I’m a week late on rent due, I only paid half, I had to call all my credit card companies and utilities to tell them what’s going on. And now my check engine light turned on because the bastard is misfiring. My wife lost her dad which fucked us both up due to missing a ton of work, and I don’t know what to do. I’m tired of asking my family for help, the for bank is only available while I’m working, I work 2 jobs. My wife is working too and we’re even took in a person to live in our spare room.
How in the world do people survive in this world when they don’t even have time to be happy? I use upside for gas and shopping I’m enrolled in every stores rewards program, I make my own cleaning supplies to save money and cook from scratch. What else could I do to save money? Also with the looming government shutdown I’m going to be furloughed for however long that is. Also what are some apps you guys use to help save money? I guess this is a lot of questions.
Go to your local food bank. Food banks are often seriously underused programs that are exactly for people in your situation. A lot of people are hesitant to use food pantries because they perceive them to be for people in worse shape than themselves. But if you are only able to pay half rent, you are exactly the person that food pantries are more than happy to help. They are typically staffed with incredible people who often have their own experiences with trouble making ends meet, and these days you can get some very high quality and fresh food. Please, go. Other than that, know that being tired and feeling hopeless is normal, but you can persevere. Just reaching out here is a really hard step that takes a lot of courage. Good on you! And good luck! Internet hugs!!!
I was lucky to be born in relatively fortunate circumstances and it infuriates me whenever I hear about the failures of our society.
And it doesn’t even have to be like this, there are rich people hoarding money, resources and power, and fucking up the environment and the peoples’ lives in the process.
I don’t know how to fix this, but the first step is recognising the problem at least.
It should infuriate us all. Some of the most intelligent people on the planet are cleaning toilets, while complete dipshits run entire countries or huge corporations.
Imagine how far we would have come, if it wasn’t for the fact that cunts are still running the world. We’d likely have colonized the solar system by now.
The “good” news - and your landlord might benefit from hearing this in advance - is that as I understand it, you’ll be paid salary for any shutdown period, after it’s resolved. Could be a meaningful amount of money depending on how long. Making sure the ll understands that could buy you some time, but depends on them.
I’ll assume you don’t qualify for any assistance programs given a gov salary and a second job plus your wife’s income. But…. Check anyway. Some states are rather more generous.
I THINK you might be eligible for unemployment during any shutdown, but generally there’s a waiting period of a week, it’s max 2/3 of income with a hard cap, and I cannot cite a source that says you do qualify. Worth diggging into, very state specific.
I’ve taken to gig work, so that the misc money I spend on myself doesn’t come off “rea” income. With a second job that might not be practical, but might be for your wife if you live in or near a relatively safe city. I ignore gigs in my hometown entirely, I make more in the nearest major city and they have “hourly” pay there so I make something worthwhile even without a tip (25% of orders don’t tip, roughly, from my experience).
As far as your mental health, which is the real focus here…. A couple things come to mind.
It’s short term hardship, you need to get through days or weeks - not a way of life. Understanding and actually internalizing that has helped me through some significant rough patches.
If at all possible, don’t short groceries or the miscellaneous money your wife spends on little stuff, including her. You don’t function well without decent food. Aldi is one possibility, can be cheaper for some things.
I’d expect family to be sympathetic to the potential shutdown, but I understand feeling like you shouldn’t ask for more. Guess what, though - they know the position you’re in already, and the potential shutdown is public knowledge as well. OTOH, that’s assuming they are decent humans and that they have the money in the first place. I don’t and can’t know if either are true.
Gotta be honest, selling stuff is a) getting ripped off, b) depressing af, and c) you’ll have to spend money to replace it down the road. It’s to be avoided if at all possible, for all of those reasons.
You’ve already rented a room, that’s more than I’d be able to do - I WFH so the spare room is my office, and the only place I can maintain some confidentiality of data, which is a base expectation of the field.
Don’t know how far behind you are on utilities, but most states make it fairly easy to find just how far you can push “past due”, and what arrangements can be made.
Some states require reasonable payment arrangements to split the bill across future months, some don’t. Worth exploring. You want to keep the lights on, at nearly any cost, because usually they’ll expect entire past due amount plus deposit to reconnect. Same for gas/water, as applicable.
Comcast has offered 10 day extensions to me,for internet only. Have to chat and ask for it, though that may vary by state as well
Also…. Remember there’s no guarantee a shutdown will occur, or last a long time. As we saw, last minute action is very possible. Also, if I remember the timeline correctly, we passed a 45 day CR and there are still 30 ish days left before that happens.
Food pantries if needed - no one there is judging, they wouldn’t volunteer if they did. You almost certainly will walk out with way more stuff than you expected. You’ll need to fill in holes, but that’s a short term way to reduce your grocery bill by a meaningful amount, since most staples are there.
Take care of yourself, it matters. The mental health side of this creates a slippery slope that’s easy to descend into and hard to get out of. Even if that just means sometimes buying a thing you particularly like as a reward for getting through the week. Compare the cost of me making a crab cake once a month, with the cost of additional therapy because I tried to live with zero extras. Silly example, but total self-denial is positively brutal to your brain, and tends to turn desire into cravings.
Wish I had more advice, but I hope something in there helps. You probably took a gov job at least partially because it (generally) offers stability, I’m sorry that our leg branch can’t seem to maintain that.
One more thing - unless you’re likely to get a giant pay bump, now is probably not the time to look for a new job. That takes time to spin up and find the right one, and the long term hit to eg any pension is significant. It also doesn’t solve immediate issues, since generally checks are delayed a pay cycle or so for processing.
Again, I’m sorry this is happening to you, and I wish I could do more for you and your colleagues. You have no dog in this fight, and neither your nor the military’s paychecks should be impacted.
Thanks I’ve talked with a bunch of coworkers about what I can do if this happens. I can apply for food stamps if the government shutdown and we get a letter to explain everything to my creditors.as for unemployment I can but will have to immediately pay it back.
I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for almost 20 years now. Sometime durring that there are times where it would get bad, every little thing seemed like the end of the world, and I would need to just ride it out. Durring those times I have a rather morbid but effective saying I would say to myself. It’s kind of a bastardization of the army EOD motto which is officially “Initial sucess or total failure”. It makes sense because when someone is defusing a bomb and they fail then the bomb goes off and they die. But logic would dictate that if they’re not dead then they haven’t failed yet. So when my brain is being uncooperative about something I did I just think to myself “That didn’t kill me so I didn’t fail yet.” It’s just a way to remind myself that unless a decision I make or thing that happens actually kills me, I still have a chance to fix it.
As far as actual help with money and budgeting I can’t be much help because Im in the same boat myself. There was a budgeting app I used a while back called “You Need A Budget” (I think the app is just named YNAB). It works really well for actually seeing exactly where all your money is going. The only problem I had with it is that it just assumes that you will actually make enough money to fully cover all of your expenses and as I’m sure you’re aware that isn’t always the case when you’re broke.
As far as more immediate help I have personally been using a payday loan app called earnin to help buffer some expenses. It’s nice because it doesn’t directly charge any interest on the money you borrow. Instead it just asks for “tips” and you can just choose to tip $0 if money is really tight. It does guilt you a bit for doing that but it doesn’t stop you. I normally tip $6 and it doesn’t complain about that. You can borrow up to $100 per day up to your pay period limit which is based on how much you make and will go up based on you reliably making payments and if you tip at all (don’t do the default tip, $6 is plenty to make it go up) If you want let me know and I can send you my link (I think we both get $25) but just posting it here makes me feel like a spam bot.
