r/povertyfinance

I was fortunate enough to purchase a home right at the start of Covid when the prices were still low and the interest rates were like 3%. My mortgage was only $1550 at the time, which I think is very affordable for living in New England.

Unfortunately one day, I get home from work and see a car in my front yard with the rear axle ripped off and my front entrance destroyed. The lady across the street backed into my house.

Fortunately insurance paid for the damages, but I still had to make a claim regardless of whose insurance paid out. After this incident my insurance company dropped me out of the blue and I was put on force placed insurance. This insurance was nearly double what I was paying before. So this alone increased my mortgage like $150/month.

Well I tried shopping around for home insurance, turns out they don't like when you have a claim in the last 5 years because you're high risk. They also don't like people on force placed insurance. Also most companies don't even offer insurance where I live because everywhere within 10 miles of the costs is allegedly considered a flood zone. Well that's fan-fucking-tastic because everywhere in Rhode Island is 10 miles from the coast.

So eventually to get out of forced placed insurance (to hopefully eventually transition to a more affordable insurance) I had to settle for insurance even more dogshit than the forced placed insurance. This added another $100 to the mortgage.

But it gets worse, the escrow account that pays out the insurance and taxes, now had to play catch-up to makeup for the new higher insurance cost.

Needless to say my mortgage payments are now $2035/month up $500 from just a few years ago, and it'll be like this for a while.

Which okay, I could manage that maybe, if everything else wasn't going up in price too. I'm basically barely floating on the surface here trying to not go underwater.

I have noticed, in my time scrolling here for advices, there is a significant population of people who suggest the military will fix their problems. As a veteran myself (USMC 0311 1/6 A) I find this attitude kinda suspect, and bad. I think people should think a hell of a lot harder about a decision like that. When I think back to the people who had the worst times, they basically joined with the same impulse. I am sure those of us who served can remember such people, and the crazy hazing if you go back 10 years ago which I hope went away.

When I think of the people who got the most out of their time, they were generally people who actually wanted to be there and embraced the suck / made the most of it.

any other vets feel the same way seeing the same thing?

I work a dead end warehouse job. I have a college degree in business but it’s pretty worthless. I make around 42k a year. I have 27k in student loans and 3,000 in credit card debt that went to collections so my credit is fucked.

Yeah I don’t know. Starting to feel like there’s no economic opportunities for younger people anymore.

Kinda a rant/vent, kinda looking for input, not sure what the right decision is.

I 26M have worked food service most of my adult life. My last job I was a beertender/barista at a health food joint and I made okay money. Had to get carpal tunnel surgery and couldn't afford to wait the 6 weeks to go back to work so I took the chance to get a job as a teller at a bank.

I love the schedule and I feel like I'm finally building towards something/a career, but I make 16/hr. I've tried making it work. After deductions and medical, rent, bills, utilities, I'm negative $20 before I even think about groceries and gas, let alone debt.

If I go back to bartending or similar, I'll be making enough money to survive and slowly pay off my debts (credit card + medical) with enough to start building my savings back up. I just feel so much shame for "going back." But I can't afford to live on 16/hr and it's impossible to get a second job with my hours. I put out 20+ applications for part time work and they either need availability I don't have or there are 10 other applicants who are the same as me...

I tried to stick it out. I just feel like a failure.

i had an expensive medical bill pop up this month and it put me short on rent. my rent is due this week due to when i moved in. how can i quickly make or borrow 1000 with poor credit?

For background, I have multiple (relatively low limit) credit cards that are maxed out/near maxed out. Yes, I know that’s bad, and that’s why I’m trying to fix it.
I am pretty financially illiterate (hence why I’m in this situation), but I’ve seen advice that says that credit companies don’t like to see you making multiple small payments on credit cards throughout the month.
I am pretty bad at budgeting (again, obviously), so I’m struggling to chip away at this debt and make any significant progress. Would it really be that bad to make multiple small payments on the cards throughout the month to help me catch up?

My husband ran to Kroger last night to grab a few things. It was almost 9 o'clock so about an hour before close. He walked by the hot chicken display and the deli worker told him to grab some and to take as much as he wanted because they were going to throw it away anyway. I have shopped there for years and I never knew that was a thing.

He came home with 2 whole rotisserie chickens, 4 boxes of 8 piece fried chicken and a ton of olives. There was so much we gave some away to a friend. The chicken was still hot from the warming table. I'm sure not all stores do this but its worth asking them what they do with the leftover food at the end of the night.

I am trying to pay off roughly $5000 in credit card debt spread between three different cards. I am in nursing school and have had to take a step back from my primary job as a teacher due to scheduling constraints but I have accepted an offer to return to one of my previous healthcare jobs with some reduced hours so I still have time to meet my school demands. I’m also a single mom and generally struggling financially with no extra help or outside support from extended family or my daughter’s father. I’ve never had anyone to teach me anything about financial literacy.

The card with the $4000 limit is almost maxed out and has an APR of 25%. I’ve been paying off as much as I can with what’s left over after bills.

I’ve been told that taking out a $5000 personal loan from the credit union or bank with a lower APR of 16% or so and having a fixed payment every month would make more sense than making small payments on this card with all my other bills.

What is the best way to tackle this? I want to aggressively pay it off and I’m committed to budgeting and being very frugal as much as I’m able with this goal in mind. I’m happy to DoorDash or do OF (I know I know) as much as I’m able. This is stressing me beyond belief and my credit score has dropped. I’ve never missed a payment, but I have used like 75% of my total available credit.

Please give me advice. Anything helps.

I finally landed a role that i was excited for, and the last 7 months were going extremely well- loved my managers and my team i worked with. We all just were on a work trip literally 3 weeks ago and everything was fine- My job i landed was in sales and honestly i was super stoked for what was to come. For starters i’m 26- and i kinda got into bad debt a few years back when i first moved out on my own, while i dealt with 2 hurricanes and my job at the time wasn’t paying me for any Hurricane relief stuff so i was scrambling to pay rent and took out a loan & opened a CC. FEMA was confusing and i honestly hate myself for not taking better steps to seek help with this type of stuff as I moved from the midwest I truly didn’t understand how any of this assistance stuff worked at the time & my car flooded- it was just a mess.

Well- i thought i finally found a job that was going to help me finally get my debt under control and also being excited about my career with the company. Then out of nowhere last Friday my team and i recieve 30 second phone calls basically saying they are letting us go??? Without any reasoning??? MY WHOLE TEAM- our managers had no idea and my manager even txted me yesterday saying he feels bad for us. We were apart of a training program for the company and we just had a few meetings last week about traveling around our respective areas.

They offered to pay us two more paychecks for “Severance” but i’m just of words.

I have stupid personal loans and CC (not high amounts but crazy interest!) that i was really wanting to pay off.

I also thought I finally found a job that well for one I ACTUALLY WANTED TO DO & was passionate about! I have made a lot of connections with people here about connecting with them when I was done with training. Now i just feel so hopeless and idk where to start with job searching.

idk what im asking for- insight in job opportunities? filling for bankruptcy to get these personal loans that all have like $800-1000 left on them, my CC have like $4000 total, i was so stoked to be ready to sell in the next few months with this role that i was making good money even just with my paychecks i was able to afford the basics.

Now idk what to do or start and been feeling like a failure the last few days.

I know this is a stupid question but i've tried to budgeting my whole life and failed every time. I have a debt of $10,000+, i don't have any savings left unfortunately cause i heard to pay off debt first before you have emergency fund/savings. Is there any application/excel sheets that can help me with this?

Currently 28F, I currently pay $1,000 to live at home with parents in a two story house where I get my own bedroom and bathroom with shared use of the kitchen, utilities included. I end up spending around $70/mo in groceries (mostly for my breakfast) because my mom makes dinner most of the time which I also take to work for lunch.

I make about 70k gross in Los Angeles County. Asking because I want to help them with finances. I hate the idea of paying a stranger for rent when I could just be giving it to my parents, but I want to keep it financially viable for me vs moving out with roommates. I would like to know if $1,000/mo as a $70,000/year earner is a decent ratio?

Only 19 and I've run myself into a hole I can't get out of. I lost my second job and for the last 2 weeks I have been applying to new jobs and for loans for hours a day and nothing. Denied, denied, denied. The only I asset I have to my name is my car and I can't even get a title loan because my parents have the damn title. I have 5 dollars to my name and I'm opperating at a loss of 300-ish a month I genuienly don't know what to do at this point I have been through all my options. The stress is driving me insane and I don't know what to do.

How can anyone survive in this world? I can’t even get groceries or make rent or pay my car. Everything is about to get taken away and I’m working two jobs trying to make it, and doordashing on the side and STRUGGLING. HOW. The second i get paid, it goes to bills. I’m running out of options and people i can ask for help. I’m trying my best but i hate it here so much.

Moved to a city for a new job, my mistake was not considering the cost of living. When I first moved here gas was under $3, 1 bed apartments were $1100, groceries were expensive but only if you went to Albertsons…I’m making $23/hr and I can’t qualify for a one bedroom apartment, but I can’t qualify for income-restricted apartments either. So I’m basically stuck in the middle. Seeing 1 bedroom apartments for $1,500 to $1,800 in a place where jobs advertise $7.50/hr is a joke. Even rooms for rent are charging over a $1000 to live with 3-4 random strangers. I went to a housing assistance facility today to see if I could get any help and they informed me that housing assistance and section-8 were defunded TWO YEARS AGO, and haven’t accepted people to even a waitlist since then. How can a state defund housing assistance while passing laws that allow landlords and property managers to have zero rent caps.

Before you ask. Yes it’s Idaho.

Was going through my electric bill because the numbers looked weird and noticed the deposit I paid when I first moved in was still on the account. I called mostly because I had no idea what it meant.

Apparently after enough on time payments I was eligible to have the $180 applied back as a credit, but nobody ever contacted me about it. I literally just had to ask.

Opening the next bill and seeing basically nothing due felt amazing lol.

Hello all. As the title says my daughter was recently awarded a trust after a distant relative passed away. I won’t say the exact amount here, but it is more than 10k, less than 50k. I currently have it in a high yield savings account, though she also has a UTMA account, which is what the family member’s lawyer said I had to put it in originally to gain access to the money.

I had originally made the account with the idea that the money should be doing something (gaining interest, available to pull out in an emergency) instead of just sitting with the lawyer until she’s 18. However, one thing I didn’t consider (because I’ve never dealt with this quantity of money before) is that because I have access to the money it can be counted against me for government assistance such as food stamps. My plan was NOT to access her money unless absolutely necessary (with her knowledge and permission of course), however food stamps won’t see it that way, and we will most certainly be kicked off the program which we desperately need to make ends meet.

My questions are: Is there some type of account in which my daughter’s money can still gain interest or some value while keeping it separate from me in a way that would get family social services off my back? Is there something more beneficial I could be doing with the money while we wait for her to become of age?

Please keep in mind I have no savings, no experience with large sums of money. I am in the middle of a separation and am basically financially running my household by myself with 2 kids. Any advice is helpful, and I am crossposting for obvious reasons.

Long story short I’m running out of time to scrounge up 500. I’ve been recommended to donate plasma so I’ll be doing that but that’s only 100. Any other quick tips?

And do you feel this will be the accepted norm by then among millennials and Gen Z?

In my line of work, the question of how to cut internet bills comes up constantly, so posting it here in case it helps someone.

If you're on SNAP, Medicaid, SSI, WIC, Section 8, or similar, or your income is under about $32k single / $43k for two, you should know that a handful of nonprofits and community orgs across the country buy data wholesale from the big carriers and resell unlimited 5G plans for $10-15 a month. The catch is most make you buy the hotspot, $60-150 upfront.

A few nonprofits will rent the device to you instead, so you're paying roughly $25 a month with nothing down. None of them run credit checks from what I know. Search your city plus "low income hotspot program." Bring an actual award letter, dated recently. They will probably reject a photo of your EBT card.

If you don't have government benefits, I still think it's worth it for you to know that prepaid carrier data plans will take ... basically anyone. They typically start around $10 a month for a few GB, up to $50 for 100GB, and then maybe charge like $50-100 for the device. Yes, by the way, they're probably gonna cap you, and if you hit the cap the device usually shuts off or crawls.

If you have a K-12 kid and they're on free school lunch, I also highly advise that you ask the school for help with your internet bill. I'm serious. There are still active carrier education programs that do stuff like hand out free hotspots and usually these have a couple hundred gigs of free usage a year.

Whatever you do, I implore you: please skip the day-rental hotspot services. These always, always, ALWAYS pencil out to $200-300 a month, and the postpaid carrier gear is worse because, if you lose the device, you're out like $350 minimum right there.

Really hope this helps, guys.