I’m in my 30s so I should be used to this by now, but this shit is getting so stressful guys. I have no savings, my checking account is drained every month with rent, and if there’s ever a serious emergency I have no safety net, I’m legitimately fucked. I’m one unplanned expense away from absolute ruin. Those in the same boat as me, how do you deal with this?
Are you living with a roommate? If not, you can save money by doing this.
Have you thought about changing careers? Look for federal, state, and city programs that will pay you to learn a trade. Or look for a job that has on the job training — like an electronics or factory job, or doing tech support.
Do you qualify for assistance programs — like food pantries or food stamps? There’s no shame in it. Helping you get back on your feet is what these programs are for.
Are you living with a roommate? If not, you can save money by doing this.
I lived with roommates for like 9 years before I was able to move out on my own. I hate that it’s a luxury to live by yourself and have true privacy.
If you don’t have immediate obligations such as kids, older, or sick family members/friends.
The industry is full of crap but I went from food service to driving a semi. 4 week school paid for by the company(after signing a 1yr contract) do that one year knowing it’s going to suck and then find something local you like or stay on the road and do online school/self study. Most all of the big US based companies have partnered with online colleges to heavily discount the cost.
I did it as an emergency to save for a year and get out but ended up liking it and now work in safety with no school, just experience.
One year is nothing. Even for crap work. It seems like a long time but when you look back it often was a breeze.
I recall signing up for the military that was going to be A 4 year stint. When your 19, that seems like a lifetime. It gave me 4 years to sort myself out. You can have a girlfriend and social life in that period but you do not start a family or great commitments. That year or few years is to get your life started.
I’m not really the correct person to answer this, since I’m not struggling to the same degree as you are.
However I once heard a good tip on how to save money. Most people, when they receive their salary spent it first on the necessities (food, rent, etc) and then save the remainder (if anything is left). But instead you should first save a percentage of your pay before spending on any necessities. That way, your brain will try to make the best use the remaining money to survive the best it can
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It ain’t pretty, but here’s how I got through it until I started bringing in good money:
- No takeout or eating out ever
- Get a water filter pitcher and a nice water bottle. Drink only water.
- Every paycheck, take out $200 or whatever you can afford. This is your “fun and gas” money. Your gas, hobbies, social life, and dating comes out of this fund. Whatever is leftover when your next paycheck hits goes into savings.
- If you can rent a physically smaller place, do so. It will save on utilities.
- Don’t buy a car unless public transportation or biking is not viable in your area.
- Meal plan with the goal of zero food waste. So if you plan to buy an onion and will use half of it in one meal, make sure you have another meal planned that week that uses the other half. Do this with every ingredient. If you’re careful and creative you should never have to throw away food. - On this note, get good at cooking. It’s much cheaper to cook from scratch.
- Cancel your streaming services and learn to pirate safely.
This works but isn’t a great way to live. You need to combine it with a plan to either make more money or relocate to a cheaper area while maintaining your current income.
One caveat with the food tip is that eating absolute garbage like highly processed frozen food is still gonna be cheaper. I guess it’s cause they put so much preservatives and so those have such a long shelf life. Not that I’m advocating for eating that but cooking for yourself is a cheap way to eat something nutritious. But as somebody who’s gone through the same grind, it’s still honestly just cheaper to eat garbage. But, I legitimately just feel better, think better, and overall am better on food I cook myself. And that improvement has knock on effects for the rest of everything you do in life.
- If you have the option, buy stuff you’re always gonna need anyway in bulk when they’re on offer. Toilet paper, pasta, rice (except right now rice prices are exploding), coffee etc.
- if your super market has marked down prices for “last date” or “close to use by” stuff, that section needs a visit every time you are in the super market
- if you have a freezer, you have even more incentive for previous 2 tips
Something had gotta break soon. Right? Right? How can this go on like this. I look around and how is not everyone collapsing?
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They said "how is everyone not collapsing* and the answer is that a huge majority of adults have jobs that pay well enough
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Back in my twenties we never went out, no cellphones, set goals, and did things cheaply.
Back in my twenties I worked for a couple dollars above minimum wage and had to donate plasma in order to make rent. Hell, “consider donating plasma as an extra revenue stream” is probably more helpful advice than “never go out; don’t have a cellphone; set goals.”
Also, people.need plasma so you are helping your community too
Why even mention no cell phones?
In the 1700s they budgeted by not paying all electric bill! So frugal. 🤣
No one in western society can function or even have a job probably, without a cell phone in 2023
Because you don’t need a cellphone, you want one; it’s convenient, but you don’t need one.
What are you saying??? I have not had a job that did not need me to have one in some regard, think you are a little behind the times tbh.
It depends on your line of work, but a cellphone is not mandatory for employment. A cellphone will set you back on average $1,700 a year. If you have to have a phone number get a $ 20-a-month landline basic plan. We are talking about saving money but most people on here don’t want to save money, they just want to have more money.
clearly you have lost track of time old man.
Lol I don’t know. I guess if you work at Amazon or something having one could be considered optional. My job is literally dependant on my cell phone, and my ability to handle emails calls and texts while away from the office is a core of my ability to earn enough money to pay my bills.
If I didn’t have a cell phone for even 1 day, I would make $0 that day at my job.
So you are an exception, which is understandable. Most people don’t use their personal devices for work.
Literally everyone I know does, though. It’s your calendar, your email, your communication. The only jobs I can imagine that you don’t need to have a mobile device are when you are a drone who has to sit where the boss tells you all day long. Even then, your work likely communicates with staff via text or an app.
Has it been awhile since you worked somewhere?
I have never paid that per year for a cell phone, and my monthly bill is cheaper than your land-line
Cell phones don’t have to cost that much. Google Voice numbers are free. You can still have a cell phone and not have a data plan.
Cavemen had their focus on the grind because they didn’t watch tv.
Do you have roommates? If not that is rather expected as a single guy with no family. Check you budgets but if you’re working a mcjob, likely will not see any real future. Mcjobs are for kids or those that just want some spare cash or don’t need the ‘responsible’ type of job. Job shop as many say here. Just do it. Keep in mind that real career type jobs that can eventually pay higher require you to take a real investment in what you want to do. Pick something that fits you in other words.
Sorry if it is kind of tough love advice. Most other posts have covered your typical suggestions but ultimately it comes down to solely the direction and effort you take.
Buy fewer candles
I just straight up burn avocados
Skip the lattes.
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There was a time this was an option, but with the glut of CS grads out there I’d be shocked if this would be a viable path these days.
All else being equal, why would you pick the self-taught guy v. the guy with a degree in Comp Sci? They’re good skills to have regardless, but it sounds like you got very lucky (edit: to be clear, this doesn’t take away from the work you would’ve put in).
Does depend on the talent pool for system engineers where you are, though.
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I want to be clear - the fact that I think you got lucky doesn’t take away from how skilled you are or would need to be. Self-taught != poor skills, at all. And yeah, if someone really wants to do something, they should give it a shot, market forces be damned.
But at the same time, you do need to consider the pool of talent you’re competing with. If you’re a self-taught systems engineer, you’re going to need to be really good, AND have some luck on your side during the hiring process. If you’re really good and you’re competing with other really good candidates who also have a formal education related to the skill-set, your chances are slim. And at the end of the day, you gotta eat. Then again, this is the perspective of a guy in a place bursting at the seams with grads with these skills (some of whom are, of course, morons, but many who aren’t but are still having difficulty breaking into this kind of work).
To anyone reading this - if you want to learn these skils, don’t let some jerk like me stop you, but recognize that you are at a disadvantage come hiring time. That said, a) if you get good, you can also get lucky - question becomes can you still feed yourself if you don’t, and b) they can open some slightly less obvious opportunities too (SAS business development, analytics, etc.)
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If you can, move back in with your parents
When I had a job that didn’t pay enough, I did side work. For me, for a long time, that was reffing mens hockey.
Another time I was struggling I approached my boss and said I know I’m not your best employee right now, but I want to turn it around and get into a higher paying position. What do you need me to do? Then I did it, and moved up.
5 yrs ago we moved to anew city and I started over in a new thing. I took a job that didn’t really cover our bills, and my wife and I had to make some cuts.
But I wanted certain freedoms like the freedom to do my hobbies or take a vacation, so identified ways to earn additional income through the job I had (in my case it was handling little repairs like replacing smoke detector batteries and light bulbs, installing missing door stops and changing deadbolts). I’ve kept grinding until I took over for my boss, and I continue to handle repairs also. Effectively I work a job and side job at the same time 6 days a week. I work fucking hard, but I had nice vacations with my fam this summer, live in a good house and drive a good vehicle.
So honestly - and while I don’t think this is how it should be - in the system we have, I just grind harder. I am amazed at my ability to do this now in my 30s and now 40s compared to how lazy (in hindsight) I was in my 20s.
By the way! I’m also pretty happy now because my job is (mostly) ok, I don’t dread Mondays or anything most weeks.
Consider a genuine reboot.
Switch neighborhoods. Towns. Regions. States. Countries. The point is, change things up, big-time.
Don’t half-ass it, either; turn a page. Make a 1-year and 5-year plan. Get a room, not an apartment. Structure a budget. Learn a trade. Work out.
I realized that paying rent was like throwing money into a bottomless pit. Obviously buying a house was out of the question so I bought a used RV and moved into that. I added solar panels and all the VanLife type stuff and now my biggest expense is for the storage unit I put all my stuff in. No more rent, no power, water or most other bills. StarLink is expensive but with all the other expenses eliminated it’s not bad at all.
I want to do this. Do you use a gym for showers? The lack of running water is one thing that is making me hesitate.
My RV holds 40 gallons and has a shower. But yeah, many people do a gym membership for showers. Planet Fitness is like 20 bucks a month.
But what about an address? No address, no bank account. No bank account, no job. Or can you get paid another way in the US?
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Most places you can request general delivery to a local post office, or rent a PO box
I’m not talking about deliveries. You need to have an address for a bank account in the UK.
General Delivery is a term for when you don’t have a street adress here in Canada, so you still get your mail from somewhere (I’m not talking Amazon “Delivery”.) So when my friend moved to a new province and was living out of a van he contacts a local office and sets up General Delivery, his address was Dude c/o Post Office Address General Delivery. They hold it till you pick up your mail. You give this to the bank or anyone that needs a mailing address. We also have rural communities with PO Boxes at a main PO, and you can rent one. A PO box is all i had as a youth and opened government and bank accounts with it. UK must have something similar no?
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There are services for that. I have an address that can scan/forward mail. Packages are also accepted. I use this address for everything.
A storage unit is rent. RVs require maintenance and resources similar to a house.
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Also you can do maintenance the dirty way because you’re probably going to write off the RV/trailer over time, while with a house you want to do it the proper way in order to be able to sell it.
Both true, but storage rent is far cheaper. As for maintenance, I’m far more handy than the average joe so YMMV.
Gotta either cut costs or increase pay. When I was living on $600 a month I roommated up, I applied for food assistance (SNAP), I bought a shitty craigslist car rather than picking up a car note, and I stuck to cheap cell carriers.
The last one is a place a lot of people could save a few dollars. T-mobile has a plan called t-mobile connect that is $15 a month with a few gigs of data. Works fine. Actually still use it now that I have a better job.
Ultimately you need to make more though. Think about all the skills you’ve gained in food service and retail and apply for another job you think you’d be good at. Imo anyone can do low level office work, for example. Sounds like you’re in the US, so keep an eye on Craigslist and Idealist.org (two engines where the jobs available are usually actually available unlike most search engines). Make it a habit of scrolling through and forming an opinion about what you would/wouldn’t like. Make a resume to fit (use chat gpt to help). Lie about things you’re pretty sure you could handle no problem but have no experience with. Once you get a better job do the whole thing again with the new experience to pad your resume.
this is the way
