(TL;DR) in my teens and live with my mom in an income controlled apartment complex in the US. i’ve strongly considered getting a job because we are very poor. our food stamps, my mom's disability, and even our apartment could be taken away if I were to get one, but we don’t have money.
our car needs repairs that will cost upwards of a few thousand in total (and that’s not even to make it considered safe to drive). she has multiple health issues and goes into the emergency room every few months because of it. she is on well over a dozen meds that sometimes get lost or destroyed that end up needing replacing that we can’t afford. she gets bad withdrawals and could end up in the hospital from not taking them if they arent able to be replaced. i am on meds. These, even with insurance, cost money that we don’t have. her teeth have rotted out and we’ve been trying to get her proper dentures for years, she has a pair but she still can’t eat lots of things. they cost thousands, though luckily my dad helps as much as he’s able, but even that’s not much. any medical thing that costs money she has to put off which will inevitably make the problem worse.
Medical payments alone take so much money not even mentioning other payments.
she gets 1k a month for disability and 600 from my dad along with 400 in food stamps for the both of us. our rent is 1100 and will most likely be raised again soon. We have car payments, power, phone bills etc and usually end up using all of our food stamps because prices in my area have shot up drastically. payments, rent, and groceries leave us with basically no money. our account often goes into the negative and stacks up overdraft fees after we get charged for something by the pharmacy or even the bank.
i’m going to be graduating (albeit late) this year, and even though it’s scammy as shit I will need to go to college if I want to survive at all, not to mention it’s expected of me by my family.
Even if I wanted a part time job that wouldn’t be a choice because our food stamps would go down and most if not all of that money would go to food. i would be forced to get a full time job which would not only get rid of food stamps mostly entirely, but we could lose the apartment. I would be working to pay for the same things we get assistance on without working. I would have little if any money left over to save and that’s if i got a full time job not to mention i have school to do.
we need more money, but clearly getting a job isn’t an option.we’ve cut the little spending we had already. I cook most dinners so we dont order takeout, but i can only do so much. Does anybody have any recommendations for what we can do?
(if this kind of post isn’t allowed feel free to take down)