurance every six months—right around when my power bill assistance kicked in—which made it cheaper, overall.
At the time, it was still barely possible to qualify for food assistance, as a single adult, and I made little enough, even in my red state, to qualify for about $100 a month in food assistance. We also have a program (federally funded, so you probably do, too) that provided energy assistance during the coldest winter months and hottest summer months—if you qualified for food assistance, you qualified for LIEAP, too, so I got about $450-500 in help with my power bills, twice a year. Groceries were also cheaper, in actual dollars and proportionate to my income—I could make it most of the month, just using food assistance—sometimes the whole month, if I was careful and there were good sales. If I were living on my own, now… eating comparably? I could maybe make it a week, on what I spent for a month of groceries, then. Maybe 2 weeks, if I also visited the food pantry.
It was still really tight, all the time. If I got sick, what I mostly did was: suffer. If the car broke down, I walked to work until I went enough months with no other emergencies to fix it (on which note: if you do decide to move out in the near-term? Try to find a place walking or biking distance from your job—and from a grocery store). I didn’t eat out; I didn’t go out. My entertainment budget was $0, and I hoarded my cell phone data for things like… applying for better jobs.
And I got lucky. If any of the medical emergencies my partner and I have been hit with in the last couple of years had affected me, then? I’d have been shit out of luck. There were still months I had to pay the rent two or three weeks late, if we were getting near the end of the quarter, and my employer had been giving me “too many” hours and edging close to having to offer me health insurance (they shouldn’t have worried; even with them subsidizing it, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it). There were a lot of weeks I was making tricky decisions about which bill to pay first, and which one to ignore until later.
Truthfully, if your grandparents are willing to have you—especially if there are no roommates you can tolerate in your vicinity? I’d stay there. Do a few extra chores, if it makes you feel better—there are probably household tasks that are easier on your body than on theirs. Talk with them about your anxiety; let them know you’re eager to reach a point where you can move out. Keep them informed about your plans and goals. If they won’t take rent from you—put that amount in your own account, instead, and save it for when you do move out; or use it to pay down that car.
Inflation is only going to get worse, for the foreseeable future. Tariffs are going to slow construction, which means demand relative to available housing will keep mounting, which means your rent is likely to get bumped up every time you sign a new lease—and rural areas are sometimes cheaper, as a baseline, but they’ve also got smaller construction companies having to fight larger ones for reasonably-priced materials. I know it freaks everyone out to think about going to school, in an economy ripe for a recession, but—if it were me? I’d do some research on the work that pays better, either near you or in alternate locations where you could stand to live. Look for stuff with sustained demand—as a bonus, there are often local programs that will pay for your training in those fields, because the need is so high.
And then go back to school, so you can get a job that pays better. $15 isn’t a living wage anywhere in the United States, at this point, and that’s not likely to change for the better. In my area, if I were starting from a partial college degree, and needed a job that would cover my bills sooner rather than later—I’d either be doing a BSN or aerospace engineering; or I’d take advantage of one of those free-trade-school-in-high-needs-fields deals, probably in plumbing or HVAC.
In fact—if I were doing it over? I’d probably have entered any one of those fields and worked in it for a handful of years, while I figured out what to do next. You don’t have to stay in that job, forever—but it’d sure be nice to make better than $15 an hour, until you’re ready to move on.
Given how much everything costs, right now, you’re not making enough money that tightening your belt and spending less is likely to make this feasible—and even if you can swing it for awhile, it is vanishingly unlikely that you’re going to get raises that keep pace with inflation. If that were going to happen… nobody’d be making $15 an hour, by now, you feel me? Make a plan about earning more money, first. When you’re actually bringing home enough to live on—then a plan about how to spend it can do you some good.
Check local ads for a roommate situation. I roomed with friends until I met my wife.
If you want to live on your own at that pay you are going to have to pay off your debts first. Snowball every penny into paying off the car and then the school loan. If those are paid off you can maybe do it.
This is where we get to use the Invincible meme: “That’s the neat part. You don’t!”
Seriously, it’s not just you. It’s pretty terrible conditions out there right now with inflation – all cost of living everywhere is too high, particularly housing. What’s worse is (assuming you’re in the US) $15/hour was considered a livable wage a few decades ago. It’s more now, and I have no idea how much more after the most recent inflation spike.
What I’m saying is “don’t feel bad” but the fact is you can only cut optional expenses when there are optional expenses to cut. After that, you just straight up need more income. If you can tolerate living with your grandparents (and they can too) do so and save up as much as you can – a cushion will give you more options. But you still need to look at how to afford a place without going into debt, and bringing in more money is the only way. really.
People are suggesting going to community college, but I think you could also consider a trade school. While you’re living with your family and paying debt, get yourself learning a trade. Plumbing, welding, electrician, truck driving, etc. You can make an amazing living doing a trade.
You need to see if your grandparents can pay off the car or your student loans. You need to keep living with your parents and get more jobs. In my 20s I had my main job, then was a waitresses at night and on the weekends at two different places. I was working 10-12 hour days. Sucked without generational wealth it is the only way to get yourself out of this hole.
How far in college did you get and what major as 350 a month is pretty high. Unless you went to a private school that costed 2-4K a course…before you even begin up acquire more college loans you need to pick a very in demand job – nursing, accounting, or trade (HVAC, welding, plumbing, electricity).
Be entirely miserable is what it sounds like lol. either that or get a drastically better job that preferably pays and allows over time, make some side hustles, etc. whatever you can do to make money
Not only will this not work, you don’t want to live with these sort of margins. You’ll have a car problem or some other surprise expense and you’ll never recover.
I would mooch off your grandparents for as long as I could stand to. Save money. Go back to school and try to get a better job. You don’t want to try and live on $15.
If you are still being treated, fedeeal loans offer a cancer forbearance.