Looking for a smart way to help my mom with financial struggles-
Background: My mom and my dad got divorced about ten years ago and had a very messy result. Since my mom was a stay at home mom and did not advocate well for herself through the divorce finances have always been VERY tight for her.
My mom was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer a few years back. She's been fighting hard but it has spread quite a few places at this point. Since her diagnosis, she has undergone treatment that had left her unable to work.
My mom has recently started receiving social security disability benefits and is on Medicaid. She lives with her boyfriend who was unemployed for a while and is now working at a warehouse pulling in around $10/hr. They receive some kind of low income stipend towards utilities each month. They live in a 1 bdrm apt in NJ that costs $1300 a month. They both have terrible credit so I'm not sure they'd qualify for a different place.
When my mom applied for SSD she was under the impression that she could not maintain a life insurance policy and cashed it out. She has spent all of it on rent over the past few months while her boyfriend was unemployed (and refused to go on unemployment).
Long story short they are out of money and just realizing that they don't have enough to make rent on March 1st. She asked me to borrow $600 (which I truthfully don't think is enough).
My husband and I have been following the prime directive and have a small emergency fund of around $1000. We have also been saving a moderate amount each month to go on vacation this summer as well.we haven't gone on a vacation in a few years and were really looking forward to getting a break. We make a decent amount of money but have accrued a lot of debt when we were younger. We had a baby last year and have been agressively paying off debt since we found out that I was pregnant.
On top off all of that I just found out that I need new brakes and rotors on my car. It's going to cost a few hundred dollars which isn't a crazy amount but just unexpected and adds to the stress.
We have tried to help them by creating a budget. We spend what little time and energy we have working on our own finances. It's difficult to help someone else untangle theirs unless they take control. Putting a budget in place doesn't help if it isn't followed. I can't not try to help though.
Just looking for general advice on where to start to help her. My mom is only receiving the benefits she is right now because I have researched them and encouraged her to apply. Any potential government assistance programs that I might not know about? I'm not sure where to start.
Submitted February 23, 2020 at 04:50PM by bgamanda https://ift.tt/3c4J7OP
