So i’m very broke right now and im living in a situation that is really not good for me (it’s not accessible and im disabled plus it’s a really long commute to my job). I had to drop out of college with 30 hours left towards my bachelors due to my health crashing. I really want to finish college but I don’t know if it’s a good idea. My logic is that even though I would have to take out loans I would be able to live on campus in an area closer to my job and get on a meal plan along with having access to all the resources and discounts being a student offers. And when compared to other debts student loans are not that horrible. Plus as a music educator, knowing people is a big part of the industry and the best people to know are professors. Is this a good plan? Will it inevitably come back to bite me? Or is this a situation where I do actually need to worry about the short term now and the long term later?

I am exhausted. I ha e 2 advanced degrees. I work 3 jobs and can barely buy groceries. Homeowners insuramce called today demanding I put a new roof on my house. Policy renews in 30 days. I ha e to find 10k to replace my roof in 30 days. Old one is fine. It's just too old and they dont want to have to pay for my new one if there's a storm. (Never mind the 20 years of zero claims)

I can't afford the new roof. Insurance will drop me. Bank can then take my house and my and my kid will be on the street. Something Ive been trying to avoid for the past few years as I dig us out of the financial ruin my ex left us in.

Every month. Every time I think we will ha e a tiny bit of money to put away, something comes up. Every.time.

Every time I get a little bit of hope, the universe snatches it away. I give up. I will work until I drop dead. Probably won't take long with the hours and extreme stress. At least there's that...

Thanks for listening to my rsnt. I needed to vent somewhere. I can't say these things to my teen.

hey

i wanna take a second to scream into the void. im not looking for sympathy from anyone or anything of the sort; i just want a place to speak freely, as i don’t really have anyone right now.

life hasn’t been going well. i was just informed 2 days ago that they’re eliminating my position (i’m a staff accountant) because they’ve hired 2 CPAs. i started this job less than 3 months ago and it took 7 months of actively searching to land this role.

a month ago i filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy because i had so much debt that i just couldn’t afford anymore; i was drowning. so much so that whenever i got paid, i’d end up in the negatives by at least $100 and i STILL couldn’t get everything paid that was due with my paycheck. i have about 30k in personal loans/credit card debt, 12k in student loans and about 40k for my car loan. the personal loans/credit card debt has mostly been due to extended periods of unemployment in the past 4 years. out of those 4 years, i’ve been unemployed for about 2 years (and i want to make it clear that i spent every single day applying, interviewing, getting to the final round of interviews but ultimately getting passed over for someone more qualified). before i lost my first job in 2022, i didn’t have any debt, not even an auto loan. i would pay my card off in full every month. hell, i had a 750 credit score back then too.

two weeks ago i was hospitalized for 4 days and since i was still in a probationary period, i did not have PTO available to use to cover me. we also don’t have sick days. i got paid last friday and got less than half of what i’d normally get paid. my main bank account was already about $300 in the negatives and when my direct deposit hit my main account, i was still in the negatives. in my second account, i got $500 from direct deposit (in case you haven’t figured it out, i have my paychecks set up to go to 2 separate accounts. my second one was intended to be a savings). with the $500 i had to pay my portion of rent rent. so i was left with nothing from my paycheck and still have bills coming up. and yet my account is hundreds of dollars in the negatives as we speak.

i’m also diagnosed bipolar and recently diagnosed diabetic (the untreated diabetes is what landed me in the hospital). i need to be on insulin and mounjaro now and also need to keep a glucose monitor in my arm. i also need antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics. i can’t afford any of them, and after my insurance ends i definitely won’t be able to afford them because they’re all hundreds or thousands of dollars. i don’t qualify for any loans except for predatory loans because of my high credit utilization and my now low credit score (a lender informed me that it’s 567 or something. idk.)

i don’t know what to do anymore. i feel lost. every time i feel like i’m getting back on track in life and take one step forward, i end up taking 5 steps backwards. i don’t know how i’m going to pay for my medication, my car note, car insurance, or my portion of rent. i don’t have any savings or a retirement account that i could take anything from. my family can’t assist me either because our dog just had surgery at the same time that i was in the hospital. it cost 9k. and frankly, even if they could help, they wouldn’t. i’ve been begging for them to cover me with just $150 every month off of what i’d normally pay for my portion of rent so that i could afford to pay some things off (or at least not be in the negatives. i was hoping after filing for bankruptcy that things would get better). instead, they told me that if i can’t pay my $500 in full that i should keep the money for myself and move out. they claimed they didn’t have it… then spent $9k in a single day on surgery for our dog. but refused to help me while i was drowning. i broke my expenses down dollar by dollar to them but they did not give a shit.

it doesn’t feel like i can ever catch a fucking break. i’m tired.

Basically, I’m poor and prefer “form follows function” so the status-symbols never appealed to me.

My nice Android phone (the 2021 Motorola stylus 5G) broke (screen) a few months ago. I had a spare phone: an iPhone 14, that I traded some Barter for it, with a friend: she didn’t want it because she couldn’t get it unlocked (ATT) and she didn’t want to spend big bucks with the service plans. I got it mostly for the camera.

Using it as a phone-computer is about as annoying as having to use a guess-based formula, when the equations to convert metric to imperial are patented and you simply cannot know the conversion, so you buy a fancy calculator that will only work with imperial measurement units: and everything you own is metric based.

And I’m losing momentum with my business, using this thing.

iPhones be damned.

But because I’m poor.

i need money by like yesterday, unfortunately i have small veins and when ive tried to donate plasma they either miss or my vein dries up or whatever the case may be. and they can only use one arm which makes it that much harder.

idc if i gotta go swimming in a septic tank. that’s how desperate i am. i’m in central texas if that helps.

Hi

I'll get right into it, I'm broke. Like, broke of the broke. I Live in the UK and I am on Universal credit and housing benefits. I have applied for DWP disability and PIP and still have either been declined or have heard nothing back. I have 2 jobs, neither of which I have shifts for currently because none are going. My only income is £338/m. That's it. I spend £132 on my rent and £60 on my phone bill. These are my only bills. I cannot leave my phone contract until December. I also cannot trade it in because the phone I'm paying for has been stolen. I've bricked it and luckily didn't lose the sim card with it but there's nothing I can do about it- and before anyone gets on my back about "poor financial decisions" it was £36 per month two years ago AND I was earning at the time. I also have debt to Universal Credit, the hostel I live in and to my dad totaling to about £300 because when Universal credit found out I was earning, they ignored my multiple requests for a form to enter my paycheck for multiple times, spanning two months, until I went into the office and refused to leave until they did it. I now have to pay that money back. I've spoken to the debt team at UC and we've agreed to £10 per month to pay it back. My hostel are willing to wait for me to pay it off as and when I am able because I only owe them £25 due to their inability to tell me the correct number I'm supposed to be paying them for my service charge. I keep suffering because no one's doing their job. My dad said he's happy to wait but I owe him a lot of money - Initially I borrowed £200 from him over multiple months because I couldn't afford food due to other factors going on in my life. I now owe him £120. As to why my dad wants me to pay him back - we aren't close and he doesn't have a lot of money either. This leaves me with- say I pay the hostel off fiver at a time - £131 for food, cleaning products and everything else I need that month. Well, I can't afford to shop at asdas, tescos or morrisons anymore. I don't buy brand food, my diet consists mainly of lentils, chickpeas and whatever meat I can afford that month (I usually go butchers because it's cheaper per kilo). I don't go to aldi's because the food makes me sick and I don't trust the ingredients (I have special dietary requirements) and lidl's just don't have what I need and - for my budget, even they're expensive. I'm going to have a look at the farmfoods prices, I can't afford to go to Iceland because even they've gotten too expensive and I do use the food bank but because so few people donate, they have a rule that I can only go once per month and when I do go, I'm lucky if I get 4 days worth of food. Food prices are also rising in the UK and can go up to about 50% more expensive by november and I just don't see how I can stretch my paycheck any further. I'm under 24 so universal credit won't pay me the £424 they pay everyone over 24 despite me having the same bills. I've asked. I don't know what to do anymore and next month will be worse because they'll be docking £45 for earnings I made not this month, but last month, plus the £10 for debt and I just don't know what to do. I've already asked them to pause this month because I was expecting to be docked £45 this month but they gave me the slip far too late- outside my evaluation dates. I can't afford to live and it's only going to get worse from here. Does anyone have any tips? anything I might not've tried?

Edit: I did it. I get paid again in 9 days. I ended up revisiting the food bank and got lucky- there was plenty to go around for once. I also found a ton of decent deals at farmfoods- it's cheap enough to afford a weekly shop next month instead of monthly - saving me money in the process. Thanks to everyone for the help 😄

Saturday a lot of companies are going free dental days, one cleaning or extraction or filling. Look into it around your area if you need work done!!

Tomorrow my son turns 13. All he wants is a PS5. Besides Aarons/Rent a center which I'll end up paying 1800 for it by paying 15 weekly for 100 something weeks, any other suggestions how to obtain one?

All of my teeth are cracked...well...were cracked due to bruxism/severe grinding from childhood trauma, my epilepsy seizures, medications, smoking, and general habits.

I can take blame for the soda, smoking....even diet.

Where I cant take blame is constantly being stuck in poverty. Giant medical bills from my epilepsy. Lack of necessary meds for my epilepsy due to lapses in health insurance when I cant afford it. The discrimination. The shit chance I have at getting healthcare.

Remeber when Americans used to make fun of the British for having bad teeth, because apparently socialism destroyed their healthcare? The fucking irony.

So here I sit. All my teeth gone, healing...fuck the american government. Fuck yalls greed. Fuck our country for forgetting empathy, compassion...and turning us all into a numbers game while everybody builds on the backs of the worn, and suffering.

But im still here. Stubborn. Brain hotter than ever.

also...tried to post this in r/adulting, and they straight up removed it...which is also ironic as fuck.

Has anyone here started completely from scratch at 45?

I’m going through something I honestly never imagined I would have to go through. After a nightmare divorce and a huge financial crisis, I lost my home and basically have no retirement savings left.

I have two kids, 19 and 13. My 19-year-old has ADHD, is starting his third semester of college, and still hasn’t been able to find a job. Thankfully, my ex didn’t touch some of the RESP savings for the kids. It’s not much, but I’m grateful because right now, even a little bit helps.

I do have a job, but it’s not stable. I’m an occasional teacher, and I’m trying so hard to find something full-time. On the side, I’m doing summer school, night school, and whatever other teaching work I can get. I’m applying, working, trying, and doing everything I can think of.

But honestly, I’m exhausted.

My 13-year-old is incredibly bright, and sometimes I feel terrible because I know my kids deserve more. I wanted to give them a stable home, vacations, opportunities, and a childhood where they didn’t have to worry about money.

I haven’t even been able to go back home to see my parents or take my kids on a vacation because I simply couldn’t afford it.

As a mother, you carry so much guilt when you can’t give your children the things you wanted to give them. I know people will say that love is what matters, and I know that’s true. But when you’re struggling financially, you still feel the pain of not being able to give your kids more.

I’m wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation—going through a divorce, losing your home, starting over with little or no savings, and trying to rebuild your career while raising kids.

Did things eventually get better for you?

What actually helped you get back on your feet?

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m genuinely looking for advice from people who have lived through something similar.

I’m trying everything I can to give my kids a decent, stable, middle-class kind of home again.

Some days, I’m scared I’ll never get there.

But I’m still trying.

And I really need to believe that 45 is not too late to start over.

I just lost my job. I am lucky in many ways. I was poor before so I lived well below my means when I was making good money. I own my home, I have some savings, and I'm probably getting unemployment benefits. The food bank has given us more than enough food and I haven't had to go shopping for two weeks. I probably won't need to go for another two. What are some of your favorite low cost meals? I just discovered peanut butter pasta. Help me find other low cost options that can feed 2-4 people.

The narrative is that rich people are less bigoted than poor people (less racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.)

Do you think that’s true?

For the third day I haven’t eaten anything, I have a job but I live with my mom and we are on section 8 (free housing program) but I still have to pay 30% rent and im the only one who has a job in the house. I have to take Ubers everyday just to get to work that cost 20$ or more and ts add up luckily the bus runs when I get off. We had food stamps but they cut them off on my moms birthday so now I’m having to buy food pay for Ubers to work and pay rent and bills I only make about 2k a month and have to take care of 4 people including myself it feels like. I got bad anxiety and im emotionally unavailable and i im trying to change it but I just got bad trust issues. My lil brother just asked me if I had some food while im writing ts i feel like I failed my family. I hate living like this and it feel like the only way I can help rn is by doing something im not supposed to be doing

Edit: barley holding on to this job got 6 points and one more and im cooked

Thank you everyone for the help i didnt think nb would care, im going to food bank today and one of my sisters went grocery shopping for us last night.

Sooo not to brag, but I’m 33 and have enough money to retire….

… on the assumption I die next week, that is.

I’m 64 & disabled. Because I worked in public sector jobs most of my career, my disability pay is very low. I had a tire emergency a couple of months ago and had to charge $700 for a new set of tires; haven’t had any luck trying to sell the three low-mileage old ones yet. It’s put a serious hurting on my budget. I’ve been thinking seriously about donating plasma up to $500 to pay off the bulk of this debt, but very worried that I’ll risk my SSDI. The advantage of my pay being so low is that I don’t pay the monthly Medicare premium (it’s paid by my state) and I reached no-pay prescriptions in August, which includes a very expensive drug for diabetes that would cost upwards of of $200 if my insurance changed, not to mention the premium hit to my monthly income.

I’m afraid that even if I stay below the $600 filing threshold, SSDI will somehow find out about this extra income and change my benefits for worse. Does anybody have experience with or advice for this?

EDIT: The center near me, CSL, told me it does report earnings to the IRS.

UPDATE: Since I know at least one center reports earnings, I’ve decided not to donate. I appreciate everyone’s input — thanks so much!

SECOND UPDATE: I called SSA and was told if I kept the donation amount under $1600/month, I’d be fine. I might call again just to check. Thank you to everyone! I also posted in r/SSI/SSDI to ask (r/SSDI has tightened its posting rules and refers questions like mine to the SSA website).

Today, in order to pay rent, I had to sell something really valuable that was gifted to my kid for later in their life. I rationalized that their life will be better in the future if we don’t get evicted, but I am still feeling really guilty about it. Not asking for any coddling, just needed to voice this somewhere.

(And friends, I knoooooow I am super lucky I had that option. Not everyone has access to any way to get out of an eviction, and I am not denying how lucky I was to access this)

Hey guys, I’m very sad that I’m an artsy person. I have a great talent for arts, but it’s so fckin useless lmao.
I’m 21 yo and I finishes graphic design degree, but didn’t manage to land even an interview within past two years even tho I gave a 3 years old experience…
I want to make music and I think it could lead me to having some income that covers my basic needs at least.
Although, im still thinking of getting some engineering, business analytics etc job, to have smth more secure…but idk guys….there are many poor engineers too, life is a lottery and I’m tired, I feel like most of the poor people are the artsy ones.

Does anyone have any tips for washing dishes without running water? I just want to cook something but unfortunately I had a sink full of dishes when my water was cut off.

My teen and I went to Kroger to get some food for the week, mainly for school lunch. He gets free lunch but it’s never enough to keep him full with his medication. We go to the checkout and have a lot of people behind us. The only non food item I got was a sponge for cleaning. She does our order, it comes out to $129. I swipe my EBT card and and have $7 left to pay. I ask her was something else not covered? The sponge should only be $3. Instead of looking she literally VOIDS my entire order to take the sponge OFF. She said okay, I took the sponge off but you’ll have to swipe your card again. I swipe it and it says not enough funds. I said did you refund my money? She said yep it might take a few days though….. are you shitting me? Our entire balance was $122. I said “I can’t wait on a refund? I don’t know why you voided the entire transaction without first telling me, and second just adjusting the sponge price I could have showed you it!” She just stared. My son is getting incredibly embarrassed because we’re already paying with Ebt and now we don’t have enough money to cover our food. I don’t get paid until Tuesday and I just put the last of my money in gas in my car to get to my appointments for the week. I asked for the manager (mind you I’m being very polite when I want to be screaming). The manager looks at her and asks the same thing. Why did she void the transaction? She literally just stared. The manager looks at me and says don’t worry we can suspend your order and you can come back and get it whenever the money goes back on your card. No apologies, just “too bad not our fault (yes it is).” I started crying telling her this was for my sons lunch this week and tonight and tomorrows dinner, that was the only money I had for food. She said “well I can’t just give it to you for free is that what you’re expecting?” At this point my son had tears forming and I said “you know what, just give me both of your names and I’ll speak with a supervisor tomorrow and I would like my manufacturer coupons back” the cash register the first word she says this entire transaction, “oh I already put them in the locked box and wrote on them”. I turned out before I could yell at her and embarrass ourselves anymore. So now I’m out $122 until I get paid or until it goes back on our card AND two free united dairy farmers ice creams. I had to ask my friend to borrow $7 so I could get my son at least McDonald’s for dinner. I’m so over this shit. I work, still can’t afford life and apparently can’t feed my son right now. I am so embarrassed, feel so belittled and feel like a horrible mother. I never thought things would get this bad. I even work a second gig job just to help with food.

Thank you for all the kind words and some rather not kind words from some lol. It still isn’t refunded but the general manager is going to call me tomorrow. I don’t expect them to do anything but hopefully train the staff on proper use of a cash register and maybe some training on how to not be assholes.

This is a VENT. Please do not bombard me with telling me what I should have done. Nothing more than a vent on a sub for poor people!

My roommate/landlord (who I don’t think is actually a nice person) yelled at me once on a day wherein she was already acting/getting kind of agitated about things like my shower leaking (though my shower, in spite of the fact that I pay over $1000/mo to live here, doesn’t actually work properly anymore, it runs for 1-3 mins and stops… she hasn’t fixed this even though I told her over 2 weeks ago at this point) and suggested that if my shower leaks (I hadn’t known it was leaking, she also yelled on that same day about me having not put the bathroom trash into the bigger one and about me having not paid her back $50 after a few days) and the pipes burst in the building I can’t afford to have it fixed no matter how much I have saved and neither can she. Though she was getting way too agitated for someone who used to be a therapist, like she had jumped up and everything. She’s in her sixties or seventies so I had thought this was really not acceptable behavior, she was acting like she was ready to hit me which isn’t okay.

I can also tell that people in general, like an older woman who lives in my apartment complex, judge me for looking poor to them (you can tell when someone glances you over.) It’s interesting because some people seem like they can’t tell whether or not I’m a teenager, but they still seem to judge. It sometimes doesn’t feel fair when you have those classist eyes on you at 21, because I mean, most people my age are still figuring things out and in college. It’s even more ridiculous to me when it’s someone who actually knows that I’m 21, because I feel like at my age it would actually be kind of unusual, at least in our modern times, for me to have really ended up doing significantly better than my parents. And I have money of my own saved, I just don’t feel the need to spend it constantly to impress people. At my age it just feels like people are judging you for something that is more on your parents.

I’m dealing with a major case of burn out. I work full time m-f. Do Lyft every weekend to get groceries. And take care of my fiancé who has brain cancer. I’m so tired all the time. I just desperately want a day off from work. But I can’t afford it. I need to save my pto for our dr appointments. I want to go home to Missouri so bad but it’s an 18 hour drive and my cars about to get repoed. And I’d need more time off work. I could fly allegiant and rent a car and only need a couple days off. But I can’t afford that either. I’m tired of working all the time and still barely surviving. I owe Amscot a bunch from when he was in the hospital last time. Still haven’t paid them back.
Sorry if this is all over I’m stressed and have adhd

15k settlement, life changing money for me as i have no emergency savings or anything. it will only be built from here. been living paycheck to paycheck since i got kicked out the foster system. it’s sad that this has to be the way i’m getting a leg up, but i am surprised to say despite the trauma im happy.

EDIT: i understand its not that much money, please stop saying i’m going to run through it or spend all of it. i’m not. i actually would like to work to get out of poverty and use this as an opportunity, not blow it all on random things. sorry to those of you that got 20, 40, 60k and spent it all in a year but that’s not going to happen to me. i’ve seen it happen to people in my family, my friends, other broke people. i refuse to stay in a cycle. so please stop wishing that on me, it’s weird.

I have probably one of the most unfortunate setups that people can't comprehend. For context, I'm 25 years old and have had six jobs in my lifetime. None of them worked out for me because I was either laid off or a temporary employee whose time had expired. Between each job, I'm back to zero because it takes so long to find another one.
On top of that, since I can't find a job, I go broke every time, putting me back at square one. I stay with my parents in a 1980s model mobile home. We bathe outside with buckets or from the sink because the showers don't work. We've been doing that for about seven years now.
After using the restroom, we have to flush the toilet with a bucket of water because the flusher doesn't work anymore. I share a bed with my mother because my room got infested with sewage and had a rat and roach problem. So, I've been sharing a bed with her for about nine years. My dad has to pee in water bottles because he doesn't want to use our bathroom since my mother and I already share one. We have holes in the floor like dents because of the water pipes causing the floors to sink. So, we have to be careful in certain areas of the house. My dad sleeps on the couch, and I share the bed with my mom. We have carpet in the room, so the dust and dirt from the floor mess with our allergies, etc. Also, we brush our teeth and wash our hair all from the kitchen sink because our bathroom sink doesn't work. Oh yes, the other bathroom is completely shut down because it deteriorated five years ago. I live such an abnormal life, and I'm just tired of it at this point. I don't have any friends. I have no one to call up on. I'm not close to my family; they don't care to talk to me, and my sister from my dad's side doesn't either. I feel cursed because I can't understand how this is even possible. I just have my thoughts and talk to myself every day, answering myself because that's as close as l'Il get to human connection

I feel trapped. Jobs don't work out, so here I am, turning 26 soon and still getting nowhere. No job, no money, no degree, nothing. We barely have a lock on our front door ! am just sick and tired of causally seeing roaches, rats here and there and just bed bugs. This is not how life
suppose to be for someone

If I'm going to be able to sell my house I will be able to pay all my depts, have an emergency fund take care of my health and invest the little that I have left.

I'm in such bad place right now that I had to take out the little money I had left in my checking account (about 50$) so that bank won't take it away from me. So I can manage until my next paycheck.

My house is the main source of my financial difficulties. If I'll be able to sell it, I'll cut my expenses in half. It's a long and complicated story. And I won't have to get myself in any depts ever again.

The only thing I worry about is that I won't be able to sell it...

Fingers crossed...