I'm not going to go into the full details of what's going on here because I could have prevented most of this by making better decisions 7-10 years ago, but no longer have the power to make those decisions. Realistically I probably went to the wrong school, majored in the wrong subject, used my life savings and an inheritance to pay off student loans instead of saving it, picked a living situation based on what sounded like the best short term solution without thinking about long term, etc.
Long story short we're in a very unstable living situation (like a family-owned hostel) and will likely be forced out of it mid-winter. Over the course of the last six months two friends have offered us a room in their respective apartments, but both backed out at the absolute last minute.
I'm a contract worker for the government, she does hair and makeup as a freelancer. My contract is technically up around Christmas but I had a long conversation with my boss today about the actual timeline and she has no idea when I'll be let go. Could be Christmas, could be in 2-3 weeks. When I first got this job my first boss (who has since been let go) led me to believe that my position here was safe and I'd likely be here for several years, so instead of saving I used most of my paychecks to pay down credit card debt, and I managed to get it down from around $10k to around $6k. After he was laid off I realized a lot of the things he told me were completely false, and started saving my pay instead of paying down my cards. Right now I have about $2500 saved up, it'll probably be around $4-5k by the time my contract is up, depending on when that actually is.
My fiancee and I are both legally disabled but figured we could make more money working than on SSDI. Combined, we currently make around $27k after taxes, but we've only been doing this well for about three months now, before I got this contract job we made around $18k after taxes and almost all of it went to medical payments for our respective disabilities. We don't qualify for state aid as long as we're working, I've checked this out extensively (total household pre-tax income has to be under $30k to qualify for SNAP or similar benefits).
There really aren't any aspects of our life that could be downsized. The only 'subscription' I have is my Planet Fitness membership, which I'm holding onto for the unlimited use of the showers in any location, if things really go downhill. I have a very old computer and we have very old non-flagship phones (all purchased around 2012). Selling the computer could get me maybe $150, selling the phones could get us around $40 a pop. It seems almost more worth it to hold on to them just for the sake of applying for jobs and apartments.
I'm just at a loss for what to do. If I try to get an apartment I'll be able to afford the downpayment but not the rent as we're in a very high cost of living area. We could try getting an apartment in a different state, but neither of us know anyone in lower COL areas so it'd be like throwing darts at a board as far as applying for apartments because we have no idea where we'd even go. We could afford to put a downpayment on a trailer in a trailer park in a lower cost of living state, but I've heard those are money sinks as well, plus we'd have moving costs. We could also afford to buy a van and live in it at least until something better comes up, but that could be a gamble as well.
Any and all suggestions are welcome.
Submitted October 15, 2018 at 11:39PM by bloodredpepper https://ift.tt/2AbxPHQ
