This month I am working on improving my finances by getting a second job. It's worked out for me in the past, except this time around it won't be a daily commitment. I don't really need it, as I'm not broke broke, but it will help me pay down debts and give me a little fun money. I'm in a weird stage where I have an actual living-wage-paying job, but am still reeling from the effects of being broke for so long and spending the last of my savings moving across the state in order to obtain said job. It's a transitional phase.
The last time I took a second job, I was living off ramen noodles struggling to keep a roof over my head. Payday was a treat where I would go to McD's and get a McDouble (back when it was still on the dollar menu) and a small coke. That was my twice-monthly treat. The rest of the time, it was ramen noodles. Sometimes I would afford veggies to supplement the noodles. Meat was out of the question. Between my ex and I, we made $1000 too much annually to qualify for food assistance so I got a job as a paper courier and got up at 3 AM every single day to deliver papers. 3 AM, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I kept that job for nine years, which was probably at least eight years two long. I was living in the cheapest apartment you could find in town
I always laugh at budget advice I read to help poor people be less poor. Buy less coffee and less avocado toast. When you are poor, you are not buying those things. You're buying the bare essentials and eating the cheapest food you can find. You're turning off the heat and bundling up. You're putting off things like car maintenance for another month, hoping that missing an oil change doesn't turn into a more costly repair down the road.
The thing that made me laugh most was an article I saw recently that had a breakdown of what a household budget could look like. "You should put 10% of your net income toward debts". I laughed. Even now that I'm not broke, I think between student debts, medical debts, credit cards, and my auto loan, my monthly minimums come out to more than 10% of my net income (and you always want to pay more than the minimums, as those same budget sites will always tell you). I am sure those lenders would love it if I told them sorry, can't make the minimum payments because only 10% of my income goes to debts.
I admit I am shit at budgeting. My method has always been pay whatever upcoming bills are due on payday and use whatever's leftover to attempt to afford food and gas until the next payday. Should there magically happen to be money leftover, that can go into savings, but for many years there wasn't money leftover. It was never about dedicating a certain percentage of your income toward budget categories. It was pay your bills and hope you can afford food after. I count myself lucky, since I was able to have enough to at least cover my bills on time; I've known plenty who didn't even have that luxury, and not because they were living beyond their means either.
I don't have the magic advice to help people who really need it. I just wish there was some real advice out there, instead of just telling people to stop eating avocado toast (I've never eaten avocado toast). My only advice is pay all the fixed bills come payday, and then try to survive off what's left. Also beans and rice are cheap and if you eat them together it's a complete protein. My doctor doesn't like it because she says I need a healthier and more diverse diet but fuck it, she can cut the avocado toast out of her diet and pass the savings to me so I can buy veggies. Until then, cope as best as you can.
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